Chamber and committees

I will not at the moment—I am just coming on to the points that were made by my good colleague Stephen Kerr, who highlighted the European Union. As he knows from being in the House of Commons at the same time as me during debates on that, different member states can have different views, and Scotland would have a lot more freedom to take a different view if it were an independent member of the European Union.

Stephen Kerr also raised a point about apprentices. Only this morning, I launched the oil and gas transition training fund, along with colleagues in the UK Government, which is backing the fund.

This speaks to David Green’s point, which I will shortly address more fully, but I should have said at the start of my speech that nuclear power has been a part of Scotland’s energy mix, but renewables are the future. I also put on the record my thanks to the workforce that has kept stations running. The Government values those workers, and they, too, deserve to have a just transition.

I was in Aberdeen this morning—we are a leading energy nation, and we want to continue to be a leading energy nation. I again congratulate Douglas Lumsden on his victory in Aberdeen South, and I look forward to working with him.

I suspect that Douglas Lumsden would be delighted for me to bring Liam Kerr in on that point.

I put on the record my thanks to Liam Kerr for bringing this debate to the Parliament. We do not always agree, but the ability to debate and discuss—which we have heard in many of the speeches tonight—is valuable. I also thank other colleagues for their speeches.

Liam Kerr started by reflecting on the opinion polls. I reflect on what people actually vote for, and a majority of members in the Parliament agree with the Government on this particular issue.

There are big increases taking place in renewables, and thanks to the policies that this Government has put in place, Scotland is a massive exporter of electricity.

I will go through some of the speeches—there were several of them—and I will start by picking up on something that Liam Kerr said. He talked about the war in Ukraine, which is one thing that we all agree on. We all know that European energy security is vital, so why we are turning our back on the rest of Europe is beyond me.

I want to touch on other points about Ukraine. The first point is on the attacks on the Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl nuclear plants, which I am sure that we would all wholly condemn. We all agree on that, and it is important to put that on the record. The other point relates to sanctions. Although the UK has sanctioned Rosatom’s subsidiary companies, we have not sanctioned Rosatom itself, which leads me to worry about our continued strategic vulnerability in that particular area. That is something that we should all be concerned about.

Alan Brown made several good points, as we would expect. One was that nuclear power is not green. Hinkley Point C was meant to be built by 2017 but has now been delayed to 2030. The expenses that come with that, along with clean-up costs, which cost billions, and the challenges—

Costs are going up as a result of nuclear power. I also point to the delay, which, as Alan Brown rightly pointed out, is a challenge.

I should have finished what I was about to say. Liam Kerr and I are both proud to be members of the Scottish Parliament for the north-east. I congratulate Douglas Lumsden, but I would love to see him do a bit more down in Westminster for the energy sector than his party has managed to do so far. I also congratulate Lara Bird on her recent victory in a north-east constituency, where she managed to get five and a half times the size of majority that I had.

Stephen Kerr made a point about dogma and decline, but I struggle to accept that from a parliamentarian who backed Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. We must look at the reality, which is that renewables are where our future lies.

I want to reach as many members’ points as I possibly can. Paul Sweeney talked about the smaller plants, but they still have the same challenges with waste and cost. I point to France, which has nuclear plants that are struggling with weather constraints at the moment due to the heat. [Interruption.] I want to make progress, given the time, but I will try to swing back to the member later.

Tim Eagle talked about Dounreay and also the weather. I return to the challenges in France—for example, Saint-Alban on the Rhône is having challenges because of the weather.

Miles Briggs talked about parties getting entrenched. Yes, that can be the case, given that European security is such an important issue and the climate emergency is pivotal. However, I am glad that the Conservatives at least acknowledge the climate emergency. Miles Briggs comes from a party that has seen £400 billion from our oil and gas industry, but we are one of the few countries not to have a future generations fund as a result of oil and gas. Then there is the energy profits levy, and the transmission network use of system charge is also having a significant impact.

That takes me to David Green, whom I come to for two reasons. The first is the work on decommissioning at Dounreay, which he is right to highlight. I thank the workers there who are conducting that work, but the plant closed in 1994, and work is due to go on there until the 2070s—and full decontamination will take another 300 years. Therefore, there is plenty of work going on there, but maybe not for all the reasons that we want.

Secondly, just across the water, we see some issues around the west of Orkney in bringing those offshore wind farms on board, which David Green and his colleagues have highlighted. Hinkley took a long time—[Interruption.] I am going to conclude now. Hinkley was due to be completed in 2025, but we keep seeing that date going back.

