This afternoon, I will meet representatives of a body that will undoubtedly—as everyone does—raise with me the issue of replacement funds. We can approach that in three ways. The first is to say that there are funds, including horizon 2020 and Erasmus+, in relation to which we know that the UK Government has conducted a value-for-money exercise—on its own terms, and not on anyone else’s—and has not yet finalised its conclusions. However, we understand that, for example, the policy choice of the UK Government is to continue to be a member of horizon 2020, which will require the UK to pay into the fund, but it proposes that we will not continue to be a member of Erasmus+, which it believes does not provide value for money. We entirely reject that view, but it is the UK Government’s thinking, which we hope will change.
The second approach involves a shadow funding structure. A shared prosperity fund has, allegedly, been established. However, there is no information about how it will operate. James Brokenshire’s department is supposed to be conducting a consultation exercise on that, but it has not started yet. It is possible to find bits of information: for example, we can assume that something that is currently funded by the regional development fund will be part of the shared prosperity fund, because the regional development funding is being folded into that. However, we have no certainty that that will be the case.
The third approach involves pretty much what I was saying to Mark Ruskell earlier. We cannot manage or administer our way out of this complete boorach: it is impossible to do so. On Claudia Beamish’s suggestion to establish an environmental watchdog, I say that we cannot just replicate the good things that have come out of the European system and which have resulted in huge progress. Firstly, that would not work and, second, we do not have the money to do it. We have no idea how much money will be available: the funding issue prevents our knowing that.
A very long time ago—a decade ago—I was the minister with responsibility for the environment, and I was involved in setting up and administering the Scottish rural development programme system, during which time we moved from one payment system to another. We had known that we would be moving and we knew what that would involve, but it still took six to nine months under the new system for money to start to flow, after it had stopped flowing under the original scheme. I know, because he asked questions about it at the time, that John Scott will remember that. The proposition that we are discussing now is of a much larger scale, and we have no idea what sort of money is involved.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent of the implosion of the UK Government on these matters and on the whole matter of Brexit. There is, to all intents and purposes, no functioning Government in Whitehall, rather, there is a Government that is focused entirely on Brexit and the chaos of Brexit. The legitimate questions that the committee is asking today are essential ones for every third sector body, for all bodies in the environmental sector, for every business and for the whole of society. However, there are no answers to them. It is distinctly possible that the UK will leave the EU any time now. What is happening is an act of gross irresponsibility that is causing huge damage. I wish that we could mitigate it in the way that is suggested, but that cannot be done.