Chamber and committees

Yes, during your tenure, convener.

Thank you, convener. I am grateful to you and the committee for making time for so many colleagues to address you. The fact that so many of us are here should be the first demonstration to you of the clear breadth of political support for greater urgency in this area.

I have seen very positive engagement by the campaigners—certainly those based in Glasgow, who are working with all political parties that represent the city. There is clear consensus that there needs to be fundamental change. In fact, the passing of the 2019 act demonstrates that there is already clear consensus on the need to move in the direction of franchising and to support local areas that choose to do so. The passing of the 2019 act was intended not only to make that possible but to make significant progress in that direction.

Even when the Parliament was considering that legislation, the committee that was doing so took a litany of evidence at stage 1 that the process, including the panel, would simply take too long. Many organisations—the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, Glasgow City Council, the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, the Scottish Association for Public Transport and the Urban Transport Group—raised concerns about the timescale involved and the level of bureaucracy and lack of democratic accountability in that process.

Since the bill went through the Parliament and became an act, faster progress has been made elsewhere than is being made in Scotland, despite the political consensus that this should be the direction of travel. It is very clear that, if we are going to see communities such as the one that Neil Bibby described and, indeed, right across Scotland benefit from the required change, we need to accelerate the process. If that means the Scottish Government making relatively minor changes to primary legislation, that is what should happen.

Many thanks. I wish we had time for a long exchange about the political points that you have made but we do not. I will move on to Professor Hall.

Good morning to our witnesses. You might be aware that, later in this inquiry, we will have sessions specifically on mobility; in particular, the committee has an interest in youth mobility. I want to ask about the connection between that theme and the trade in services that we have been discussing; it has come up in a number of your answers.

For me, people’s freedom of movement and young people’s opportunity to move can be justified in its own terms due to the social and immediate benefit that people get from it. Should we also regard it as an economic investment for the future, to ensure that we have a generation of people coming up in every walk of life and business who have personal connections with people in other European countries, particularly in the fields in which they have studied, and who regard European countries as something more than a holiday destination?

If we do not restore that opportunity for the upcoming generation, what will be the impact of the loss of youth mobility, not just on trade and services at the moment but in the longer term? Regardless of whether the UK and the EU agree improvements in this area, is there anything more that the Scottish Government should be doing to maximise the opportunities in the current context for young people in Scotland to experience a connection with European countries and for young people in Europe to experience a connection with Scotland?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will keep this part brief, but you have talked about negotiating positions on a veterinary and sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and youth mobility and whether there is room for an improved position between the UK and the EU. On our visit to Brussels, I picked up some views from the EU perspective to the effect that, as one person put it, “You will have to accept every dot and comma of regulatory alignment”, while from a UK perspective, I picked up the expectation that the Europeans will, of course, give us what we want, because it is in their interests to, really. Is it your view that the negotiating positions are naturally going to begin at those extremes and that the potential for something that is agreeable, even to a pro-Brexit UK Government, is simply a matter of political will?

Hands have gone up, and the order was Mike Buckley, Professor Hall and then Professor Portes.

In that case, I want to ask about the Scottish Government’s policy of maximum alignment. Obviously, the extent to which alignment can be maximised is not absolute. We are going to see some level of divergence from both sides, including, in some instances, on matters that are devolved; however, in many matters that are not devolved, we might well see divergence happening on the UK side as well as on the European side.

You have set out, first, in your letter and, secondly, in your comments today, two key reasons for that policy of maximum alignment. One is to maintain high standards, and the other is to avoid the unnecessary creation of additional non-tariff trade barriers—that is, the sorts of issues that we have been discussing in the TCA inquiry.

Is there not, though, a third objective of the policy, something that will actually become more important over time? Again, some people will disagree with this, but a clear majority in this Parliament—and a clear majority of the public—recognise that Brexit was a mistake and support rejoining, whether that be in the context of Scotland or the context of the UK. It might be a long-term objective—it might not happen in this decade and, to be even more pessimistic, might not even happen in the next—but surely the longer there is some divergence, the more value there is in minimising it and maximising alignment as best we can, so that when a process of rejoining becomes politically possible, it is not more complicated than it needs to be.

That is helpful, thank you.

More than a little.

I thank Clare Adamson and the rest of the committee for welcoming me back. I rejoined the committee at the turn of the parliamentary year, so I missed the bulk of the work that went into the first part of the inquiry, which led to the report that we are debating today. I want to acknowledge the work that went into that process and to thank the other members of the committee, the witnesses and the clerks for the work that they did.

I do not take credit for any of the work that went on before I rejoined the committee, but I have to say that, on rejoining it and beginning to catch up with the work that it had done in that period, I was struck by the level of agreement that has clearly been achieved in a report on what could otherwise have been quite contentious political territory. It is striking not only that there was consensus among the politicians on the committee, but that the broad sweep of evidence that the committee took showed a very strong level of consensus on the scale of the harm that Brexit has done and on the fact that the trade and co-operation agreement, although it is necessary, does not, in fact, solve or wish away that harm. Indeed, in some ways, it entrenches it.

Whether we are focused on Scotland or the UK, the country now faces significant non-tariff barriers, as several members have mentioned. I think that Neil Bibby mentioned chilli cheese bites; I am sure that the same issue applies to edible produce. The impacts that those non-tariff barriers have do not affect only products; they affect people’s lives—their jobs, their livelihoods and their wellbeing.

The lack of regulatory alignment also undermines human wellbeing. When we talk about regulatory alignment, we are not talking simply about red tape in the abstract. We are talking about rules that have been carefully and painstakingly developed over many years in order to protect human health, wellbeing and our safety.