Mr. Angus Robertson:

There is lots of ground that I could cover. Those are excellent questions and I will try to do them all justice. On co-operation between the Scottish Government and the UK Government on new schemes for Ukrainian refugees, we are in active contact to try to ensure we have the best possible system in place under the parameters of this suboptimal approach taken by the UK Home Office. Visa processing in Ireland will form part of the picture. As I mentioned to the committee already, we are seeing people arrive in Scotland from Northern Ireland. I do not have information in front of me about whether these people had flown directly to Belfast, but I suspect they had flown to Dublin. We need to understand all of that much better. We need to do anything we can to make the suboptimal system work better and to help people in their hour of need. If there is co-operation that we can pursue with Irish colleagues and through the UK diplomatic network, with the visa application process, that is definitely something to look at to make sure things are working as well as they possibly can.

On the Northern Ireland protocol, we are all invested in trying to find workable solutions to the challenge. We did not wish and I do not think members wished to see the UK leave the European Union. It is problematic for the UK to have entered into international agreements which it then seeks to change unilaterally. We have been a strong voice in a UK context in trying to impress on UK Government colleagues how important it is that the UK upholds international law and agreements that have been reached in good faith. We will try to be a voice of reason in that. There is not a direct read-across from Northern Ireland's situation to Scotland, for reasons that we do not have long enough to go into at this session. They should be obvious to everybody. I leave the committee with the assurance that we will do everything we can to make sure we have solutions to the problems that have emerged in Northern Ireland and are continuing to emerge, with a ripple effect on good governance. We want to be as helpful as we can.

Regarding energy co-operation, Scotland is fortunate in that it has won the natural resource lottery twice. Not many countries can say that. We were the single biggest oil producer in the European Union, not that Scotland saw the great tax benefits that her majesty's treasury has enjoyed for decades. Notwithstanding that and the fact that we need to pivot away from our dependence on hydrocarbons, we have the good fortune that we have amazing renewable energy potential, which is our second lottery win. I think we have 25% of Europe's wind energy capacity. That does not get into other sources of renewable energy, which we also have, including water, waves or tides. Ireland is not short of those either. The Deputy is right to underline the potential for co-operation between Scotland and Ireland. I know colleagues in government who are responsible for these areas are interested in making sure we pursue all of those things.

Notwithstanding the fact that Covid has been a big challenge for everybody, in my bilateral meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, earlier today, we reflected on the successful delivery across the range of areas that we want to work together on. Technology, economy and energy form part of that. There is undoubtedly more that we can do. Let us have the ambition to do that. I would welcome us doing more together in the future.