Chamber and committees

Thank you. Catherine, do you have any thoughts?

Our next agenda item is to continue to take evidence on the committee’s inquiry into the review of the European Union-United Kingdom trade and co-operation agreement—the TCA. We have two panels this morning. For our first panel, we are joined in person by Gareth Williams, head of policy for Prosper, and Catherine McWilliam, national director of the Institute of Directors Scotland. Online, we are joined by Kate Foster, senior international affairs adviser, Federation of Small Businesses, and William Bain, head of trade policy, British Chambers of Commerce. A warm welcome to you all this morning.

I will open the questioning. Thank you for your written submissions, but I would like to get a sense of the current challenges in trading with the EU. What would you like to see in a review of the TCA, and which issues would your members prioritise? What are the challenges ahead that you see on the horizon? There is a lot in that. I will go to Mr Bain first.

You mentioned 350 companies. How many of those would you class as SMEs?

That is super. We have exhausted our questions, and I am conscious of the time. I thank you all for your attendance, which has been really helpful.

We will move into private session for a short time.

That is helpful, thank you. Kate, do you want to comment on that question?

Yes, we can.

I want to finish with some questions about the challenges that you have laid out. A while back, the committee had a visit to Ireland, including to Dublin. The food producers there talked about automation and the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and cobots in production to stay on a competitive level with European partners. That is a special interest for me, because New College Lanarkshire’s smart hub, which works with SMEs on that area, is in my constituency.

Is there enough understanding among SMEs of the need to adopt such innovations? Is it still a challenge to get that message across? The other side of that is whether, if we are moving towards a service industry, with different challenges and new emerging technologies, the strategy behind that for Scotland is strong enough. Do businesses understand where that movement is going?

Finally, I want to touch on a topic—I think that it was Jan Robertson who mentioned it—that is sometimes politically controversial. You talked about the importance of having a presence through the networks and the international offices and the work that they do, and about the importance of ministerial support for what is happening. Will you explain more about the added value that that brings for Scotland’s businesses?

Thank you very much. That has exhausted the questions for our first panel. Thank you all for your attendance. It has been really helpful. I will suspend for five minutes while we change the panels over.

I will not move amendment 211.

Good morning. I will limit my comments to the probing amendment 211 in my name.

The minister has alluded to my long-term interest in all things safety. I lodged my amendment in the hope that the requirement to have regard to safety concerns can be embedded in the bill, in order to inform consumer and household behaviour with regard to, in particular, the use and safe disposal of electrical products. I firmly believe that consumer behaviour will be key to the success of the bill and its intentions.

Consumer awareness is a long-term concern of such stakeholders as trading standards officers, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the charity Electrical Safety First, which I have worked with on the amendment. Seventy-two per cent of all house fires in Scotland involve an element of electrical safety, with the majority of those fires caused by electrical products.

The bill sets out principles that call for things to be kept in use for as long as possible and it allows for target setting for the reuse of products. That is a potential problem, in that older and potentially unsafe products could be used by consumers if repairs of electrical products were undertaken by unqualified people or parts were used that might have been sourced from online or other unregulated marketplaces, thus introducing danger to the products.

We have a long-term concern about the safety of second-hand electrical products. It is also well understood and well documented that there is limited consumer awareness of the necessity for electrical products to be registered with the product manufacturer so that potential safety recalls can be communicated to consumers.

With regard to household waste, the imposing of duties on households and of target setting on local authorities could present an opportunity to address the issues emerging through the disposal of lithium-ion batteries, which have become a significant cause of fires in recent times. With the proliferation of e-bikes and e-scooters, there has been an increase in fires caused by those items, but lithium-ion batteries appear in most rechargeable products, from electrical toothbrushes to rechargeable vapes. It is really important that there is consideration for that issue somewhere in the bill, to ensure that products are safe and that consumers are kept safe. We have recently seen the impact of major fires that were caused by thermal runaway from lithium-ion batteries in waste disposal areas, which causes extreme disruption and environmental damage.

Convener, I heard the minister’s comments on the amendment. It is a probing amendment, so at this stage I will not move it, but I would like it if the minister had an opportunity to comment now on what I have had a chance to say.