3. To ask the Scottish Government what preparations it is making for business continuity with wholesale food providers in the event of a no-deal Brexit. (S5O-02957)

As it will for all parts of the food and drink supply chain in Scotland, a no-deal Brexit is likely to have serious consequences for the wholesale sector. As it happens, I had a meeting just this morning with the Scottish Wholesale Association, as the member may know.

In an interesting discussion the association told me specifically about the disadvantages that are already being experienced because of the possibility of no deal.

Bidfood is a large wholesale provider that is based in Newbridge, in my constituency. These are anxious times for that company. Can the Scottish Government reassure Bidfood that it will get information as soon as it becomes available for contingency planning and that the Scottish Government will do what it can to ensure continuity in the supply chain so that Bidfood can continue trading in the way that it does now?

I am happy to provide that assurance, which I provided to Bidfood’s representative at the meeting this morning.

The wholesale sector says that storage costs are already rising and there is hardly any, if any, chilled storage capacity. There are already price impacts and some instances of stockpiling by major players. I agreed that we would of course keep the wholesale sector, which is an important sector of our economy in the member’s constituency among others, fully advised as far as we are able to. However, we can advise the sector of information only once we have it. Sadly, there has been an information deficit from the United Kingdom Government of late.

The cabinet secretary will have seen reports that some overseas customers have already started buying produce from elsewhere. Does he share my concern about the impact that that could have on exporters and on livestock farmers in particular who, according to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, could face European Union tariffs of 70 per cent on beef and 45 per cent on lamb post-Brexit?

What is the Scottish Government doing to help our exporters of food and livestock find alternative markets in that scenario?

We are in regular contact with exporters and their representatives; I have had weekly discussions with them. There is a Scottish Government resilience room—SGoRR—meeting this afternoon, which my colleague Mairi Gougeon will be at. My officials are in regular contact with companies and we provide export assistance in a number of ways, including an element of financial support.

However, there is only so much that we can do and the problems are so serious that—frankly—it may be impossible to mitigate them. The consequences of no deal, particularly for the red meat sector, would be extremely serious. That is why no deal must be removed from the table. It can be removed and not to do so is not just a run-of-the-mill Government mistake. There is no Government in the world that does not make mistakes, but this is negligence, recklessness and culpability, and it needs to be sorted now.

Any delay in transporting fresh food would have a disastrous effect, with whole consignments being lost. What contingencies are being put in place to protect wholesalers and producers who stand to lose those consignments?

Rhoda Grant is quite right. The export of, for example, shellfish from the Highlands and Islands, which is the area that we both represent, is subject to very tight timelines. The supply to markets in Italy and Spain, for example, has timelines that mean that, if there is a delay of longer than a few hours, the whole consignment becomes valueless.

Therefore, we have done a power of work to try to ensure that drivers have permits to drive in Europe—there is a real problem with that. Also, the aquaculture sector says that the number of export health certificates required would rise from 50,000 to 200,000, at an additional cost of £15 million, which is quite ridiculous. We have worked with local authorities to have a contingency plan for export health certificates, which are dealt with by environmental health officers, to deal with a four-fold increase in workload, and we have undertaken other measures to ensure that information is passed out to all processors, so far as we have it.

There is only so much that the Government can do to mitigate and anticipate without the hard information that we need from the UK Government about the impact of whatever it finally decides to do. It is impossible to fully prevent the enormous damage that will be caused, not least to our inshore fishermen and all those who rely on them.