Meeting of the Parliament 29 November 2022
I am not entirely convinced where Sarah Boyack’s intervention comes from. I am talking about the fact that her party is now entirely committed to Brexit.
If the two great public democratic expressions that I mentioned are ignored, we should fear what disregard Westminster will have for long-established best practice on issues such as the welfare and treatment of animals or on weakening stringent checks on animals entering the food chain. During the 19 October House of Commons debate on the Scottish devolution settlement, which was secured by my Scottish National Party colleague Brendan O’Hara MP, the UK Government minister refused to answer a question on what would happen if food regulations were reduced and chlorinated chicken was allowed into the country, even if the Scottish Government prohibited that in terms of food safety responsibilities under devolution. The silence spoke volumes.
We should not just use the dodging of political questions by the UK Government to illustrate concerns. As I have stated in the chamber many times before, my background is in farming, and I have an awareness of many of the issues that the agricultural industries face. Scotland’s food and drink sector employs 365,000 people in one way or another, and industry voices tell us that all those people have legitimate concerns over their future. Farmers feel forgotten and undervalued, thanks to the reckless post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand. As Jenni Minto has pointed out, the former Government minister who agreed to the deals at the time has now recognised that they are bad deals, especially for our industries in Scotland. Further, the “sea of opportunity” that was peddled to our fishing folk simply did not materialise.
The Sunak Government has an opportunity to slow down on the current destructive path that Westminster has wandered down since dragging Scotland out of the European Union against its wishes. Unfortunately, in an interview about the economy that he gave last week, Mr Sunak was more concerned about preventing refugees seeking safe haven on this island than considering the economic wrecking ball that he and his Brexiteering friends have taken to the economy.
The Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture has outlined that Westminster should not bypass our Parliament on matters that potentially deregulate high existing standards and in ways that clearly go against the wishes of the Scottish public.
A week on from Scotland’s right to democracy being ignored at the Supreme Court, the bill goes some way to showing what the future will look like. I fear that the mission statement of “taking back control of our statute book” is just another way of enacting a hard Brexit. This is just another reason why Scotland should be able to make the democratic decision to stay in this disaster or to choose our own path with independence.
15:28