I do not. I return to the central reason for today’s statement, which is about ensuring that the Scottish Government’s alignment with the European Union, its legislation and its aspirations can be interrogated. I know Maurice Golden from my frequent attendance at the committee of which he is a member, where he asks exactly that kind of question and is right to do so. I am confident that the enhanced level of information that members will get about Scotland’s alignment with the European Union will be beneficial for committee scrutiny and will help Maurice Golden to continue with the scrutiny role that he performs with some distinction.

Indeed I do, and a majority of those in this Parliament also believe that to be the case. I take the opportunity to place on record the hugely positive impression I have of GMAC, in Kaukab Stewart’s constituency, which does an absolute power of work and is contributing to the great success of Scotland’s film and television sector.

That sector would be significantly more successful were free movement of people to be restored to Scotland. The only way that that will happen is through Scottish membership of the European Union, but that membership is not being offered by the Conservative or Labour parties, nor indeed by the Liberal Democrats, who now say that they are not a rejoin party. If anyone has any aspiration for Scotland to be in the European Union, that will not happen through the United Kingdom; it will happen through Scottish membership of the European Union. That is a simple statement of fact.

To be fair, maybe Foysol Choudhury did not have time to get to the nub of the matter, which is that originally, as we all remember, a commitment was given to renationalisation of everything that was carried out at EU level. Those things relating to devolved matters would see repatriation of not just powers but budget, but that is not what happened.

We have not seen a repatriation of budget that would have gone towards the Erasmus scheme. Foysol Choudhury is absolutely right that work is in progress on how to have what can only be a second-best scheme—the best scheme is an Erasmus+ scheme. If he has any ideas about which bits of the education budget that is currently spent in Scotland he wishes to see cut to pay for a new programme, I will listen very closely to what the Labour Party is advocating.

First, we should commend the extraordinary successes of Scottish Development International, which does so much to ensure that Scotland is as attractive a place as it can be in the circumstances of Brexit Britain. I think that I am right in saying that Scotland remains the second-most successful part of the United Kingdom after London when it comes to inward investment.

SDI has talented and hard-working members of staff right across Europe, and there are a number of Scottish Government offices across the European Union in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Copenhagen. They all do a tremendous job in promoting Scotland when it comes to inward investment, when it comes to the potential for jobs, when it comes to building on the tremendous new opportunities that we have in areas such as the renewables sector and when it comes to areas in which education co-operation matters a lot, as well as in the soft power and cultural dimension. That is all really good, and I am hugely grateful to everybody who does those jobs.

However, we cannot look by the reality that Brexit is a massively damaging phenomenon socially, economically and politically. That is why it is absolutely right that we do everything we can to remain as aligned as possible to the European Union. It would be great if the other political parties in the chamber embraced that as fully as they should.

I begin by wishing you, Presiding Officer, and everybody else a very happy Europe day. I am delighted that we are joined by a number of consuls general from European Union member states.

Europe day is a day that celebrates peace and unity in Europe. It marks the day in 1950 when Robert Schuman presented his proposal for placing French and West German coal and steel production under a single authority. That, of course, set our European neighbours and us on a path to peace and co-operation, and it led to the creation of what became the European Union. Events over the past 15 months, including Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, have reminded us again why that peace and that co-operation are so precious.

Today, I wish to make a statement on why and how the Scottish Government is endeavouring to remain as close to the European Union as possible and how we will ensure that the Parliament can properly scrutinise that endeavour. In doing so, I hope that it will become clear why it is so important for Scotland to escape the damage of Brexit and to regain the rights and responsibilities of full independent European Union membership.

The first reason relates to democracy. People in Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union; there were majorities for remain in every local authority area in the country. When Boris Johnson set out his so-called oven-ready Brexit deal to people in Scotland, the people of this country massively rejected it. However, despite that clear democratic expression, Brexit—Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit—has been imposed on us.

Sadly, the Labour Party now, for what can only be misguided electoral reasons, supports both Brexit and the hard Tory Brexit that has taken Scotland out of the single market—a market that is, by population, seven times the size of the United Kingdom—and the customs union. On this generational democratic disaster for Scotland, a conspiracy of silence exists between Labour and the Tories. That silence signifies broad agreement on Brexit policy between the Westminster parties.

