Rural Economy (Impact of European Union Exit)

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 21 January 2021.

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Photo of Jamie Halcro Johnston Jamie Halcro Johnston Conservative

I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, and as a partner in a farming business, I know that many farmers will laugh at the Scottish National Party lecturing others about IT failures when it is responsible for perhaps the biggest IT disaster in the history of farm payments, the effects of which are still being felt.

However, it is another week and another statement from the cabinet secretary—heavy on politics but light on actual policy. It was an all-too-typical rant, so let us get some facts on record.

Fergus Ewing talks about farm funding; the UK Government has guaranteed to protect farm funding until 2024—that is a commitment that Fergus Ewing could not make if he had his way and Scotland was outside the UK. The Scottish Government promised a report on future farm funding by the end of 2020; it is 2021 and that promise to Scotland’s farmers has been utterly broken. When will we know what the SNP proposes?

Fergus Ewing said that no-deal Brexit would cause irreparable damage to the economy and to people’s lives, then he voted against a trade deal that NFU Scotland welcomed.

Fergus Ewing said today that he has increased the number of staff at Food Standards Scotland, which is an admission that he did not put in place enough staff to begin with. Although Mr Ewing pretends to be against trade barriers, the Scottish National Party’s policy of independence would erect more trade barriers between Scotland’s farmers and the rest of the UK and the world than any form of EU exit. Is it not time that the SNP was honest with rural Scotland?