 The next item of business is a debate on motion 7710, in the name of Richard Lochhead, on three years on Brexit and workers rights. I would invite those members who would wish to speak in the debate. Please press the request to speak buttons and I call on Richard Lochhead Minister to speak to and to move the motion up to 13 minutes, please minister. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. To day marks the third anniversary of the United Kingdom, formally leaving the European Union, the third anniversary of Scotland being taken out of Europe against our will. And one thing is crystal clear, I think, to virtually every person in Scotland, and that is that Brexit is certainly not done. Indeed, far from it, the economic and social cost to people in Scotland of this disastrous Westminster-imposed ideological project continues to grow. And it's not done for several reasons. One reason is the focus of this debate, which is the UK Government taking advantage of Brexit to impose a legislative programme which threatens hard-fought workers' rights and protections. Here in Scotland, the SDUC has just spent months marking its 125th anniversary, but it's been striking that, while doing so in recent months, they have had to find themselves having to resist these UK Government attacks on workers' rights, rights that we must never take for granted. And, of course, even as we can see from today's newspapers and broadcasting coverage, the economic harm of Brexit is all so far from over. It's continuing and gathering pace, reducing the size of our economy compared with what we would have expected with on-going EU membership and cutting the tax revenue that would have been available for public services had we remained in Europe. Brexit reduced Britain's GDP by 5.5 per cent by the second quarter of 2022, according to the Centre of European Reform. It also calculated that UK investment was already 11 per cent lower and trade 7 per cent lower in June 2022 than if Brexit had not occurred. Our own analysis shows that Scotland's trade and goods with EU was lower by £2.3 billion in cash terms in 2021 because of Brexit, and Brexit is estimated to have added 6 per cent, very timely, 6 per cent to the rise in food prices. Given the cost of living that is affecting everyone in Scotland, that's a severe cost of Brexit. The loss of freedom of movement also is contributing to labour shortages, harming businesses, with skill shortages being felt more acutely in rural areas, in particular sectors such as agriculture, tourism and hospitality, all having to bear the brunt. The UK chancellor may talk, as he did just last week, about Brexit, energising growth and that we should stop being a declinist. He may not want to be a declinist, but he is certainly a denyist because this was around the same time. Ironically, The New York Times published an article called Britain's cautionary tale of self-destruction. A leading historian, Adam Toos, has reported that the UK is experiencing the worst productivity slowdown in 250 years. The Financial Times tells us that the UK households are now 20 per cent worse off than our north-western European neighbours. Just this morning, again, as I referred to, we have seen more reports this time that Britain is due to be the only major industrialised country set to see its economy shrink this year. All of this damage is happening against the will of the people of Scotland. Indeed, as new research again published just this week has shown, not a single constituency in this country believes it was right to leave. Yet we have been taking it against the will and now face the conspiracy of silence between both the Labour and Tory parties at Westminster. Labour and the Tories favour not just Brexit? That is a bit ironic, given that David Lammy made a really significant speech last week and our members have been banging the drum about the mistakes that the Tory Government is making. The fact that you are alleging silence is just totally not accurate. I think that every single commentator across these islands has noticed how Labour does not want to talk about Brexit, and Starrmar has given no indication whatsoever that he wants to discuss Brexit and certainly not take the UK back into Europe, or indeed, as he said just the last few days, the single market. What we are hearing from Labour and the Tories is that Scotland and the UK have been taking it not just to the EU but the huge single market, which I have just mentioned, and the customs union as well. Today is an opportunity to speak up against the very real threat to workers' rights and the rights of trade unions, to speak up for a social partnership approach instead in the mainstream European tradition where co-operation replaces confrontation, and to debate what could be done if this Parliament had access to full employment powers to make the most of the progressive consensus on workers' and union rights that I do believe exists in Scotland and, indeed, across this chamber. Willie Rennie? I agree with much of what the minister has said in terms of the disaster that is Brexit. We supported the Government's efforts on keeping pace powers. Would you be able to update the chamber about how many times that facility has been used and what the plans are for the future? Well, pace is an excellent initiative that has helped many people to get back into work who have, unfortunately, made redundant. Have we talked about a different initiative, perhaps? Willie Rennie? I was talking about the keeping pace powers that the