Meeting of the Parliament 14 March 2023
What an interesting debate. I agree with Daniel Johnson that trade is a good thing. If he has read our “A Trading Nation—a plan for growing Scotland’s exports”, he will be well aware that that is stated right up front and centre. He will be well aware of the trade missions that I relentlessly undertake on behalf of Scottish businesses—I am off on another one next week, to Poland with Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. If he is paying attention, he will be aware that, as part of those trade missions, I engage with the UK Government Department of Business and Trade—it is no longer the Department for International Trade—UK ambassadors and UK trade commissioners. We work together closely, where that makes sense, to support Scottish business.
Daniel Johnson talks about the benefit of trade. He will be aware that Brexit has, of course, done the biggest harm to trade. His party still supports that policy, and it has, for some bizarre reason, been unable to bring itself to recognise the faults of Brexit as it seeks to become the next UK Government.
A formal process exists in other subnational Governments, of course. We have proposed such a process to the UK Government from the outset of Brexit in 2016, with policies that we have put forward. We have relentlessly attempted to engage with the UK Government on a more structured mechanism, but it has refused to engage on that.
On accountability, the Scottish ministers are, of course, accountable to the Scottish Parliament. As Daniel Johnson knows, the process is that the Scottish Government would take forward proposals, but it would bring them to the Parliament or a committee as appropriate, and Parliament would, of course, have the ability to scrutinise decisions. The point is that, despite what Willie Rennie says, it is not through our lack of trying that trade deals are not coming here to be scrutinised by the Parliament; that is because of what the UK Government has decided to do.