That brings me to the second reason why alignment with the European Union, where possible and appropriate under the current constitutional arrangements, is so important, and why EU membership should be our goal. That reason relates to the damage that the Westminster-agreed hard Brexit is doing to Scotland.

The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that, compared with EU membership, Brexit will, in the long run, reduce the UK’s national output and productivity by 4 per cent. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:

“What does that mean? Well in the long run we will ... be about that much worse off on average, so people on average sorts of earnings might be £1,000 to £1,500 worse off (before tax) than they otherwise would have been. Of course it also means less money for public services like health and education.”

Brexit has added to the cost of living crisis by pushing up food prices. It has reduced opportunities for young people, with the loss of freedom of movement and the Erasmus exchange programme. It has meant broken promises to our fishing communities, with fewer fishing opportunities for some key stocks than there were under the common fisheries policy. It has hurt our creative sector and our touring musicians. The Brexit damage goes on and on, which makes the Labour-Tory conspiracy of silence on Brexit ever more baffling.

However, the EU is not just about tangible benefits, important though those are; it is a values-based project. The core values of the EU—human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights—are also Scotland’s values, so the third reason for an alignment policy is that we want to remain close to, and be part of, a European Union of shared values.

The fourth reason why we want to remain aligned with Europe is that we recognise that the global challenges facing Scotland today—from climate change, to cost of living and energy costs, to delivering a fairer society—only confirm the need for ever more international co-operation and engagement, not less.

For those reasons, the Scottish Government policy is to continue to align with the EU where we can. However, in pursuing that alignment policy, I acknowledge the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee’s concerns regarding scope, engagement and transparency, and I understand the Parliament’s desire for greater information to support scrutiny of our approach.

This week, I wrote to the convener of that committee acknowledging those concerns and reaffirming our commitment that we will provide significantly more information on how the policy is being pursued. We will closely monitor the European Commission’s proposals and consider where we can align in a meaningful manner with policy that will protect standards and our people’s wellbeing.

The immediate benefit of that is self-evident. Last year, we brought forward our first legislation under the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to ensure that Scotland continued to align with the best international standards in terms of the water that we drink. In 2022, we brought into force regulations to ban certain single-use plastics, in support of our commitment to a circular economy. Those are important powers that we will rely on more in the future.

However, alignment is not just about regulations, laws and standards; it is about much more than that. The EU’s priorities map across our ambitions and plans, as set out in the national performance framework and the First Minister’s vision and priorities for Scotland, which were published last month. In particular, the Commission’s commitment to accelerate the green transition and its approach to a digital economy closely align with Scotland’s ambitions for a fair and just transition to a digital and net zero wellbeing economy and society.

Our hydrogen action plan, our draft energy strategy and the just transition plan all propose actions to deliver a flourishing net zero energy system that supplies affordable, resilient and clean energy to Scotland’s workers, householders, communities and businesses. Hydrogen that is produced in Scotland could play a significant role in supporting EU plans to scale up that energy source. We will press for co-operation with the European Commission to facilitate the smooth international trade of hydrogen and renewable energy sources. That is alignment in action. Unfortunately, by contrast, the hard Brexit that the UK Government pursued has uncoupled energy co-operation.

The UK’s pursuit of post-Brexit legislation, often in the absence of consent from the Scottish Parliament, has undoubtedly created significant challenges for both the Scottish Government and the Parliament, with the responsibilities and competences of each being either ignored or overridden. Let me put it on record that I am committed to working closely with the Parliament, and specifically the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, to respond to those challenges robustly and ensure that Parliament can fulfil its role of holding Government to account.

Westminster’s deliberate attempts to ignore the devolution settlement, as it ushers in its divergent and deregulatory agenda, is at odds with the high standards that Scotland shares with the EU, and that should be a concern for us all in this Parliament. That situation inevitably means that the focus of the Scottish Government’s alignment policy efforts in the months ahead will be primarily on preventing important standards and protections from being undermined by the loss of retained EU law provisions. Every such law that is safeguarded is an example of alignment in practice.

