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I will certainly do my best. I admire Mr Doris’s methodology of asking his supplementaries in one question.

There are a few things at play there, and I will take the last point first. I do not think that it is unfair—it is certainly not meant to be—to ask the board to consider various propositions in order to inform SFC’s considerations of what it might recommend to me. To be clear, the regional boards will not make any specific decision on what the structure might be, but it is appropriate that they are asked to consider various issues and to be involved in any process.

On the fundamental question—to which we have returned a number of times—of guarantees for the colleges in Glasgow, all that I can guarantee is that I am not driving any particular process of merger in the city of Glasgow, and I am not aware of there being such a process under way at all. Any proposition would need to emerge from the institutions themselves. We can look at what has happened in other parts of the country—for example, in the Highlands and Islands, where colleges themselves are in dialogue. Neither I nor the SFC made that request; we want to empower institutions to make decisions for themselves. I can certainly give Mr Doris the reassurance that I am not going to drive that particular agenda.

However, it is important—and I hope that you would agree that it is not unreasonable—to have a forum in which the three colleges in Glasgow can have dialogue. We need to maximise provision across the city as a whole, reduce duplication and, if there are any gaps in provision, work through them to make sure that they are filled between the three colleges. Trying to get that balance right is, of course, appropriate.

The SFC is considering what the structure might look like in Glasgow, and it will make a recommendation to me. That is appropriate, because—frankly and candidly—we have only three multicollege regions. One of those is based on its also being a university institution, so I think that people understand why that is in place. The other two are Lanarkshire and Glasgow, and it is appropriate to consider whether that is still required.

Again, if Mr Marra wants us to invest more in the area, and if he comes forward with suggestions as to where the money can come from, I am more than willing to listen. We are committed to investing—

That is not under active consideration. It is not something that we are specifically looking at. Various things can be considered as we move forward, but that is not something that I envisage us looking at, because it would immediately embed an additional layer of complexity and unintended consequences. I hope that that provides some reassurance.

You asked me to explain what I mean about being cognisant of some of the challenges. I do not know how to explain that any more specifically. I am conscious of, and understand, the challenges. We have seen a very real shock to the international order this year, and that continues to have a wider influence on global affairs. It does not particularly affect this area of life in Scotland, but it demonstrates that events come along and can change things. What I mean by that is that we must work with the sector to recognise that events like that can happen. Where that might have a particular impact on the sector as a whole or, as is more likely, on specific institutions, how do we deal with that? How do we ensure that institutions can continue to undertake their work if such an event comes along?

Regarding a timescale, I am happy to follow that up with the committee and give you some more detail of the work that we are undertaking on strategy.

We are looking at that just now, and it is an inextricable part of the budget process.

We made certain commitments, through our manifesto and through our programme for government, and I am very clear that we need to meet those commitments in the first instance. What we might do beyond that must be informed by our engagement with the sector.

I understand and recognise that the sector sees value in the investment that has been made in mental health counsellors. However, we also have to be informed by the student mental health action plan that we are going to introduce in conjunction with the sector.

We have a student mental health and wellbeing working group, which rightly involves the National Union of Students and other representatives of the sector, to make sure that any decisions that we make are made on an informed basis and that we are responding to what I recognise are significant challenges in terms of the mental wellbeing of Scotland’s student population. It has been an enormously difficult period, through Covid-19 and now with the cost of living crisis, and that will bring its pressures to bear on the student population and their sense of wellbeing. Our strategy is going to be well timed in that regard. How we resource and structure it thereafter is a matter for wider consideration in line with the ordinary budget process that we have in place.

I am glad that I can hear you now, Mr Dey. I apologise for any confusion.

I perceive there to be a role for us in that, but it is not the leading role. We are not a direct provider of student accommodation and never have been—there has never been a role for Government in that regard, and I do not detect any sense that that should change. However, that is not to say that the issue is not of substantial concern to me in my ministerial role. I have engaged directly with specific universities on the issue, particularly the University of Glasgow, which had a situation that was widely reported. At that stage, I got a degree of reassurance that the university was taking every step possible to work through the remaining issues that it had.

