You are absolutely right to draw attention to those frustrations, particularly in the business community. I hear about them the whole time from people who are unable to plan or unable to put in place what they want to put in place and to invest.
I think that, as a committee, you have visited our office in Brussels and seen the work that it is doing, and I am very happy for you to see the work that is being done in other places. The job of those offices is to explain what we are doing to help and to understand what others are doing. Also, we are doing everything that we can to assist with the practicalities.
Yesterday morning, I was speaking to a business and academic audience at the University of Edinburgh about some of the practicalities that we have put in place. I hope that you will allow me to talk about those for just a moment. On the business side, we have boosted resources for exports and placed a focus on exports because we need to support those people who will have to change their practices.
One of the important things that we have done is create the prepare for Brexit toolkit that Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and Highlands and Islands Enterprise put together, which I launched last September. The toolkit has allowed businesses to guide themselves through the process of preparation, and it has had a good take-up that has increased substantially in the past few months. The UK Government has also recognised the difficulty it has had in engaging with business, but the toolkit has been particularly useful.
We have also made additional resources available to businesses to help them to move forward. We have kept in close contact with the chambers of commerce and a range of business organisations, and we continue to do so. I think that Derek Mackay is speaking today to the Confederation of British Industry. A lot of things are taking place.
What everybody in politics wants to do is create security, as there is no pleasure in insecurity. We also have to ask ourselves how we create security for the long term. You and I will have a different perspective on that, and that is a legitimate difference to have. We have to settle this down, so that people are in a relationship of equality across these islands. In my view, that is not the present situation. However, you and I would not disagree that we should do as much as we possibly can to help and assist.
There are some difficult areas that we need to acknowledge, one of which is companies looking at the situation and saying that the only solution to the Brexit issue is to move their activities elsewhere. It is not the role of the Scottish state to pay for jobs to leave Scotland. I have confronted that issue on a number of occasions—it is a real difficulty.
Pharmaceuticals has also been a big issue. The moving of the European Medicines Agency was a blow, and there is still no clarity about what associate membership of that would look like. As you will know, the regulations on the testing of drugs and medicines are difficult. Regrettably, one of the really misleading—I use that word charitably—parts of the 2016 referendum was the view, which was promulgated by Michael Gove among others, that a UK medicines agency would mean a faster, better route to medicines approval. He was told at the time, by the pharmaceutical industry, that that was not true—the pharmaceutical industry invests in its biggest markets. With the growing together of the regulatory processes in Europe and North America, that would be the target market. The industry creates new drugs for the biggest market first—it gets that regulatory approval and then goes for regulatory approval in other markets. The UK market, at less than 3 per cent, would be one of those other markets. Losing the EMA adds to that difficulty.
There are industries in which direct aid has been more difficult to get, but, even so, through the life sciences group and other things, lots of work has been done. I think that, yesterday, Ivan McKee was at a large life sciences company at Inchinnan, making absolutely sure that it understands what we are able to do and that we understand what it needs us to do.