Chamber and committees

Of course. I would be delighted to give way to Willie Rennie.

I am delighted to follow on from the committee’s deputy convener. Both in my opening speech and in summing up, I will speak directly to some of the points that he has raised in his opening remarks.

I begin by thanking Clare Adamson and wishing her a speedy recovery, and I pay tribute to all members of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. I am a regular attender at the committee, and I know how much work all of its members undertake. In a unicameral parliamentary system, the role of committees is absolutely vital in ensuring that oversight and interworking between members of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are as efficient and effective as they can be and that we learn—especially when dealing with complex issues regarding the options going forward, as we are doing in this case.

The Scottish Government will take time to study the wide-ranging conclusions and recommendations in the report, and we will provide a full repose to the committee in due course. For today’s short debate, however, I will concentrate on a few key points, just as the deputy convener did.

I will start with what is perhaps the most important point in this and other related debates: people in Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain within the European Union. Scotland has been forced out of the EU and, worse, it has been forced into a hard Brexit outside the single market and the customs union, against the will of the majority of people in this country. Such a democratic outrage, with such damaging effects, should never be normalised or ignored, and the passage of time does not make it any more acceptable. The legislation—and, therefore, the committee’s report and this debate—would not be happening if the democratic wishes of people in Scotland mattered in any way to the Conservative Government at Westminster.

The fact that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 drives a coach and horses through the devolution settlement further demonstrates the contempt that Westminster has for those wishes. The committee’s report discusses trade links between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Under any constitutional future, those links will continue to be important, and the rest of the UK will, of course, continue to be Scotland’s closest friend and neighbour. It is interesting to note that, over its years of EU membership as an independent country, Ireland has diversified its trade into Europe and has become less dependent on the UK. The more it has diversified and grown its trade with the EU, the wealthier it has become.

One of the many self-inflicted wounds from the UK Government’s hard Brexit is the fact that we have left the rules and institutions of the European Union, a single market that protected the powers of the devolved institutions while ensuring that there were no unnecessary barriers to trade across these islands or, indeed, with the European Union. The European single market, the world’s most advanced and sophisticated internal market, is based on co-operation, co-decision and equality among member states, and it offers a model of how to balance market efficiencies with the ability to set rules at a local level—the first tension that Donald Cameron spoke about.

Forgive me. May I move on to my peroration, briefly?

That is very kind.

Time constraints prevent me from touching on all the issues raised by the committee’s report, from the interactions with the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to the increasingly complex challenges that the Parliament faces in fulfilling its scrutiny function. However, I look forward to responding in writing to the committee on all those matters.

The central issue remains the one that I have focused on today: the profound damage that the 2020 act is doing to the devolution settlement. It is an internal market regime that has been imposed on its constituent members without their consent. It is democratically unsustainable and unjustified, and the act should be repealed.

I give my commendations to members on all sides of the chamber for their contributions. I listened closely to all of them. The deputy convener of the committee, who spoke on behalf of the convener—to whom we all wish a speedy recovery—highlighted three tensions: tensions between open trade and regulatory divergence; tensions around the impact on the devolution settlement; and tensions between the Executive and the legislature. He was absolutely right about that. In a moment, I will speak about common frameworks, because, in my opening speech, I ran out of time and did not reach my comments on those.

Maurice Golden talked about the importance of the UK market. I agree, but I do not agree that we should be dependent on it. We are part of a far bigger trading world, and we should not put all our eggs in one basket. No doubt, we will debate that in the months and years to come.

Foysol Choudhury, on behalf of the Labour Party, praised the report and described the period that we are in as a “watershed moment” in relation to governance post-Brexit. He highlighted the tensions between devolved institutions and the UK Government.

Slightly surprisingly, Willie Rennie told the Parliament that “we voted” for Brexit. I can tell Willie Rennie that we most certainly did not vote for Brexit. In this country, we voted to remain in the European Union, and it is our intention to rejoin it as a priority.

Jenni Minto highlighted evidence that the Scottish Parliament can be overridden by Westminster. Yes, it can, and that is not acceptable.

Oddly, Liz Smith spoke about being in favour of being economically dependent on the UK market and said that we should constrain our ambitions to that. Frankly, that would be somewhat limiting.