We are committed to introducing a student accommodation strategy, which will be informed by the purpose-built student accommodation review that is under way. We recently commissioned evidence from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. That evidence is now with us and will be considered by the purpose-built student accommodation review steering group. We will then publish that evidence—at that juncture, I will be happy to write directly to the committee. That will inform the consideration of what we might be able to do to ensure better provision of housing for students.

Of course, the issue is part of a wider challenge of pressure on the availability of housing. We have done work on, for example, short-term lets to better enable local authorities to regulate that market and ensure a wider supply of housing for other groups who require it, including students.

There is action that we can take, although we cannot take it alone. We have to work with the sector to ensure that it lives up to its responsibility for ensuring that the students that universities recruit are adequately housed. We will continue to work through that with our student accommodation strategy.

Work is under way, and I certainly want to have it substantially advanced before the next academic year. It would be disingenuous to suggest that some of the wider pressures that we are seeing will go away any time soon. For example, the University of Glasgow told me that it has plans to increase the amount of its directly provided student accommodation. That is the type of response that I hope to see in the sector. I recognise that that will not be achieved readily and that it requires lead-in time for planning applications, construction and so on. However, that activity has to start sooner rather than later, as do our actions in the student accommodation strategy.

I thank my friend Bob Doris for making best use of my time, as he always seeks to do.

Those were concerns that we had. They were on the basis of the broad thrust of the concerns that we laid out in relation to the potential unequal balance that could exist between the two Administrations. As things had been laid out, there was always the potential for a change of approach from the UK Government. The UK Government has certainly been consistent in talking about the independence of ARIA; I take that at face value and do not doubt the good faith with which that has been laid out. However, as things stood, there was the potential for that to change with different Administrations.

Although ARIA will be a creature of statute and could be subject to alteration in due course, we will now have in place a memorandum of understanding that lays out the clear independence of operation of the organisation—not just from the Scottish Government and the other devolved Administrations, which seemed to be the concern of the UK Government, but from the UK Government. The memorandum of understanding takes account of those particular concerns.

Convener, it might be a while since you took up the role but, as this is my first time at the committee since you did so, I congratulate you on assuming the convenership of the committee. I look forward to working with the committee and you in that role.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the Scottish Government’s perspective on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill. As I stated in my letter to the committee, the Scottish Government is supportive of the overall policy intent of the ARIA bill—namely, to create a new agency with independence from Government influence and with minimal bureaucracy in order to give it maximum freedom to achieve its aim of supporting visionary high-risk and high-pay-off research and development. However, the Scottish Government has had some fundamental issues with the bill that creates ARIA. The UK Government failed to consult fully on the bill before its introduction in the House of Commons. Since being given sight of the bill and the related policy statement, the Scottish Government’s ask has been consistent. We seek involvement in the agency through the chief scientific adviser for Scotland and removal of the reservation that is currently in the bill.

As you know, reservation is a significant step that the Scottish Government will recommend to the Scottish Parliament in only the most compelling circumstances. I believe that the Parliament would expect nothing less. The key reason that the UK Government has given for including a reservation in the bill has been that it is to create distance between ARIA and the Government. The Scottish Government has always recognised the need for that and, as I have set out, supports that. However, reservation has always seemed to be a heavy-handed and unequal approach to creating distance from the Government.

The committee will have seen the LCM in the name of the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, which laid that out as our position. I had intended to attend this meeting to reiterate our position. However, I am very glad to announce that the UK Government has finally recognised that reserving ARIA is an unnecessary step.

Two days ago, I agreed in principle with my UK counterpart, George Freeman, a memorandum of understanding and an amendment to remove the reservation from the ARIA bill. The memorandum of understanding will lay out very clearly the principle that ARIA will operate independently of ministerial direction from any Government. It will also contain arrangements for consultation of the chief scientific advisor for Scotland on ARIA as an alternative to board membership, which the Scottish Government has been willing to compromise on to come to a resolution.

George Freeman wrote to me yesterday afternoon, following our conversation, to agree such an approach, and I responded to him this morning. In the light of that, I anticipate that, subject to Cabinet agreement, the Scottish Government will seek to lodge a supplementary LCM recommending consent to the ARIA bill as soon as the UK Government has tabled an amendment in the House of Lords to remove the reservation from the bill. We will sign the memorandum of understanding as soon as possible once it is confirmed that the other devolved Administrations are also content.

I trust that the committee will agree that that is a very positive development.