Chamber and committees

Thank you for the opportunity to join you this morning, convener. I thank the committee for carrying out the inquiry and the witnesses for their evidence. I have raised the issue in Parliament on a number of occasions.

My children are learning to swim, but it was delayed because of Covid. I am aware of the increases in costs and reductions in opening hours, which are making it difficult for children and young people to access the opportunity to swim. There are benefits for people of all ages, but I want to focus on the fact that, as Fergus Ewing said, we have to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn to swim and to learn the basics of water safety. I commend the work that Scottish Swimming is doing and the work that Duncan Scott is doing on the swimming framework.

It is clear that, at present, we have a postcode lottery. My question follows on from Fergus Ewing’s question. If we want to ensure that every child has the chance to swim, do you agree that that needs to be a national priority and a national mission? Previously, 40 per cent of children left primary school unable to swim, but when I asked the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport for the latest figures, the Scottish Government was unable to tell me what they were. In addition to making it a national priority and a national mission, do you agree that we need a national audit? To tackle the problem, we need to understand its extent so that we can address it at the national level.

No. As Mr Ewing did, I thank the witnesses for their clear and concise answers.

After the change of Government last July, the first visit that the Prime Minister made outside of London was to Scotland to meet with the First Minister. Since then, UK Government ministerial colleagues have met with Scottish Government ministers, including you, on a number of occasions. There is also regular and good dialogue between officials. Do you not accept that there has been a reset in relations, and that that bodes well for common frameworks?

In line with the guidance that the convener gave earlier, and in the context of the review of the UK internal market act, what lessons does the Scottish Government draw from its role and how it conducted itself in relation to the deposit return scheme, and from the reasons why an exclusion was not applied to that scheme?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Obviously, we know about the importance of the UK internal market to Scotland and the whole UK. There may have been different views about the internal market act in the evidence that we took, but the strength of opinion on the UK internal market was pretty unanimous, I think.

For example, in written evidence, the Scottish Retail Consortium said that

“Scottish Consumers benefit enormously from open and frictionless trade”,

and NFU Scotland said:

“The UK Internal Market is critical to the interests of Scottish agriculture and the vitally important food and drinks sector it underpins.”

In oral evidence, Mags Simpson from the CBI said:

“Our biggest customer is England, so anything that creates barriers to that trade is not going to be helpful.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 27 March 2025; c 9.]

We know that, in 2021, exports to the rest of the UK were estimated to be more than £48.6 billion.

Obviously, there is a balance to be struck between potential regulatory divergence and protecting the internal market. It always has been, and always will be, a difficult balance to strike.

However, I am interested in the wording. The SRC referred to “open and frictionless trade”, and the CBI referred to

“anything that creates barriers to trade”.

The Scottish Government’s position is that there should be

“no unnecessary barriers to trade”.

It would be helpful to outline more about the Scottish Government’s decision to use that terminology, and what is meant by that. The word “unnecessary” suggests that there could be necessary barriers to trade. There may be issues with things such as rodent glue traps, but those have such a small economic impact that it does not make much difference. Nonetheless, I want to hear a bit more from the Scottish Government’s perspective about necessary versus unnecessary barriers to trade.

I appreciate that this is not a simple issue to deal with and that there are no simple answers.

I would be interested to get your thoughts on some of the other evidence that we have received. The Scottish Retail Consortium said:

“Our experience in the devolved nations indicates the Act has an effect on regulatory policy in those nations, eventually encouraging a more considered approach.”

Do you agree with that?

We have spoken at length about these issues. Mr Strathie, you talked about the balance to be struck between devolved Governments being able to have some regulatory divergence while maintaining frictionless trade across the United Kingdom. Those are both good things, but they sometimes run counter to each other, and we all accept that it is difficult to strike that balance. As we have discussed, that takes us to common frameworks, common sense and co-operation instead of conflict.

Notwithstanding the concerns about regulatory divergence, do you share the concerns that any legal changes to the internal market act could result in a situation in which nothing gets done and there is a stalemate across the UK that prevents us from making changes that could be positive for business? Should we be alive to those concerns?

However, you agree that we need to avoid gridlock.

Ms Simpson, you said that you support the internal market act but that there would be additional concerns.

Yes, that is my point.