Brexit (Support for Companies)

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 17 March 2021.

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Photo of Richard Lyle Richard Lyle Scottish National Party

8. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the action it is taking to support companies that have been the most impacted by a loss of business due to Brexit. (S5O-05129)

Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party

The

Scottish Government is deeply concerned by emerging evidence that Brexit is having a severe impact on the ability of Scottish companies to trade effectively and competitively with the European Union, with lasting consequences. The Scottish Government will continue to work hard to address the problems and blockages that are being faced by companies where it is in our power to do so. We are working with our partner agencies, business organisations and others to assess the impact of Brexit and to help companies to adapt to new trading arrangements.

Photo of Richard Lyle Richard Lyle Scottish National Party

It has been reported that exports to the EU are down by 40 per cent. Does the cabinet secretary believe that United Kingdom politicians who misled voters and firms to support Brexit should now apologise for misleading them?

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

I call Michael Russell to answer his final question and make his final remarks.

Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party

I do indeed hope that they will apologise, but many of my hopes have come to nothing in recent years, so I am not holding my breath for that.

Presiding Officer, thank you for allowing me to spend just a few moments on what I think will be almost my final remarks in the chamber, after 18 years as an MSP. I say “almost”, because I may have to move a motion this evening.

First, I want to say sorry. I know that that will surprise people, but I noticed in a recent article that one member singled me out as the person they most disliked in the Parliament. Given that one of my many faults is that I find it hard to resist a good line, I know that I have rubbed some people up the wrong way, sometimes on several occasions and sometimes even my own colleagues, so I start by saying sorry to those whom I have upset or offended, on any side of the chamber. I suppose that retirement is a fresh start—and who could resist that? I just hope that I can now behave myself for the last few days in this place.

I stress, as much as possible, the importance of polite, courteous and constructive speech, here perhaps more than anywhere else. It is not easy for politicians, and the polarising effect of social media, the pressures of lockdown and the frustrations of Brexit, among other impositions, have made this place more fractious and less friendly than it once was. However, freedom of speech does not just mean being free to be nasty to each other; we should try to be as constructive, civilized and courteous as possible. That approach is what the people of Scotland thought they were getting back in 1999. We have not been able to live up to that as much as we might have done, but perhaps this institution can recapture that spirit, for itself and for the health of democracy, in the next session. It is a worthy ambition, but there are other ambitions that the Parliament should have, too.

Scotland has benefited greatly from the restoration of its Parliament after almost 300 years of recess. I have been grateful for the opportunity to play a role in securing that and in helping to nurture the infant institution. It has grown well, but it has further to grow.

It will be no surprise to anyone that I believe that this place must have the full powers of a full and normal independent Parliament before we can do our job for the people of Scotland to the full extent that this country needs, particularly as we rebuild post-pandemic. If some disagree with that—and some still do—we should surely be ambitious for Scotland and its democracy.

Scotland is a better country than it was when the Parliament was restored, and I think that it is a better country since the Scottish National Party entered government in 2007, but we can all do more, both in how we use our current powers and with the powers that we need to regain.

Increasingly, democracy is not just about what powers but about who gets to exercise them. We need to recognise that democracy is changing fast. The horrid experience of Covid and the resulting lockdown has accelerated a desire in communities across the country for change. They are telling us that nothing should be done to them or agreed for them that has not been decided with them.

Of course, the same imperative drives the issue of independence. It is also true, in Scotland, that nothing should be done to us or for us that has not been decided by us, but we must ensure that that imperative is answered across the country at every level. That is the developing challenge. The radical views of the citizens assembly are a sign of things to come. Power will have to shift and be shared, not just by the Parliament but by each party in the Parliament. Westminster must accept that in terms of Scottish self-determination, and this Parliament must accept it for all our communities, and embrace and enable it.

Edwin Morgan, our great first makar, told us, when we took possession of this wonderful building, to open our doors. He wrote:

“We give you our consent to govern, don’t pocket it and ride away.

We give you our deepest dearest wish to govern well, don’t say we have no mandate to be so bold.”

Boldness will be needed again—indeed, its time has arrived.

Finally, I will thank a few people for what I have experienced. I thank all my colleagues in this place and in the Government, at least a few of whom I hope to regard as friends still; I hope that they will think the same of me. I thank my two deputy ministers, and others with whom I have worked—I am sure that Graeme Dey and Jenny Gilruth in particular have great futures ahead of them once I am no longer holding them back.

I thank the many parliamentary officers and staff who have done so much for me over the years, including in my role as a founder member of the first Parliamentary Bureau, of which I am the last member still in this place, and subsequently in attempting difficult, but not impossible, tasks such as taking a complex bill through all its stages in a single day, as we did together last April.

I thank all the imaginative and dedicated civil servants at every level with whom I have worked in six different ministerial roles. In particular, I thank those who have led my private offices during that time, who have become key advisers and friends: my private secretary since 2007, Scott Sutherland, Darren Dixon, Laura Holton, Ellen Burt, and the one who has suffered Brexit with me, and suffered me for most of the past five years, Kirsty Hamilton.

In my constituency, I express my thanks to Ron Simon, who set up my office in Dunoon and who, tragically, is no longer with us. I also thank my extraordinary and talented team: Heather Wolfe, Keir Low and, above all, Marie-Claire Docherty. I am going to miss them all. I also thank my family, of course, who may now see more of me, if they so wish.

Finally—it is honestly finally, Presiding Officer—I thank those who allowed me to come here, not to speak for myself but to speak for them. Not only is Argyll and Bute, encompassing as it does not only 23 inhabited islands but a large part of the western seaboard of Scotland, the most beautiful constituency in Scotland; its people are among the very best. It has been a huge honour, and nearly always a huge pleasure, to have served them to the best of my ability over the past decade, and to have served the people of the South of Scotland, whom I represented for two sessions before that. I say to them: thank you for trusting me—I hope that I have, in the greatest part, done what you wanted, expected and needed, and I hope that you choose Jenni Minto to do even more.

I have quoted Edmund Burke in the chamber before, but it does no harm for me to do so again, and remind us of his wisdom. Addressing the electors of Bristol in 1774—the very electors who threw him out five years later—he wrote this:

“it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents ... It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures ... to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.”

I said my first words in what was then the newly convened Scottish Parliament on 13 May 1999—the second sitting day, when I raised a point of order concerning the election of the First Minister. I spoke for the first time in this chamber as the newly appointed Minister for Environment—the best job that I ever had—on 31 May 2007. I must have spoken here hundreds of times since, although, not being Stewart Stevenson, I have not kept count.

Now I am speaking for the last time, although I may move a motion later on. I am grateful to you all for listening. Thank you. [

Applause

.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

T hank you very much, Mr Russell. That concludes portfolio questions.