Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 7 March 2019.
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.