A good new year to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to colleagues.
I, too, am grateful for sight of the statement by the Secretary of State. Trade deals are the ultimate curate’s egg—there are things to admire and things to dislike in all of them. There are things to admire in this deal. I am grateful for that, and I welcome such progress as has been made. In the European Parliament, I was in favour of ambitious trade deals, and often found myself voting against the deals that had been negotiated because I thought that they could go further on environmental standards, human rights and climate change. In this deal, there really is a missed opportunity on climate change. It could have gone an awful lot further with one of the key countries in the world in the fight against climate change, and the standards could have been an awful lot higher.
I am struck, as ever, by the capacity of Government Members to become giddy with excitement about the upsides and hypothetical benefits of Brexit while ignoring the real-world consequences in the cost and heartache of leaving the European Union—in Scotland’s case, very much against our will. In the best-case scenario, taking the Government’s figures at their best, this deal will increase UK GDP by 0.08% by 2035. That is not nothing—and I welcome it—but the Office for Budget Responsibility, by contrast, has calculated that we will lose a full 4% of GDP. We need to look at that in the round, and Members need to see the deal in context.
This is not the last time that we will discuss this issue, so I will limit my remarks to agriculture and future scrutiny. I quote Martin Kennedy, the president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland:
“The final deal…shows a complete dearth of proper consultation with farming and food sector interests across the UK. While we are not against free trade, this deal appears to be very one sided, with little to no advantage for Scottish farmers”.
I could not have said it better. If covid and Brexit have taught us anything it is that indigenous food production across these islands—indeed, across this continent—and short supply chains are vital to our national security
and national resilience, however we define “national”. Anything that undermines that will be viewed with extreme scepticism by SNP Members.
On scrutiny, to what extent can anyone influence a deal that has already been signed? If the Trade and Agriculture Commission makes a recommendation against part of this deal, what happens? That is a genuine question. What input will there be for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly. If any of them says no to any part of the deal, what happens?