Chamber and committees

I have one question, cabinet secretary, which is on the same theme that members have been pursuing. I will take a nostalgic look at what used to happen in the House of Commons. When I was studying European institutions in the 1980s, and Margaret Thatcher was pushing very hard for greater European integration and economic integration, it was a truism—certainly in academic circles—that there was virtually no effective scrutiny of EU legislation in its various forms.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the House of Commons committee that you mentioned, such work that was done was really carried out in the House of Lords, but even that was recognised to be insufficient, given the volume of things that was coming out of the EU. That is a big task for the UK Government, and it is a big task for the Scottish Government. I am really pleased to hear you use phrases such as “proportionate”. You used another phrase in your introductory statement—I cannot quite read it—pointing out that you cannot do all that stuff, which is quite right.

As has been discussed, one of the stated aims of the Scottish Government is to make it as easy as possible for Scotland to rejoin the EU. Has there been dialogue or is there any scope for there to be dialogue with the EU, either at the Council of Ministers or European Commission level, to find out what would be important to them for Scotland to align with, to make rejoining as easy as possible? I am not quite as pessimistic as Patrick Harvie about Scotland’s opportunity to re-enter the EU.

The previous inhibition to that dialogue was that the UK was the member state, so there were limited conversations between Scotland and the EU. That inhibition is no longer there. Is that dialogue happening, or is it possible to have dialogue, on what aspects are crucial to facilitate Scotland’s re-entry into the EU as rapidly as possible?

I want to put to you a question that has already been asked. Given the burden on the Scottish Government—of course it is a burden, including on civil servants and on this committee—in trying to monitor alignment and any de-alignment, is it not possible to be proactive and initiate bilateral discussions, disregarding what has to go through the UK and for Scotland to separately have those discussions about the things that are most important to the EU to help relieve that burden?

Good morning. I am a wee bit stunned by the diversity in the responses, which go from quoting the OBR talking about a 15 per cent drop in trade intensity over the long term, which is absolutely astonishing if you think about the impact on the economy, to a statement that Brexit has not really moved the dial. I find it hard to reconcile those two different views.

My specific question is the balance of payments, which is something we used to agonise over. I appreciate that this information may not be readily to hand for the panel members, but the balance of payments for the UK has been massively negative over a long period, although Scotland’s balance of payments has—notionally, I suppose—been positive, with exports exceeding imports over a long period. Are any members of the panel aware of how that might have changed as a result of Brexit? I imagine, for example, that if there is any data on Northern Ireland, that would have seen an improvement given its special status, but I am just guessing.

Before I bring Professor Portes in, I note in response to what Mr Buckley has just said that the vast majority of the evidence that the committee has heard has veered towards identifying disastrous effects. People have said that they stopped trading with the EU immediately. An example is small seafood producers. Some businesses have outsourced to parts of the EU and others have had to go through parts of the EU in order to continue. On the point about the lack of data, as a former economy secretary in Scotland, I note that it is very difficult to get information about Scotland from UK sources. The information is very often not disaggregated and it is often based just on surveys.

I appreciate that it is difficult, but my question was about the balance of payments. Professor Portes, can you say anything about what the balance of payments was before Brexit over the longer term and what it might be now? I realise that it is difficult, but is there any way in which you can disaggregate that to different parts of the UK?

I will bring in our last witness. Professor, on that point, you said that, even with the best will in the world, the information is not available. There is no will to look at the information on exactly the point that you made. What are Scotland’s exports? We can think about whisky and oil, but oil comes ashore, it gets sold in the Netherlands and it is apportioned to the UK. There is a lot of clarity on fiscal transfers but very little on what goes out of Scotland. I ask the last professor to wind up on that, if possible.

I think that a lot of economists would not agree with a structurally imposed lack of reciprocity, if I can put it that way.

My other question is about the comments that Dr Anderson made on the achievements of the faculty and the Law Society in getting agreements with other countries when they want to be involved in work in those countries. In my view, Brexit has been a complete disaster, to be honest. Professor Collins talked about our being slightly above GATS or WTO level, which is a disaster for the economy, and we are seeing that in the lost billions.

However, it is now some time since Brexit happened—although it is not so much time since the agreement happened—but surely it should be possible for many agreements to be made more quickly. I know that such things tend not to move very fast. I suppose that what I am interested in—as most politicians would be—is accountability. I am probably asking the wrong people here, but who should we be looking to for accountability for the lack of progress? Is there an extent to which organisations could do more to get the recognition that they are looking for, or is it structurally very difficult to do that without member-state involvement? In my experience, because of the system that we have in Scotland and the UK, many organisations wait for the Government to move on lots of things. Is it not possible for organisations to do more in the meantime, or is that structurally difficult or a resource question?

I have a fairly quick question to which the answer is probably obvious and is something that I should probably know. It goes back to Stephen Kerr’s second question, which was about reciprocity. Obviously, Brexit has been a complete mess on the goods side, as UK suppliers have had restrictions imposed, but for various reasons to do with infrastructure and so on, the same restrictions have not been imposed on EU goods coming into the country. Is reciprocity in relation to services, as it affects your organisations, being pretty well observed, or is there a sense in which the situation is one sided? In areas in which you are restricted from going into the EU, is that being observed in relation to EU representatives coming to this country, in your experience?

I will come back on that point.

You mentioned the Indian MOU. I know that there is no trade agreement with India even yet, but is that MOU active and producing benefits now? If it is, it shows that we can do these things outwith trade agreements.

Dr Marks, do you want to add anything?

Do you have anything to add, Professor Collins?