Scottish Government has been seeking to deploy. I apologise for having my employment hat on as I was speaking about this debate about workers' rights and pace. Well, yes, of course we want to see that pace maintained as much as possible, but what I will come on to in my speech is that we have got many other ideas that will improve the situation for workers in Scotland and the Parliament's powers as well. The evidence is piling up that, even before Brexit, Westminster economic management was resulting in an economy characterised by stagnant wages and low productivity. Since Brexit, the situation has simply deteriorated further. The ending of freedom of movement has had a huge effect on key economic sectors, including food production, manufacturing, hospitality and social care. Those sectors have experienced large decreases in the number of EU workers, recruitment challenges and skills shortages. In the latest published data, one-third of Scottish businesses reported experiencing a shortage of workers while almost 40 per cent reported difficulties filling vacancies. At the same time, the UK Government is now using the cover of Brexit to start tearing up workers' protections and trade union rights. As a Government, we are committed to continuing to work in partnership with trade unions. Our position is in stark contrast with that of the UK Government, which is continuously sought to undermine workers' rights to strike. Despite the UK Government already having the most stringent anti-union laws in Western Europe, it is seeking to pass legislation that will further undermine and weaken the rights of workers. The UK Government's intention to discard vital standards and protections built up over 47 years of EU membership through its rushed retained EU law bill puts at risk vital workers' rights and protections, as well as environmental, food and animal welfare standards, consumer protection and business uncertainty at the same time. All law derived from EU membership has to be reviewed according by the UK Government or risks disappearing by the end of this year. Those include regulations on working time, parental leave, to pay, agency workers and part-time workers, as well as a raft of health and safety legislation. The bill puts vital workers' rights and protections at risk, including the right to a 48-hour week, minimum rest periods and annual leave entitlements, as well as the right to be paid maternity or parental leave. As unison's general secretary, Christina McAnee, said, the Government should be creating stability and certainty, not a bonfire of workers' rights and decades of legal wrangling. So the Scottish Government is firmly opposed to any weakening of workers' protections, and we continue to call on the UK Government to withdraw this bill and have already recommended that this Parliament withholds its consent. I'm not content with this bonfire of workers' rights, the UK Government has sought to pour yet more fuel on the fire. Expanding in the transport bill introduced in the Parliament last year, the UK Government has pushed forward with its new Minimum Service Levels Bill with as little parliamentary scrutiny as possible. Under current legislation providing a union that organises a strike in accordance with the rules set out in the trade union and labour relations act of 1992, the union cannot be sued for damages and workers cannot be sacked. Under the bill, which was debated in the House of Commons this week, unions and individuals will have to comply with draconian Minimum Service Level legislation to maintain the basic rights. Dr Deborah Dean, the co-director of the industrial relations research unit at Warwick University, has asked what problem is raising the threat of sacking essential workers the answer. In just 18 months, the UK Government has gone from clapping these essential workers to seeking out new ways to sack them. Not only is the bill unwelcome, it is also unnecessary, in fact, voluntary or contractual arrangements that are already in place for many of the key workers covered by the bill. Despite the UK ministers desperately trying to present this as a minimum safety legislation, the Government knows that it is not about safety, it is simply about furthering the limits of the rights to strike. The Scottish Government is therefore wholly opposed to the direct attack on workers' rights, it is our long-standing position that a progressive approach to industrial relations, along with greater, not fewer protections, for these workers is at the heart of a fairer and more successful society. As a Government, we strongly oppose any bill that undermines legitimate trade union activity and does not respect fair work principles. It is also an ineffective bill, and far from putting a stop to strikes, this bill will only agitate trade unions further in flaming rather than resolving legitimate industrial disputes. It is also a further attempt by the UK Government to bypass the Sewell Convention in this Parliament. Likely to retain EU law bill, it enables ministers to take decisions in policy areas that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The bill gives no indication of how those minimum service levels might be defined, leaving this entirely to regulations to be made by UK ministers. That brings UK Government ministers into operational decisions in areas of devolved competence, giving UK ministers the powers to set staffing levels in areas of devolved responsibility, despite health or education or elements of transport, as well as fire and