The case is straightforward: Scotland wants to be part of the solution in relation to European energy security. Nuclear is wasteful and expensive, and given that we have so much potential in renewables, including exporting them, and there is such a massive market for our expertise and our resource, this Government continues to back that technology.

This Government always backs jobs in the north-east. I will make two points. This Government has worked with the oil and gas sector, and I was doing work on skills just yesterday. It also backs the just transition and the tens of thousands of jobs that have come online in the low-carbon area, many of them benefiting the north-east, which would be thrown under the bus by Reform.

On the question of the law, I will not pre-empt that decision. I respect the rule of law and I will have to respect the decisions that are made. That is a basic for a minister, and I am not sure that any MSP would expect me to say otherwise.

Dawn Black is right. Like me, and unlike those who have questioned me previously, she believes that those powers should be in this Parliament. We consistently get criticism about policy that was pursued by Westminster. Scotland’s vast energy resources have contributed £400 billion to the Treasury, with very little back, and the energy profits levy puts the just transition at risk and accelerates the decline in oil and gas before renewables are ready. This place is much better placed to have powers over energy, and that is why this Parliament voted for that.

As the member knows, decisions on the consenting of individual offshore oil and gas fields are matters that are currently reserved to the United Kingdom Government.

While I am on my feet, and as this is the first time that I have spoken in the chamber since the by-elections last week, I take the opportunity to congratulate Douglas Lumsden on his success and my own successor at Westminster, Lara Bird, on her success—and, frankly, on getting a much larger majority than I had.

I would like to thank my fellow north-east MSP for that. He knows that this Government is investing in jobs and skills. Yesterday, I visited the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, where we saw at first hand the way in which the skill set is complementing—[Interruption.] I am being barracked by Mr Kerr again, but he is much further away than he ever used to be now that his party is in fifth place. I think that that speaks to the disaster of the energy profits levy that was introduced by his Government. [Interruption.]

I thank the member for reminding us that Reform has a poor track record of dragging us out of the EU at a cost of billions to the Exchequer, which cost is now having to be made up. It has a track record of pushing up our energy prices and our food and drink prices during a cost of living crisis. As the member rails against flags, I remind her that a Council of Europe flag also sits outside the chamber; it flies proudly and should remain there. It underlines the rights that we have as European citizens, which her party wants to take away.

I am afraid to say that I do not have all day to go through the member’s party’s failures; I have been through some of them. I remind her to go back to South Scotland and talk to her constituents about the dip in agrifood exports that her region relies on so much; the increase in energy prices that is costing households in her area; and the removal of rights that previous generations took for granted.

Next week, astonishingly, marks the 10th anniversary of the referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, which, I am sure we would all agree, was one of the most consequential moments in the history of this Parliament, the peoples of our shared islands and, of course, the rest of Europe.

Ten years on, this Parliament must reflect with honesty, clarity and, above all, a sense of responsibility to those whose lives have been shaped by that decision. The vote and its aftermath have meant economic vandalism, social damage, cultural loss and a weakening of our international relationships at a time when co-operation across Europe has never been more important. No department or issue has been unaffected, from our national health service, with, for example, the exit from the European Medicines Agency; to agriculture, with the removal of access to the single market; to education and the tragic loss of opportunities for our young people.

Members of the Scottish Parliament got that 10 years ago, and Parliament responded—across the chamber, to be fair—in a cohesive and responsible manner to an event that was neither of its making nor of its choosing. I know from first-hand experience that that was lacking at Westminster.

Scotland did not vote to leave the EU, having overwhelmingly backed EU membership in a referendum—for the second time. Despite that, the Scottish Government consistently offered compromise to the UK. In 2016, a motion by my predecessor, Michael Russell, that called for Scotland to remain in the single market was overwhelmingly backed with support from Scottish National Party, Scottish Labour and the Greens. To be fair, the Liberal Democrats did not back it but called for a second referendum. Instead, we got the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, with Westminster taking back control not just from Brussels but from Cardiff, Belfast and, of course, Edinburgh.

EU membership had empowered devolved Administrations, but leaving the EU has left the UK more centralised than ever. We were told that leaving the European Union would bring new opportunities, greater prosperity, more control and a stronger voice. I will be generous and say that those comments were, at best, incorrect. Every sector was damaged. For businesses, leaving the EU introduced friction where there was once fluidity, barriers where there was access and uncertainty where there was stability.

