Speeches by McFadden.

“This document was written in 2010 or 2011 and has not been updated since. Is it the view of the Committee that the lack of the updating of the document has had a serious effect on the operation of Government?”

“The reason I am answering in the way I am is, this has not been updated for 13 years and counting. I am not sure to what extent the lack of the updating of the document has had a serious effect on the operations of Covernment, that is open to debate. You could have a view, I could have a view. What we were determined t…”

“I have not reached that conclusion. What I am saying is, we were focused on producing the updated Ministerial Code, and we did that and published that a few weeks ago.”

“I have not got to that point yet and I am not sure, let me look at where we are when we get to updating it.”

“Yes, I am. There are major responsibilities. There are always going to be different political parties around the table in different parts of the country and it is really important that, accepting those political differences are there, that we have good working relationships. The Prime Minister deliberately chose to go …”

“Yes, the structures do help to support it. If you started from a completely blank sheet of paper, you might not create all these different bodies, but they are there for a reason. With most of them there would be objections to taking those structures away because the agreement to have that body came out of something. W…”

“Yes, I do not think there is any lack of frequency of meetings, that is not the concern. The important thing is you have a good, substantial discussion when you do it. When the Council of the Nations and Regions met, for example, we focused quite a lot on energy and inward investment, and it was a good discussion. We h…”

“They could, but there is more than one mechanism for resolving disagreements. There is a structure of common frameworks, where disagreements are supposed to be thrashed out, particularly when they are to do with issues of trade and regulation and so on. There is the UK Internal Market Act, which is on the statute book …”

“There is nothing secret about the structures.”

“There is usually a communiqué about what was discussed, as at the British-Irish Council on Friday, for example, when a communiqué was released afterwards. As in the nature of these things, it probably does not tell you everything that is said, but you probably do not want to know that anyway. I do not see any secrets a…”

“They will tell you what was discussed. We also had a press conference, which may or may not be related to the subject of the meeting, but that is up to the press because they can ask what they want.”

“Yes, of course, the Republic of Ireland is not on all the structures.”

“I would have to check whether we issued a formal communiqué after the Council of the Nations and Regions, but I think the agenda was public. We talked about it and I do not think there was any secret about it.”

“Yes, very much so.”

“The speed of planning, to get these things built quicker, is probably a common challenge in all parts of the UK. The grid, and getting them connected, is also a common challenge. People in the industry will say, “I can build a wind farm in whatever, 18 months, but then getting the connection to the grid might take me a…”

“That is a good question. You can have some subject-specific meetings underneath the Council for the Nations and Regions. I chaired the Inter-Ministerial Council last week, for example, which does not involve the First Ministers, apart from in the Northern Irish case where the First Minister and Deputy First Minister op…”

“It is for people in Scotland to decide, and it would be quite an exciting debate because these are great cities with great character, which I am very fond of. I grew up in Glasgow, a wonderful place, I love Glasgow, but I no longer live there so I do not have a direct say in it. It would not be for me to decide, but it…”

“We do not have a plan to change devolved powers. When I was saying that, I was mentioning that there are quite a lot of structures for us to meet. But on devolved powers and so on, by design we have a very powerful Scottish Parliament, Scottish Government, and rightly so. Way back in the day—we talked about my longevit…”

“That is a really good question.”

“Of course, a very good Committee. On cyber specifically, I made a speech to a NATO conference that took place in London a few weeks ago: the threat of this is very real, involving both state and non-state actors, although on that day I was talking probably more about state actors. The security services are very aware o…”