rescue services in Scotland being entirely devolved and separate from those elsewhere in the UK. There is also no requirement to consult, let alone reach agreement with the Scottish Government in making these regulations. Along with the strike-busting conduct of employment agencies and employment business amendment regulations that we introduced last year, this is yet another example of why this Parliament needs full control over employment powers and the levers that enable the Parliament to set the legislative framework for our labour market here in Scotland for the 21st century. The UK Government is clearly on a regressive path. We may not have all the relevant powers, but we are doing everything that we can here with the levers that we have to drive fair work outcomes in Scotland. We know fair work brings increased security, better physical health and greater psychological wellbeing for workers. We know that we are providing a more engaged committee and a better workforce. It is good for the economy. It drives productivity, releases untaught potential and inspires innovation. In the absence of employment powers, we are doing all that we can to strengthen the voice of Scotland's workers through supporting strong trade unions and promoting collective bargaining. It is clear, of course, that there are many constraints that we as a Government face due to the current devolved settlement. We are doing all that we can with what we have, but fundamentally it still means that we have one hand tied behind our back. With more powers, we could introduce a fair national minimum wage, one that better reflects the cost of living, with no lower rates for younger workers, or we could strengthen access to flexible working to give parents and carers, most of whom are women, more choice over how to balance caring and employment responsibilities. Of course, we could repeal the unfair UK trade union act of 2016. I just want to say that we can only conclude by reiterating the purpose of this debate, which is acknowledging that post Brexit, the UK Government's retained EU law bill poses a significant risk to workers' rights and acknowledges that this is further compounded by the anti-trade union legislation that has been debated in Parliament this week and adopted in previous months. We have to stand and start contrasting the opposition to the anti-trade union approach that the UK Government continues to take, and we recognise that any modern aspirational country would recognise and support the role of trade unions in achieving sustainable economic growth and a fairer, more equal and stronger economy. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I now call on Donald Cameron to speak to and move amendment 7710.1. I'm sorry, I'm not calling Donald Cameron. I'm calling Alexander Stewart to speak to and move amendment 7710.1 up to nine minutes, please, Mr Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I move the amendment in my name. Before discussing the details of the amendment and the subject of today's debate, I would like to reflect on what today's debate should have been about. This debate was an opportunity for this Parliament to set its own vision for workers' rights in Scotland in the coming years. It was the opportunity to set out the importance of fair work and workers' rights within the Scottish economy. I say that it was an opportunity for the Scottish Government to constructively make their case for how those rights should be advanced in the years to come. However, any hope of such a debate happening today vanished as soon as the Scottish Government published the motion for today's debate. Disappointingly, but not surprising, today's motion is yet another list of grievances that makes no effort to set out the bold vision for workers' rights that the people of Scotland expect. In his opening remarks, the minister has tried to paint a picture of the United Kingdom Government that is determined to undermine workers' rights at all costs. The truth of this, of course, is somewhat different. The UK has one of the best records on workers' rights in the world and is considered and strives to do much more than has been done in many of the EU member states in different areas. For example, the United Kingdom minimum wage is higher than in most EU member states. From April 1 it will increase to £10.42 per hour for those aged 23 and above and increase of nearly 10 per cent on the previous rate, which will leave and ensure that the UK is one of the highest minimum wages in the world. We should also remember that the United Kingdom maternity leave entitlement is nearly three times the EU equivalent, with statutory maternity leave in the United Kingdom being 52 weeks, of which up to 39 are paid in leave. The right of the maternity leave has also been granted in the United Kingdom nearly 20 years before it became involved in the EU, and workers in the United Kingdom receive a minimum of five weeks of annual leave more than four weeks is required by the EU. We also know that working time regulations 1998 transposed into working time directive into UK law and it has been retained throughout the EU withdrawal act of 2018. That shows the highly responsible historic record of the UK Government in continuing to do more in those areas. With more recently loopholes have been closed, this saw agency workers employed for less money than permanent employees, and the minimum fine for employees who mistreated workers has been quadrupled. Several recommendations from the Taylor review of modern