Meeting of the Parliament 11 September 2025
I am four minutes in and that would be the fourth intervention, so I will keep going.
We can all agree that exporters need additional support, and we are providing it through a six-point export plan that was announced in the most recent programme for government. We have been explicitly clear on the crucial contribution that export growth makes to Scotland’s economic prosperity. As Daniel Johnson said, in 2019, we published the first export growth plan—“A Trading Nation: a plan for growing Scotland’s exports”. At its core, the plan was clear that we best increase the percentage of exports comprising Scotland’s GDP by focusing on those companies, sectors of the economy and international markets that offer Scotland the greatest export growth potential.
Of course, the world evolves and changes, and so does the work that we do within the framework of “A Trading Nation”. Since 2019, we have flexed our delivery to meet the challenges of the pandemic and Brexit, but also to seize emerging opportunities. We have published a series of sector export plans, including for the renewables and hydrogen sectors, to take action now to seize the opportunities of the future. Earlier today, we published an update to the priority international markets for Scottish exports to ensure that those efforts and activities abroad continue to be targeted at areas with the greatest potential return for Scotland’s economy.
It is always worth looking at the impact of particular support. In 2023, an independent evaluation of Scotland’s export support and promotion delivery showed that supported companies achieved £1.6 billion in additional exports; companies that received support grew exports by 140 per cent more than similar firms without support; 53 per cent of companies created or safeguarded jobs; and more than half introduced new products or improved processes, which shows strong wider economic impact.
Building on all that, on 1 September, Scottish Enterprise announced the highest-ever forecast sales figures, which I mentioned, of almost £2.5 billion.
I turn to the six-point export plan, which, specifically, increases our business support offer to exporters from Scottish Enterprise, increases our investment in sector export plans, and increases the scope of our international trade partnership programme, which members will know that we run in collaboration with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce. The plan increases the number of inward trade missions to showcase Scotland’s export strength to international buyers, and it will increase the number of outward trade missions that we deliver, exposing even more Scottish companies to new and emerging international markets. We will publish an export plan specifically for the United States to allow us to focus on the specific areas of that vast critical market that present Scottish companies with the greatest opportunity.
With an additional £1.6 million of investment, building on the existing annual support for the “A Trading Nation” strategy and Scottish Enterprise’s work on international growth, we will deliver a 33 per cent increase in the number of chambers trade missions and help an extra 100 exporters to find new customers in order to generate an additional £75 million of forecast export sales.
We have also set out actions that we are taking to close the export gap among women-led businesses. Taken together, those actions will help Scotland to maintain its place.
As of August 2025, more than 11 per cent of Scottish businesses reported that they were being affected by new US tariffs. That rises to nearly 23 per cent among goods exporters, who also noted that the most common issues were increased costs and supply chain disruption. A quarter of goods exporters were expecting to be affected in this month of September. The issues that we seek to address are real and are affecting businesses right now.
Just yesterday, Richard Lochhead and I met business leaders to discuss their concerns on trade, share some of the details of the additional support that we are providing and take on board any further suggestions that they had.
When Scottish Enterprise announced its highest-ever forecast export sales results, it did so at Piramal in Grangemouth—a fantastic example of how a company exporting from Scotland can support jobs and the local economy.
We want to work constructively with others—even others in this chamber—as we advance Scotland’s export ambitions. When the First Minister met the President of the United States earlier this summer, he reiterated the Scottish Government’s strong support for efforts to finalise the remaining elements of the UK-US deal and provide long-term certainty and stability to our transatlantic trading partnership. He put issues such as whisky on the trade deal agenda during that meeting and, of course, in a meeting with the President earlier this week, he continued to press for a better deal on whisky tariffs, which are currently costing £4 million per week.
We have also worked closely and collaboratively with the UK Government as we support our exporters, including recently in the assessment and response to the impacts of US tariffs.
On some levels, that has been effective. However, on other levels—as was demonstrated through the lack of engagement on the publication of the UK Government trade strategy in June this year—there is a risk that we are not harnessing our collective capacity as we could.
More fundamental issues persist. We continue to call on the UK Government to fully address the continuing damaging impacts of Brexit on Scottish and UK trade. In that regard, the Government remains firm in its view that the best means of growing Scottish trade in the EU is by rejoining the EU.
Presiding Officer, I note that I am out of time. I have not quite finished—