Mark Ruskell highlighted the threat to devolution. Incidentally, there was remarkable unanimity across the chamber in recognising that that is the case with the operation of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. He talked about frameworks and parliamentary accountability, as did a number of members. I agree that we will have to get those issues right.

In her summing-up speech on behalf of the Labour Party, Sarah Boyack drew attention to the massive negative impact of Brexit and said that transparency and accountability are important in intergovernmental relations. I agree with her on that.

Alasdair Allan and other members of the committee highlighted the increasing tensions with devolution because of the impact that the operation of the 2020 act will have. Who could disagree with that?

I was slightly confused by Sharon Dowey’s point about scrutiny accounting for only 1 per cent of the committee’s report. It seems to me that, throughout most of the report, scrutiny is pretty important. The Scottish Government takes that issue extremely seriously.

The report considers the implication of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 on the successful implementation and operation of common frameworks. I recognise the committee’s frustration at the pace at which the frameworks are being rolled out, but it is important to recognise the damage that the act has done to the development of those alternative models for managing policy divergence on the basis of equality, respect and progress by agreement. Most provisional frameworks have now been published or shared in confidence with committees ahead of parliamentary scrutiny, but I must stress that the frameworks will work only if the UK Government is committed to making them work.

I emphasise that work is under way to monitor and gauge the act’s impact on devolved policy. We continue to work closely with our colleagues in the other devolved Administrations, and we are working with the committee and the Scottish Parliament to address the complex post-Brexit landscape of which the 2020 act is a part.

I am sorry that Willie Rennie did not listen to what I said immediately before he intervened on me, in relation to Ireland’s experience. Ireland has become wealthier and has exported more. Unfortunately, Willie Rennie wishes to maintain dependency on one single market that is significantly smaller than the larger one that we have just been forced out of.

How different—

Forgive me, but I want to make some progress.

How different that is from the fundamentally flawed internal market regime ushered in by the UK Government’s United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—an act imposed on this Parliament without its consent and imposed on the people of Scotland despite their overwhelming rejection of Brexit. It is an act that, at its heart, sees devolution as a problem to be fixed in a UK that is conceived of as a unitary state to be controlled by Westminster rather than a voluntary political association of nations.

The Scottish Government warned from the outset that the 2020 act represented a fundamental change to the devolution settlement that people voted for in 1997—a change achieved by stealth, and a chipping away at the powers and responsibilities of this Parliament. The committee recognises—unanimously, across all political parties—that the 2020 act

“can automatically disapply Scottish legislation”.

That is extraordinarily serious and alarming for anyone who cares for Scottish democracy. Laws that are passed in this Parliament, by democratically elected MSPs, can be radically undermined by the 2020 act. As the committee puts it,

“While”

the 2020 act

“may not affect the Scottish Parliament’s ability to pass a law, it may have an impact on whether that law is effective”.

Surely, that cannot be acceptable to any member of this Parliament, regardless of their party.

It is not just the Scottish Government and the committee who are raising these concerns. The overwhelming weight of evidence from across Scottish society and the near-unanimous views of legal experts and constitutional academics support that view. Witnesses to the inquiry have laid bare the negative impact of the 2020 act.

If I may, Presiding Officer, let me quote just a couple of examples that were identified by the committee. It said:

“There is a clear consensus within the evidence which the Committee received that”

the 2020 act

“places more emphasis on open trade than regulatory autonomy compared to the EU Single Market.”

The animal protection charity Onekind was of the view that the 2020 act

“undermines devolution and will limit the ability of the Scottish Parliament and Government to improve farmed animal welfare standards.”

I would be happy to.

Am I beyond my time already?

Christine Grahame highlights something that should be part of a broad and welcoming package of measures by the United Kingdom Government. The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has been outlining some changes, which may allow companies to play a role in bringing people out of Ukraine. We have to see how that will operate in practice. If that is indeed what it is, it is welcome. However, it is still not enough.

May I also take the opportunity to say to colleagues in the chamber, because this will have impacted on quite a lot of us, that we will have become aware of offers from companies and third sector organisations. I would encourage those companies and third sector organisations to get in touch. We are in a fast-moving situation, and if we are able to co-ordinate those offers, not only can we ensure that we get aid to people in country—in theatre—but we will know whether there are people who may be able to come to the UK. Hopefully, that will be far more than the UK currently has in mind.