Chamber and committees

Just on that point, would it not be more beneficial for something indigenous to Alloa or Ayrshire to happen, rather than having to rely on somebody else coming in?

I appreciate that it is a question of a national collection—there will be restricted access to that—but surely it would be more sustainable and beneficial if there were things across the country? I have been hearing about your mining exhibition. The first mine in Scotland was up in Brora in the Highlands—it was not in Ayrshire or Lancashire or anywhere else. I just think that we are missing a trick there. Richard Demarco has done some fantastic stuff in Alloa as well, but surely something that is more indigenous to that area would have a beneficial impact?

[Made a request to intervene.]

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect. I would have voted no.

We had a discussion earlier about the Irish way of dealing with such matters. Maybe this is a wee bit naive, but having observed the Irish for many years and the way in which they go about things, certainly in the EU but also globally, I have seen that they tend to work as team Ireland. They work in a very disciplined way, across parties and different tiers of government and elected representation. Different parties will pick a number of limited gains that they can achieve, and they tend not to make any enemies and not to get involved in some of the big bun fights in the EU. They have been very successful in doing that.

It would probably have to come at the end of a session, or at the start of a new session, but does the cabinet secretary think that there is any potential to have cross-party agreements on international representation that would take a team Scotland stance? I know that that will be complicated by the unresolved constitutional question, but it must still be possible to achieve that. If that were to be the case, it would probably need to be led by whoever was in government at the time. Is there any merit to pursuing such an approach?

I understand the point that there is no prospect of an incoming UK Government looking again at Brexit. In fact, I think the Labour Party has now said that it will never return to the EU. However, I think that it is still incumbent on the Scottish Government to make as much progress as is possible, even though I can see that it will be at the margins.

I wonder about what is often called “soft power”. I remember being embraced physically once by a senior member of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin, who said, “We like our Scottish friends”, and that they did not want us to leave them. I think that people have underestimated the extent to which personal affront was taken by people in the EU over the conduct over the Brexit agenda. That opens up an opportunity, if we can get the right relationships. It will not affect the processes, but having the right attitude from people—a positive view of Scotland—is very important. What are you able to do in that space to try to help things along?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. You mentioned the evidence that the committee has heard during its inquiries. At various points we have heard about jobs being lost and businesses going bust, virtually overnight, or stopping exporting. In some cases businesses have been taken over by their now parent companies in other countries, including Germany. We have also been told by someone—I forget the name of the chap who gave evidence; I think that it was a guy from Northern Ireland—that the UK was becoming the most expensive place in the world to do business. Witnesses have told us that it is now easier to do business with North Korea than with EU countries.

Given all those impacts of Brexit, and what you said might happen in a couple of weeks’ time, when I think that most people would assume that we will be looking at a different UK Government, do you have a prepared list of asks for it? Things could be done—before you say it again, I know that they will only happen at the margins—that would improve the situation both for people in Scotland and for businesses. Whoever is elected, a fresh set of eyes will be coming on to the issue at Westminster, so have you a list of early demands and requests that you think could help to improve things in Scotland?

That was my last question, but it is just worth mentioning in passing that the best example of non-Governmental soft power that I can think of is what we are seeing just now with the tartan army in Germany. Scotland’s reputation is being hugely boosted by their conduct.

Given what Liz Smith has just said, does she agree that there can be no incentive in the idea that personal allowances for tax are to be frozen for the next three years? That amounts to a tax increase, but that is the current plan for both the Labour and Conservative parties. Surely that is not a good thing.

I hear what Murdo Fraser says. However, does he congratulate the Scottish Government on the fact that the majority of people in Scotland pay less in income tax than their UK counterparts—even better, that is the majority drawn from the lowest-paid in society—and that, across Scotland, we pay an average of between £400 and £500 less in council tax every year? Is that not a good thing?

Will Mr Findlay acknowledge that part of the reason why we have such stringent capital controls is the decisions of the Westminster Government and that, in England, the prison estate is in a far worse—[Interruption.]