I thank the witnesses for their evidence. I want to follow up on an issue that is raised in the written evidence and that has come out powerfully today. It is about the need for information to be able to predict and plan, and about communications on changes that are happening, particularly for the agri-food and dairy sectors. What is the solution? There is the Northern Ireland business Brexit working group, but what other communication networks are available? You do not have the Northern Ireland Executive to talk to or to push what needs to happen with the UK Government or the EU. What political structures can you lobby? Transparency is one of our concerns in holding our Government to account. Who do you talk to? How do you make this work, given that it is a changing situation?

I welcome the Deputy First Minister’s answer. I have had constituents and organisations getting in touch with me because the working group was due to publish its recommendations by March, but they are not on the Scottish Government website.

As the Deputy First Minister said, with Covid still being with us and one in 20 people in Scotland having Covid, it is more important than ever to improve indoor ventilation. Given that the recent report by the Royal Academy of Engineering showed that improved ventilation would add billions to the economy, could the Deputy First Minister say what higher standards or investment in ventilation he will deliver to keep people safe?

As many members have said, it is extremely disappointing that we are debating a bill that would break international law, but some good points have been made that need to be re-emphasised. One of them concerned incompetence. Several speakers across the chamber have highlighted that the challenges for the operation of the protocol are challenges of the Conservative Government’s own making. It negotiated and voted for the protocol and is now taking a wrecking ball to its own deal and also, critically, to our relationship with our European neighbours.

The irony is that there is a way out of this mess and it is through negotiation. Times change and experience needs to be learned from. In the face of unworkability, it is unrealistic to stick dogmatically to previous decisions. However, change via a wrecking ball is also unrealistic.

I thought that the point that Clare Adamson made about the deal on medicines was important. There is a willingness to work together. There are issues that Northern Ireland businesses—in particular, dairy farmers—would like to see addressed. Sorting out problems would require the European Union and the UK Government to work together to make compromises, but that is how negotiations work, and it is by sitting around a table and having those realistic discussions that we get progress.

The rule of law has also been mentioned several times, with regard to the legality—or rather, illegality—of this bill. It is clear that the bill would break international law. One of the things that worry members across the chamber today is what happens next on the Good Friday agreement, which was built on the parity of esteem of both communities. The UK Government needs to outline now what it is going to do to respect the Good Friday agreement, because that is what the protocol agreement was meant to do. It is on the Government, so it needs to talk about it.

Several members have rightly raised the risk of trade war, which is really concerning our businesses at the moment. The adversarial manner in which the Tory Government is acting could lead to retaliatory measures from the EU, which would affect all of us and would increase the uncertainty that businesses are already dealing with. Many businesses are currently struggling, so people up and down the country will have to face the consequences, with miserly help at the moment from the UK Tory Government.

It has been reported that the Treasury has drawn up an economic impact assessment for this disastrous course of action. The UK Government needs to publish that analysis now and reflect on it, because it is potentially writing us out of organisations and opportunities to work together, for example in research and development and the horizon programme.

So much is at risk from the bill, and that is why Scottish Labour cannot support it. Over the coming months, it is to be expected that we will have debates about independence being the only solution for Scotland. In reality, under the SNP-Green independence plans, the issues that face communities and businesses in Northern Ireland would simply move to Gretna and Berwick. Willie Rennie’s points about the risks of independence were well made. There is a gap between ambitions and a reality check, and Brexit shows the tragedy of advocating something but not owning up to the divisions that it potentially creates. It is a warning for all of us.

Paul Sweeney’s reflections on trying to find workable solutions when he served in the UK Parliament are important to us. There is a gap between promises and the reality of separation. We need to think about interdependence, constructive dialogue and negotiations, in order to put the interests of all our constituents first. That should be the priority for all members.

A future Labour Government would scrap this bill and get around the negotiating table with our European neighbours. We are never going to agree on everything, but we have to work together, respect each other, rebuild the trust and good will that has been demolished by the Conservatives, and provide certainty for communities in Northern Ireland and across the UK. We need to make the effort to work together and be honest about the challenges that we face. That is not happening at the moment, so we urgently need change.

Will the member take an intervention?

