Like others, I'd like to start my contribution this afternoon by thanking the clerking team of the committee, and also thanking David Rees for his leadership of the committee on these matters.

I also wish to follow others in welcoming the appointment of a Minister for international relations. I enjoyed the session we had, Minister, on 21 January and I hope we'll be able to return to some of those matters in due course. It's an irony indeed of course that this appointment in itself has highlighted the need for an international strategy that perhaps we didn't appreciate fully before. Also, it's brought into sharp focus the extent to which we rely on EU institutions for our international profile and creating a framework for our international work.

But, this afternoon, I'd like to persuade the Government of two matters. Firstly, the vision and the ambition that is required to maximise the potential of any international strategy. And second, to be able to hold the Government to account to ensure that we have the information, the targets and the ambition described in a way that enables us to understand what the Government seeks to achieve by such a programme.