Chamber and committees

Will the member give way?

I am grateful to Mr Rennie for giving way. I suspect that Mr McKee would have made the same point that I will make. Let me reassure Mr Rennie that, in my Government experience, I led a very successful delegation of university principals to India, which resulted in significant opportunities based on the strength of those institutions and their willingness to work with the Government to promote Scotland overseas. I assure him that what he is calling for is being actively delivered by the fantastic people in Scottish Development International who serve Scotland overseas.

Is it not absolutely absurd that the leader of the Brexit campaign, Nigel Farage, has admitted that Brexit was a total failure, yet the Scottish Conservatives are still insisting that it was an unmitigated success and that they are proud to own it?

Does the cabinet secretary agree that this debate has helped to cement the view within Parliament, among all shades of parliamentary opinion, that the network of international offices that we have on Scotland’s behalf, many of them set up by the Labour and Liberal Executive before this Government came to office, are a formidable asset for Scotland? Some of the critique that we have heard in recent months from the party over there—the Conservatives—will perhaps be silenced by the eloquence of this debate on the subject.

Will the member accept an intervention?

One of the many privileges involved in representing the beautiful constituency of Perthshire North is the opportunity to appreciate and value the enormous contribution of the various communities and sectors to the production and promotion of food in Scotland. My constituency contributes a formidable proportion of the potatoes, cereals and vegetables that are grown in Scotland, the exquisite soft fruit that is synonymous with east Perthshire and the high-quality beef and lamb that are nurtured with care, invariably on the hill farms of Highland Perthshire, Strathardle and Glen Shee.

The strength of that activity contributes to the very highest-quality offering within the tourism, hospitality and food production sectors of our economy. That ranges from the work of the drinks industry in whisky, gin and new spirits that are based on traditional foraged crops—pioneered by Highland Boundary on Alyth hill—to the diversification success stories of Stewart Tower Dairy’s ice cream and the outstanding research work of organisations such as the James Hutton Institute, which is based in Invergowrie and recently became one of the first recipients of a King’s award for enterprise in sustainable development, and Intelligent Growth Solutions, which is also based in the JHI and has developed important work on vertical farming, which is becoming one of Scotland’s enormous export success stories.

There is much to be proud of, and much to celebrate, in the contribution of my constituency to food production in Scotland. I want to see that continue and to thrive.

I know that the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government share that aspiration and are committed to working with the industry to address the twin challenges of the climate emergency and the development of an agriculture support regime after the Brexit process. I am sure that the decisions that the cabinet secretary has taken to proceed with that work in partnership with the agriculture sector through jointly chairing the process with my constituent, the president of the NFU Scotland, Martin Kennedy, will ensure that that focus on sustainability will be central to the decision making that is involved.

Despite that willingness to engage in dialogue, it is necessary to recognise that there are many threats and challenges to be addressed in ensuring sustainable food production in Scotland. I want to concentrate on two: the cost of production and the availability of labour.

In preparing for this debate, I asked a number of my farming constituents for information on the costs with which they are wrestling. Fertiliser costs have risen by 200 to 300 per cent and electricity costs for essential refrigeration activity to sustain crops have often risen by the same margin—in some cases, individual businesses are having to find an extra £50,000 to £100,000 to meet just the cost of increased electricity.

Some of those cost pressures are a consequence of global events, especially the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but some are as a direct consequence of the policy disasters that have been Brexit and the UK mini-budget last September.

Brexit has made the cost of trading with our nearest partners increase and has placed obstacles in the way, especially in key and valuable markets such as the seed potatoes market. As the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs George Eustice told us all, replacement trade deals have disadvantaged agriculture. The mini-budget last September has created the most difficult investment climate due to the increased cost of borrowing arising out of those catastrophic policy errors. The punishing effect of that folly is being felt by consumers, many of whom are now facing unprecedented hardship in putting food on their tables in 21st century Scotland. Rhoda Grant talked about that. The Scottish Conservatives have, of course, supported both acts of spectacular folly—Brexit and the UK mini-budget.

Will Rhoda Grant explain why it is not a practical possibility to rejoin the EU just now?

The problem that my constituents now have, which I am just about to come on to, is that they cannot find the labour to pick the vegetables from the fields. That is a consequence of the stupid Brexit policy that the Conservative Party in the Parliament has supported. That is my second point: crops are not being picked and high-quality food is going to waste at a time when many consumers are struggling to feed their families. That is all because of the ideological obsession of the Conservatives.

The position just gets worse with the hostile comments of the Home Secretary, which show a devastating escalation of the obstructiveness of the UK Government. I know that Parliament will be sceptical about those comments from me, but I suggest that members listen to NFU Scotland’s horticulture chair, Iain Brown, who is a soft fruit and vegetable grower from Fife. Mr Brown said:

“The Home Secretary’s comments around training and recruiting a local workforce to pick our crops shows a significant degree of naivety over the reality of the current situation. In recent times, the Home Office has consistently failed to understand the challenges that the industry faces around sourcing labour.”

He went on to say:

“We need migrants to get the food that is grown on our farms onto our plates, and not rotting in our fields. We need the government to move away from anti-migration politics and rhetoric to make good policy.”

So there it is: blunt words from the farming sector about the obstacles that it faces.

I encourage the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government to continue their engagement with the sector and to press the UK Government to move away from its disastrous positioning on migration and on Brexit. If it does not, there will be real threats to the sustainability of food production in this country, and the responsibility will lie fair and square at the feet of the Conservative Party.

I am rather surprised that the Conservatives’ extremely lengthy amendment to the Government’s motion, which is in fact longer than the Government’s motion, contains absolutely no mention of Brexit. Does that perhaps lead us to believe that the Conservatives are now embarrassed by the impact of Brexit on the Scottish farming economy?