Jamie Halcro Johnston asks how it works. Under this agreement—[Interruption.]—I am not sure that Mr Halcro Johnston wants to hear the answer.

On that question, sadly, I do not. It took the Scottish Government to raise the culture sector, touring artists and rejoining creative Europe with the UK Government and ask where it was on those issues. I asked for any documentation and negotiating positions a number of days before the discussions took place, in the run-up to yesterday’s summit, but we received absolutely nothing back—zero—from the UK Government. This is the Government of a party that said that it was in favour of supporting the culture sector and touring artists, and that understood—at least in its rhetoric—that creative Europe is a good thing to be part of. It is therefore a shame that we have a missed opportunity and that the agreement does not deliver on any of those things.

No, I do not accept that characterisation.

No agreement can deliver the economic, social and security benefits that we lost with Brexit in 2020. If the UK Government is serious about economic growth, it needs to drop its red lines around the single market, the customs union and freedom of movement.

The Labour and Conservative parties are now both pro-Brexit parties, while we believe that the best answer is for Scotland to be an independent member state of the European Union. Those parties seek only to ameliorate the damage of Brexit. Any less damage is a good thing, but why do we not go for the real deal and be part of the single market, part of the customs union and part of the European Union? The Labour Party used to believe in that.

For the uninitiated, the background around the agreement is that the European Union has put aside a very significant fund to invest in defence, given the scale of the challenge that we face as a continent. It is a good thing that the UK has reached an agreement that it and the EU will work together, and that the EU will give access to that fund to defence contractors in the UK, which may very well be in Scotland. That is a good thing. We need to contribute to the common security of our continent, given the scale of the threat that faces us.

The Scottish Government will, of course, work right across all the areas of the agreement to work out what advantage can be secured, notwithstanding the downsides, which I have updated the chamber on. However, defence and security should be a priority for all of us.

I am sure that the Presiding Officer wishes me to concentrate my remarks on the subject of today’s statement. On that note, I agree with Finlay Carson that an SPS agreement—that is, an agrifood deal—is a good thing for farming communities such as those that he represents. I agree that that is so, and I agree with him about the shortcomings of the UK Government’s position in relation to the 12-year straitjacket that it has agreed to.

Given his constituency interest, Finlay Carson might have asked about—but did not—the impact of the deal on trade with Northern Ireland, which is part of the European single market. We very much hope that the deal will be of benefit to trade between Northern Ireland and Scotland, and, by extension, the rest of Great Britain. That is the position that the Scottish Government holds.

I genuinely do not know what the UK Government’s negotiating strategy was. I think that there was a general expectation that there would likely be a multiyear outcome when it comes to fishing. However, I do not think that any serious commentator anywhere thought that there would be a 12-year agreement by the UK Government. Where that came from, I know not. The UK Government never raised it in any meetings with the Scottish Government or with colleagues from Wales or Northern Ireland. It is for the UK Government to explain where that came from. I do not believe that it would have been necessary in order to secure the upsides of the deal.

Although upsides there are, on the substance of a 12-year straitjacket as opposed to having annual negotiations or securing an SPS agreement—which European friends wanted to secure—I am at a loss to understand why the UK Government was prepared to give that away; I simply do not understand it.

Perhaps Mr Halcro Johnston should turn up at the start of debates and statements to hear what people actually say.

I am surprised that he does not know that European Union member states are part of an annual negotiating process. This 12-year straitjacket deal is not part of that process, which is why I have said that it is the worst of all worlds.

The fact that the UK Government could not even share with the Scottish Government the detail of what of what it was prepared to negotiate, and to negotiate away, is something that we deeply regret—sadly, no one in the Conservative seats has thought it important enough even to mention.

I agree entirely with Patrick Harvie about the damaging impact that Brexit has had on people’s life experience and ability to travel, work, live and love elsewhere in Europe, and on the ability of our neighbours from the rest of Europe to come here. Since Brexit, the damage has been felt particularly in our university sector. He is absolutely right to highlight that.

One of the difficulties with the agreement is that there is, literally, no detail. There is a commitment to a “youth experience scheme” that is supposed to afford young people the ability to come and go. We do not know how many young people or when the scheme will start; nor do we know any of the rules around it. None of that has been shared with us. Do I welcome the fact that a scheme may come that might be good? Yes—if that is what it is. However, sadly, we have none of that detail because, unfortunately, the UK Government has not shared any of that information with us—or with members on Labour’s front bench.

—anywhere in the UK cannot bring itself to do that.