Chamber and committees

No—I am running out of time.

The Government has trashed the yard’s reputation, and it should not dare blame anyone else for that. The responsibility is with SNP ministers and no one else.

Will the minister take an intervention?

Will the member give way on that point?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

I am an internationalist and I believe in forging strong, lasting and progressive relationships across the world. In principle, therefore, I support the committee’s report and the Government’s intention to work across the world. There could be less said about independence and more about progressive and lasting relationships, but nevertheless it is important.

However, yesterday’s document was a rather flimsy attempt at an international strategy. Instead of the grand words that we heard from the cabinet secretary in his speech, I would like to see more substance on the delivery. As Sarah Boyack set out, an awful lot of progress is required. The cabinet secretary’s speech was a masterclass in evasion. He completely avoided my question about the Erasmus programme, which I will come back to.

It was rather insulting of the Government to launch the document on the keeping pace with the EU approach this morning, just before this debate on the committee’s report, which deals with a major part of that. We would have expected an opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s response before the debate, so it was rather disrespectful of the cabinet secretary to wait until this moment, six months after the committee had asked for a response to its report. It means that we have not been able to scrutinise the Government’s response or to look at whether it has eventually caught up with its grand and lofty ambitions to keep pace with the EU, as it set out during the Brexit negotiations.

We support the measures on keeping pace with the European Union, but we thought that the Government knew what it was saying when it talked about them. Therefore, we are surprised that it has taken so long after the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 was agreed by Parliament for the Government eventually to come up with a prioritisation strategy that will deliver what was originally set out back in 2021, and before.

Turning to Erasmus, I am just flabbergasted at the Scottish Government. It made lofty claims that it was going to replace the Erasmus scheme for Scotland, saying that the Turing scheme was inadequate because it was only a one-way scheme, rather than a reciprocal one. A year ago, thanks to Kirsty Williams, who was the Welsh Liberal Democrat education minister at the time, the Welsh launched a reciprocal scheme worth £65 million, which is better than the Turing scheme and works within the UK context. However, as has been revealed in The Herald today, we still do not even have a date for the consultation for Scotland’s replacement for the Erasmus scheme. This stuff matters. We can have great and lofty speeches such as the one that the cabinet secretary delivered earlier, but unless we deliver on the substance it means nothing at all.

The Government talks about things such as independence rather than getting on and delivering for people right now. Young people could be getting educated right now in other parts of Europe and the world if we replicated the scheme that they have in Wales, but the Scottish Government still does not have a date for consulting on a Scottish version of the scheme. Let us get on with this stuff, rather than making lofty speeches such as the one we heard earlier.

There was also an acceptance, somehow, that Scotland has a great record on international human rights. That is not what I remember from six years ago, when Parliament was debating the £10 billion SinoFortone Group and China Railway Company No 3 Engineering Group deal and the human rights abuses in Africa. We have not heard about those things today, but we heard about them six years ago. The Government shamefacedly had to rip up its agreement, which the First Minister had signed even though the Norwegian oil fund had blacklisted the China railway group several years before because of widespread corruption, and even though Amnesty International had published a report that tied the China railway group to illegal forced evictions in Africa.

Even though all that had been on the record and available, the Scottish Government turned a blind eye and signed the £10 billion deal with SinoFortone. It turned out that all it owned was a pub in the middle of England so, even then, the Scottish Government was duped.

Consider the treatment of the Dalai Lama when he visited Scotland a few years earlier: the First Minister at the time refused to meet him after pressure from Chinese officials. So much for human rights.

Consider the jailed Qatari poet who was not mentioned by Humza Yousaf when he visited Qatar in 2013—he was advised not to mention that very important human rights issue.

It seems quite clear that, at the time of those events, the Scottish Government was prepared to turn a blind eye in order to secure finance from those countries. That is not a glowing human rights record. We should hear less about Scotland’s global reputation on human rights, especially when that is this Government’s track record.

We should perhaps focus more on developing a progressive internationalist approach, working together and keeping pace with Europe, developing the Erasmus scheme, getting on and delivering rather than making lofty, evasive speeches in the chamber.

I hope that the cabinet secretary will respond to every single one of the points that I have made. He said that he would respond on the Erasmus scheme, but I also want to hear his response on human rights issues and on how on earth his Government will improve its reputation globally rather than publishing flimsy documents, as happened yesterday.

Was the member surprised that the minister did not respond to the fact that the Welsh Government has gone further and announced a £65 million equivalent to the Erasmus scheme, which is now a year old? What was the committee’s discussion about the Welsh programme? Could the programme be applied to Scotland?

This is all fine, but we really need to get to the substance of where the Government has not been progressing. As The Herald reports today, Scotland still has no replacement for the Erasmus scheme, while Wales has had one for a year already. Why is the Scottish Government dragging its feet on setting up the Erasmus scheme’s replacement?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

If that is all true, why do ferries keep breaking down and why do islanders keep waiting for new ferries?