The difficult reality is that Scotland, while it is part of a UK that is not part of the EU, cannot ensure alignment with the EU in all cases. We must align where we can and where that alignment is meaningful but, first and foremost, we must protect Scottish legislation from the UK Government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which is creating significant uncertainties for our country during an on-going economic crisis.

We will always seek to work constructively with the UK Government, because we value co-operation as a matter of principle. However, where the UK Government seeks to undermine the basis of co-operation—such as agreed rules on exemptions to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—we will challenge that robustly.

The Scottish Government will keep fighting for the values and standards that we hold dear and for a Europe that is green and prosperous as well as united and diverse—a Europe that, above all, stands for co-operation and peace. That is what Robert Schuman stood for, what Europe day represents and what the EU project is. It is an ideal that Scotland continues to support and believe in, and one to which we will return.

I welcome John Swinney to his place and thank him for asking me that question. There is a bit of me that wishes that he had been able to ask that question right at the start, because we may have found out from their contributions whether Conservative and Labour members would have joined the Scottish Government in that.

I am hearing from Neil Bibby, who is speaking from a sedentary position, that he will. I am looking towards members on the Conservative benches to see whether there is any acknowledgement that they might too, but I am not really seeing any. Maybe it will take another statement or question to find out whether the Conservative Party in the Scottish Parliament will support the Conservative Party in the UK Government, or whether it will ask it to U-turn on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. That would be extremely sensible, but unfortunately it did not take the opportunity to make that clear earlier.

One of the major challenges that exists as a result of Brexit relates to the free movement of people, which includes the ability to live and study in other countries. If Willie Rennie would make the effort and speak to colleagues in Wales, where they have set up their own scheme, he would understand that they are suffering with the impact of the UK’s relationship with the European Union in terms of the free movement of people. The issue is not simply about having a scheme or finding resources; it is also about whether it is workable, given the circumstances of Brexit.

I give Willie Rennie full marks for his consistency in asking questions about this subject. However, it would make his argument a little bit more powerful if he made the effort to learn about the difficulties in setting up different schemes that operate within the Brexit system that the United Kingdom finds itself in.

I am interested to hear that the Turing scheme has been successful because, by any objective measure, when compared with the Erasmus programme, it has absolutely not been a success story. It is a great shame that our young people are being forced to operate through a scheme that is not as successful as the one that it replaced. I would love to see Scotland join the Erasmus scheme as a full member state. That is the only way in which we can do it, and it might be a good reason for Sharon Dowey to reconsider her position and embrace Scotland’s future membership of the EU.

I will start off with words of agreement. It is great to hear from the Conservative members that they also recognise that today is Europe day and that they welcome it and think that it is worthy of being marked.

It is also helpful to hear the important genesis of European institutions emanating from the Council of Europe and, for the non-initiates—I know that, being a lawyer to trade, the honourable and learned member opposite, understands this—the human rights aspect that the Council of Europe has brought to standards across our continent, not just within the European Union. That underlines how bad it would be were there to be any stepping back from the shared human rights standards across our continent. I think that the only countries that have resiled from European standards in the Council of Europe are the Russian Federation and Belarus, and we certainly should not follow that example.

Donald Cameron chose to concentrate on one way by which one can remain aligned with European legislation. Of course, there are a number of different ways of doing that. It is important that our committees should be able to best understand why we should use or not use a certain piece of legislation—why we should approach the matter in different ways.

That is why the Scottish Government is updating its approach, particularly in the context of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. It is absolutely right for parliamentarians across the parties to have the best information to hand to hold Government to account on these matters. Donald Cameron knows that I spent 10 years on the European Scrutiny Committee in the House of Commons, so the matter lies close to my heart. I have given the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee the undertaking that I want that engagement to be as meaningful and workable as possible. I give that commitment again in the chamber.

I am not entirely sure whether he meant to say this, but I very much welcome Donald Cameron saying that he welcomes the Scottish Government’s bespoke approach. I do too.