Chamber and committees

The First Minister will have seen reports over Easter recess that Sidara has been given additional time to come forward with an updated bid for the Wood Group. That is concerning for two reasons. First, there is the potential loss of headquarters functions and the associated expertise from the Aberdeen headquarters. Secondly, the Wood Group is critical to our ability to deliver engineering in the North Sea, which is vital for our renewables future.

It is my understanding that the pressure on the Wood Group’s lenders has led to that situation. What discussions has the First Minister had directly with the Wood Group about that? Has the Scottish Government or its agencies explored the possibility of financial guarantees or facilities that might ease the short-term pressures and retain this vital Scottish company in Scottish ownership?

I will take a moment to add to the many reflections about the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis. I would probably put myself in the latter category when we talk about people “of all faiths and none”—at best, I would probably describe myself as a lapsed Presbyterian—but Pope Francis genuinely gave me inspiration in relation to how to reflect on the world and think about other people. That is relevant to today’s debate, because we find ourselves in a unique and unprecedented global context.

In preparation for this debate without a motion, not quite knowing which direction it would take, I was reflecting on Francis Fukuyama’s infamous quote about the end of history and on how wrong we were. We now have war in Europe—not just a peripheral war but one that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties and deaths. It is genuine interstate warfare the likes of which we have not seen in 80 years.

We are also seeing the resurrection of trade wars and tariffs, which saw the Dow Jones index drop by 5 per cent on 3 April, with a subsequent 6 per cent drop on 4 April on the back of just one announcement. That is a return to protectionism the likes of which we have not seen for generations.

Moreover, we have seen a return of the strongman, authoritarian approach to statecraft—one that is increasingly prevalent closer to home, in Europe, not in far-off lands. I do not want to name names, but we know the regimes within the European Union that are seeing those strong authoritarian trends.

I reflect on that, and I sound a note of caution for today’s debate. We are right to worry about the rise of the right, but let us not treat these things as though they are happening in different places. They are happening all around us and we should have seen the signs. The reality is that the number of democracies has fallen from 45 to 29 since 2009. There has been a doubling in the number of authoritarian regimes around the world, and we have seen an erosion of the rule of law, even in Trump’s approach.

We need to be cautious about our description of Trump, but we should not have been surprised. We are talking about a president who, when he was in the White House previously, blocked the appointment of judges to the appellate court of the World Trade Organization, which fundamentally blocked that institution. He did not believe in the global institutions that enable free trade and movement of goods.

During the past decade or more, we have also seen increasing levels of democratic interference and an increasing number of proxy wars. Audrey Nicoll was absolutely right to highlight the overflights of Russian aircraft and the disruption of undersea cables. It is all around us, and it has been happening for some time. It did not just start happening in 2022; it has been happening for well over a decade.

I have to disagree with my Conservative colleagues. Although I agree with many of the points that have been raised about the way in which the Government uses its time, I point out that sometimes the Government tiptoes around some of these issues, but these are so profound that we have to talk about them. There are profound issues about national security, the relationship between national security and economic security, industrial policy and what we must do, and those absolutely touch on devolved areas.

A point that I raised with the First Minister was that, fundamentally, we need to reflect on the failure of globalisation. I would argue that globalisation has been a force for good—it raised 1 billion people out of poverty—but it undoubtedly eroded some of the economic structures in our society and increased inequality. It increased and exacerbated poverty, and we failed to address that. We need to reflect on that. We also need to reflect on the fact that co-operation requires much deeper interactions than simply membership, and we perhaps took that for granted.

Reflecting on what that means for us in this country, the interaction between economic and physical security is profound. We have to look at our industrial base. The UK Government was absolutely right to take ownership of the British Steel plant, because we have to produce things such as steel. Likewise, in Scotland, we need to think about the security of our energy generation. We have to ask questions about how comfortable we are in relying on other countries for fundamental parts of our supply chain and whether other state actors could interfere with our energy supply. Likewise, I gently say to the Government that, although I am pleased by what the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have said about our defence sector, the Scottish Government has at times been coy about talking about that sector. The past few months and years have brought into sharp relief how fundamentally important it is to our national security and in providing skilled jobs.

The prospect of independence has unfortunately been raised yet again. All I would say to the Government is that, at a time when the issues around the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap are rearing their heads, the thought that we can simply swap one union for another is a flawed concept. We are bound together in our relationship across these islands. Whether we like it or not, we have a shared responsibility to defend this patch of land that sits between the Atlantic and the North Sea. What the Russians are doing in the North Sea cannot be ignored, and we have to co-operate across these islands to defend this part of the world that we call our own.

We must learn the lessons of history. I referred to some global institutions earlier in my speech. It is a fact that many such institutions arose from the ashes of the second world war. Indeed, the Bretton Woods conference happened during the second world war because the relationship between the economy, politics and security was recognised. We cannot allow another global conflict to be the way that we find our path back to sound global institutions and global prosperity.

I am grateful to Jackson Carlaw and I apologise to Patrick Harvie.

We should not boycott Trump. We should be robust when we disagree, because, fundamentally, that is what he respects. Ultimately, however, we cannot disengage from the world’s biggest economy and, probably, our most enduring ally. Does Jackson Carlaw agree that that is the dichotomy that we must face?

My friend Paul O’Kane talks about education. One of the things that I remember about the Bosnian conflict was that it was seen as war returning to Europe, but we seem to have treated it as almost an aberration. With the war in Ukraine, does he agree that we need to take the matter and the prospect of war in Europe much more seriously, and that that is the real lesson from the Balkans conflict of the 1990s?

I agree with the First Minister’s points about the assumption of progress and the benefits that globalisation and trade have brought. Will he, like me, also reflect on the costs of globalisation, which we need to think about? Some of the circumstances that we find ourselves in may be because we did not pay enough attention to the inequalities and inequities that were created by globalisation and trade, despite the benefits that they have brought.

Will the member give way?

Will the First Minister give way?

I have to disagree with the member up to a point. Although this chamber is about devolved matters, the international situation impacts Scotland. For example, Scotland makes a vital contribution to the defence of this country. We have a substantial defence sector footprint, which this Administration has sometimes been rather coy about discussing. Is that not a relevant issue that we should absolutely be discussing in order to highlight some of this Administration’s shortfalls?

I thank the minister for that answer. We have become all too aware of instances of people wearing balaclavas in order to facilitate crime, whether that is riding illegal electric motorcycles or antisocial behaviour. It is definitely a component of the increasing violence against shop workers. Those issues have been rehearsed in the chamber.

It is frustrating for the police, because the simple act of wearing a balaclava to conceal one’s identity in order to facilitate a crime is not a crime in and of itself, although it is a crime in other countries. In England and Wales, in certain US states, in France and in Queensland in Australia, the use of a disguise with intent to commit crime is an offence. It stands to reason that, if a person conceals their face in order to facilitate crime, the police should be able to stop them and that it should be a crime. Does the minister agree with that, and will the Government review the legal situation?

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the reported prevalence and trend of crimes committed where the perpetrator was wearing a disguise, particularly in relation to antisocial behaviour. (S6O-04528)