Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 27 April 2022
In this chamber, we have discussed many times the value to Scotland of European Union membership. That value could be measured in many different ways and was not solely monetary. Nevertheless, EU funding has played an important role in our country’s economic and social development over many decades.
As if Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will were not bad enough, the UK Government has now broken two key promises. It promised that EU funding would be replaced so that Scotland would not lose out financially from Brexit, and it promised that devolution and this Parliament would be respected and strengthened post-Brexit. As the recent announcement illustrates, UK ministers have reneged on both of those key promises to Scotland.
Even before devolution, Scotland controlled its share of EU funding. We delivered about £6 billion of investment to thousands of projects that directly benefited Scottish communities. We were respected as equals by the EU. Now, we have the UK Government’s replacement for four decades of EU funding, the shared prosperity fund. Given the publication of the fund’s prospectus, let me reinforce a point that I have made before: it seems that, for the UK Government, “levelling up” means losing out for all of Scotland.