Hansard

I start by making it absolutely clear that Scottish Labour supports alignment with the European Union, which is why we supported the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021. For us, the debate is about transparency and the Parliament’s ability to scrutinise ministers’ decisions and the Scottish Government’s actions.

I have to say that there is a bit of an irony when Donald Cameron suggests that parliamentary transparency is a technical issue, because it is fundamental to how we operate. The cabinet secretary’s reply to the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, following its consideration of the statement, did not go far enough, although we acknowledge that he made a couple of commitments to us.

The statement that is being considered does not give Parliament adequate scrutiny of the decisions taken by ministers on where to align with the EU and where not to. It will focus only on the areas where the Scottish Government decides to align with the EU, but members of the Scottish Parliament, parliamentary committees and wider stakeholders must have the ability to scrutinise not only where the Scottish Government decides to align, but where it decides not to align. An up-to-date website would have been a very useful and easily accessible tool for MSPs, businesses, the wider public and environmental campaigners.

Secondly, there is an issue about reporting on consultations. We want clarity, and I hope that the cabinet secretary will give us more of that. We mentioned at the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee that we need a list of relevant consultations and we need to see what everybody says, but we did not get clarity on that.

Thirdly, we do not think that there is a strong enough commitment from the cabinet secretary to secure a memorandum of understanding between the Scottish Government and the Parliament on scrutiny of these matters. Simply welcoming our suggestion does not go far enough. There is no milestone for completing the discussions and no clear commitment to definitively have a memorandum of understanding. We need that.

This debate is about transparency. It is vital that we can do our job as democratically elected members. The Scottish Government must be transparent and give us a clear commitment that it will be transparent, not just on EU legislation where it seeks to maintain alignment but where it does not seek alignment, because people might not agree with that judgment and might want the Scottish Government to align.

There is an irony in that the Tory UK Government has been completely inadequate in delivering parliamentary scrutiny on trade deals and other Brexit-related matters, whereas the SNP has stood up for parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that we will get a commitment from the Government to change the statement, because we cannot support it as it currently stands. We will vote against it today, but, if the cabinet secretary takes on our points, we will support a revised statement that enables greater transparency and scrutiny so that we can do our job, make sure that we can see where alignment is needed, take the debate into the Parliament and have proper scrutiny of the cabinet secretary and his colleagues.