To ask the Scottish Government how its cross-Government Covid recovery policies will take account of the recommendations of its Covid-19 ventilation short-life working group. (S6O-01286)

When I was first sworn into the Parliament, I would never have thought that we would discuss a bill that would actively break international law. The Tories’ Northern Ireland Protocol Bill will not only break international law, but further damage the UK’s global reputation as a trusted partner, risk worsening the cost of living crisis by throwing up further barriers to trade, and create further divisions at a time when we need to get on with our neighbours in Europe and pull together in the face of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and the Northern Ireland protocol should come as no surprise to Boris Johnson and his Conservative Government, because they negotiated the protocol. They agreed it and whipped their MPs to vote for it. The Northern Ireland protocol is a product of the Prime Minister and his Conservative UK Government, and the fact that they are now seeking to usurp it demonstrates their incompetence, past and present. What confidence can we have in a Government that cannot get the job done right first time around?

I was struck by the Foreign Secretary yesterday telling the Belfast Telegraph that she has no regrets in voting for the protocol at the time, and that the issues that have arisen were unexpected, even though she now says that the problems were “baked into the protocol”. It begs the question as to what work the Conservatives did to look at a protocol that the Foreign Secretary now thinks is disastrous. What kind of risk assessment did they do?

I agree with key points in the Scottish Government motion. My amendment, which adds to it, focuses on the fact that the UK Government’s bill will break international law.

Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states:

“A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

The bill does exactly that. In the bill, the Tories are seeking to unilaterally override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol through UK domestic law.

It is ironic that I agree with Donald Cameron’s suggestion that the UK Government and the EU should get round the table to negotiate. The bill will not help with that.

There is an issue with the legal principle of the doctrine of necessity, which we may come on to later in the debate, but it is clear that the doctrine of necessity applies only when a country is facing grave and imminent peril. The UK Government’s former legal adviser Jonathan Jones has already said that the EU would be completely unpersuaded by that argument. The bill shows that, once again, the Tory Government is totally detached from the real issues of the day, and is hellbent on furthering its own political agenda, with no regard for the reputational risks to which it is opening up our country. It speaks volumes that the former Prime Minister Theresa May warned that unilateral attempts to scrap parts of the Northern Ireland protocol and the Brexit deal are not legal.

Article 16 of the protocol allows the UK or the EU to invoke restricted safeguard measures unilaterally when serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties arise because of the operation of the protocol. I agree with Donald Cameron—it is time for the UK Government and the EU to get round the table and talk about the issue. The analysis of Mark Elliott, a professor of public law at the University of Cambridge, is that the UK Government’s legal position paper shows that it has no intention of using that provision.

The Northern Ireland protocol was put in place to ensure that the Tory agreement on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU protected the Good Friday agreement. To date, far too many Tory MPs have shown complete disregard for the Good Friday agreement in the Brexit process, and we can see that here from the very top of the UK Tory Government.

Scottish Labour will not support legislation that not only does not respect international law, but threatens the hard-won Good Friday agreement. Negotiation is needed. The irony is that although the Tory party claims to stand for businesses, businesses in Northern Ireland have been able to work with the protocol. The bill risks creating new barriers during a cost of living crisis, and it will only bring more uncertainty for the people of Northern Ireland, who are trying to make the protocol work in the best way that they can. Surely it is far better to negotiate on food and agricultural standards than to raise trade barriers.

The bill would break international law and have a devastating impact on families and businesses in Northern Ireland, Scotland and across the UK. The UK Government must focus on negotiation with the EU. That is the route to ensuring that international law is respected and the Good Friday agreement is protected. The UK Government must get round the table with the EU and negotiate in good faith.

I move amendment S6M-05235.3, to insert after “recession”:

“; condemns that the Bill breaks international law and risks the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement”.

Even SNP voters do not want a referendum on the First Minister’s timescale. They want action on the cost of living crisis and they need action now. They do not want division, deflection or excuses from the First Minister’s Government, which has the powers to deliver the support and change that they need; they do not want to have to choose between heating and eating. Fuel poverty pre-dates Brexit and the pandemic.

How does a referendum in just under 16 months help people who cannot afford their bills now, never mind this autumn or winter? When will the First Minister’s Government take responsibility and use to the max the powers that it already has?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I was not able to enter the PIN, so I could not cast my vote. I would have voted yes.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not get my app to upgrade itself in time.

That is a very helpful summary. On one level, it is a case of building on success. I find the privatisation proposal hard to understand, particularly given that Channel 4 is successful for the whole of the UK—it is almost like levelling up in practice. You provide evidence that it works to spread investment across the UK.

Can you briefly talk about the importance of the quality of film production on the ground in terms of the people in the film sector, the artists and the people behind the cameras? Other witnesses have told us about the impact of the diversity of Channel 4’s programming. You have won a number of BAFTAs. Do you want to say a bit about the success of the film side, which is critical, given the difficulty of doing film production, because it is very expensive? Although you operate in a not-for-profit context, you manage to make a profit. Could you say a little about that?