In November 2023, nearly 40 per cent of businesses in Scotland cited leaving the EU as the main cause of difficulties in trading overseas. UK-EU trade is estimated to be around a quarter lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU, with non-tariff barriers with the EU being the main driver behind that shortfall. The agrifood sector, in particular, has struggled to export to the EU, which has led to a substantial and sustained loss in one of our most important sectors for exporting and, of course, employment.

Public revenues in Scotland and the public services that depend on them were estimated to have lost around £3.3 billion in 2025 alone, based on research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. In other words, more than £9 million was lost every day to public revenues in Scotland in 2025. The question must be this: can we really afford that any longer?

The consequences for households have been profoundly damaging. Cost of living pressures have been exacerbated at a time when families can least afford it; there has been a £250 increase in food and drink bills due to leaving the EU, and UK households have collectively paid an extra £7 billion due to covering the extra cost of doing business outside the single market.

There is a particular tragedy for our young people. Every political generation should leave more opportunity than they enjoyed—that should be a basic for us all in this chamber—but with the removal of the freedoms to live, learn and work across the European Union, we cannot say that. A British passport is now the most restrictive in western Europe.

Although the personal and financial losses have been great, we must not lose sight of security considerations. We meet at a time of profound geopolitical instability. Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, shifting global alliances and threats to energy and food security all underline the importance of strong co-operation in Europe—the rest of Europe gets that. The EU is not simply an economic bloc; it is a community grounded in shared values such as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, equality and freedom.

Leaving the EU was a bad idea 10 years ago, and it is a dangerous idea today. It has left the UK and, by extension, Scotland more isolated when the challenges that we face demand deeper partnership, not detachment. Although there has been a change in ideology from the most recent UK Government, I am afraid to say that it is still tinkering. Current efforts by the UK Government to rebuild relationships are welcome but are not enough.

The UK Government’s own figures suggest that the deal that is being negotiated—it is far from certain to be delivered—will add only £9 billion to the economy by 2040, which is the equivalent of around 0.2 per cent of gross domestic product. By contrast, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that leaving the EU will have reduced GDP by at least 4 per cent, so the loss is 20 times greater. I ask the UK Government: where is the ambition, and where is the responsibility to individuals and businesses to reverse that damaging decision?

The Scottish Government has published a series of policy papers that clearly set out our objectives for Scotland’s relationship with the EU in key areas that affect all our lives—trade, education and energy. The UK Government could change that, but it chooses not to, and we all pay the price for that inaction.

There is, of course, a human dimension to all this. Leaving the EU has affected the families who have made their lives across borders and those European citizens who pay us the privilege of making Scotland home. I say to my fellow European citizens that I will continue to make the case for them every single day that I am in this job.

Every country that joined the EU got wealthier; its sovereignty was strengthened; and its citizens’ rights were enhanced. The reverse happened for the one state that left. Leaving the EU is a backward step as Europe moves closer together. It is almost inevitable that we will rejoin—it is simply a question of how much damage we sustain until that moment.

So, where do we go from here? First, we will continue to press for the closest possible relationship between the UK and the EU. I am glad to have already discussed that with my counterpart in the UK Government, Nick Thomas-Symonds, and I am grateful to him for his collaboration and conversation. I have made it clear to him that both the EU and UK have much to gain from having a better relationship with the EU. Energy is one example: Scotland is a massive exporter of energy, and it is very much part of the solution when it comes to pan-European energy security, a key concern in other European capitals. The UK Government must make the most of the forthcoming UK-EU summit and ensure that the negotiations deliver the fullest possible outcomes. We have made it clear to the UK Government that we seek further improvements, although I have to say that I am still unsure as to why it is sticking to its damaging red lines on the single market and customs union. It is an absolute mystery to me.

Secondly, we must ensure that Scotland’s voice is heard. Too often, Scotland’s distinct interest and democratic choices are being sidelined. That cannot continue any more—we know how damaging it has been.

Thirdly, and most important, we must recognise that there is a limit to what can be achieved under the current constitutional framework. The UK’s 18th century model of union brought us to this place, and it is no longer fit for purpose—Brexit exposed its flaws. An alternative partnership model is being pursued by our neighbours—a 21st century model of union that is based on true respect and partnership between nations. The EU and the rest of Europe get and understand that.

Ten years on from the Brexit referendum, we owe it to the people of Scotland, particularly younger generations, to speak honestly about what has happened. The conclusion is unavoidable: leaving the EU did not deliver what was promised; it left Scotland and the rest of the UK poorer, more isolated and less secure. The question for us all is what we are prepared to do about it. I believe that Scotland’s future lies in restoring our place at the heart of Europe. That is the challenge of the next decade that the Parliament must meet with hope, clarity, and determination.