Meeting of the Parliament 15 May 2025
I thank the Liberal Democrats for their support for the Government’s motion. It has been drafted in a way that has received a welcome from other parties, which is a good thing.
Mr Cole-Hamilton’s raising of defence and security issues is also relevant for us all. We have tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Scotland, and the Scottish Government supports the United Kingdom Government’s interventions in helping to secure a just peace for Ukraine. As I will come on to later in my speech, we are approaching a United Kingdom-European Union summit next week, at which defence and security will be important parts of the discussion. We support the UK Government’s position on those issues, but there are others where things are a little more challenging. I will come to those later and, if Mr Cole-Hamilton wishes to intervene at that point, I will be happy to take an intervention from him.
The ideals that led to the founding of the European Economic Community and then of the European Union will be at the forefront of our minds—and, I hope, at the forefront of the minds of those in the UK Government—when, on Monday, the Prime Minister will meet the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council for what UK ministers are calling a “reset” summit on UK-EU relations. Tragically, that summit takes place as war has returned to our continent, our international institutions are under threat, the far right is rising across the globe and many people sense that we live in an increasingly divided and polarised world.
On Sunday, I chaired a Festival of Europe Scotland event held by the Scottish Council on Global Affairs entitled, “Beyond the UK, beyond the EU–what in the world lies ahead?” It was a fascinating and sobering discussion about the challenges that we are living through, but it was also about how to use these times to offer hope and optimism for the future. We have long known that the major challenges of today, such as humanitarian emergencies, climate change and resource insecurity, can be addressed only by working together as a global community.
The Scottish Government of course supports closer partnership between the UK and the EU on defence and security challenges, including on our shared and unwavering support for Ukraine and on condemnation of Russia and the threat that it poses, which we cannot underestimate. Global instability, particularly the on-going threat of a trade war, is having economic impacts everywhere, including here in Scotland and in the rest of the UK.