working practices published in 2017 have already been implemented. The employment bill will also be introduced, which will further enhance reputation and give further recommendations. The importance of workers' rights is clearly not a finished project, rather it is an on-going process, so far from being a threat to workers' rights across the UK, Brexit can be an opportunity for the UK to continue to do more in this area. In what is a challenging economy and a challenging job market, it will be vitally important to ensure that we have packages for workers' rights that maintain this country's historical high standard, while also allowing the flexible employers to have under the post-pandemic recovery. Who was first to shout? The member talks about opportunity for improving workers' rights, but the UK Government is still refusing to give Scotland the powers that it needs to improve employment rights, meanwhile preventing people from going on strike, legislating to prevent people from going on strike and refusing to take action on fire and rehire zero-hours contracts. Is the member in denial? I am certainly not in denial, but businesses across the UK want opportunity. Business and Scotland want opportunity, but the Government, by ensuring that it has higher taxes, by ensuring that it has different aspects to the way that the Government is managed, I asked a question just earlier about the problems that are happening in the retail sector within Scotland. Scotland is not performing anywhere near as good as the rest of the United Kingdom. I have confidence in what is moving forward in the direction of area. If the Scottish Government wants to take a moment to look at the issues more openly, perhaps it should share the confidence. The minister spoke about the strikes minimum service level bill, and no doubt other members will do so as we progress today. It is important to remember that the minimum service level that the bill will provide is not unprecedented. Similar laws already exist in a number of European countries, and we have seen that the strikes still go ahead with a minimum service of place taking place. Far from removing the rights of strikes, the bill is about maintaining life and limb services at all times, and it will meet all of the criteria set out in the international labour organisation. Far from all to talk about the importance of workers' rights, the Scottish National Party failed to acknowledge the most important right of all—the right for workers to secure a well-paid job for their choosing. On the issues, Scotland is performing well as part of the United Kingdom, and it is benefiting from the labour markets that balance employers' flexibility and employers' rights. Unemployment in Scotland is close to historic lows at 3.3 per cent, and the number of employees on the payroll continues to grow. However, another vitally important aspect of labour market is the right to come here to work. The UK should be a place where people can find a job that takes full advantage of skills and should be able to place employers and find flexible labour. The new points immigration system that has been created within the UK introduced earlier routes for shortages and occupations, as well as health and social care. Total net migration for the United Kingdom was over 500,000 in the most recent figures, and there are now 60,000 more EU or non-EU migrants living in Scotland compared to before Brexit vote. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is still European wide labour shortages in a number of different sectors. Going forward, it is important that the UK continues to respond to labour requirements. On those areas, sufficient has happened when it comes to the seasonal agricultural worker scheme. The scheme benefited greatly from a number of soft fruit and vegetable producers across Scotland, including many sites across Persia and Fife within my region. The seasonal worker pilot that was full scheme was put in place and was flexible, but we knew on those benches that there was considerable concern with reference to that. Lobbying from those benches on a number of sectors ensured that we expanded the scheme up to 30,000 visas in 2021, which was very much welcomed. The UK Government has continued to listen and respond to market needs, and we will now extend that scheme to 45,000 in 2023. Going forward, it will be important for the UK Government to continue to show the same willingness to respond to the needs of employers for labour markets to continue to look forward after the pandemic. Given all the historical approaches that workers' rights have been achieved within the United Kingdom, it is disappointing that, once again, the SNP looks to cause grievance and outline. So, in conclusion, we face choices between consuming and competitive necessities and grandstanding. We have seen it all here today—the competitiveness and the constructiveness that we want to see, but that is not what we have seen today. We have already heard grandstanding and making political points, and this Government really has chosen these options. Regardless of this Government's approach, Scotland still has at least one Government that is determined to continue working to ensure that our country is among the places where individuals can work and do work and want to work and will be recognised throughout the world. This is an important debate, because it is a chance for us to focus on the mess that the Conservatives are making of Brexit, their false promises and what we can do in Scotland. I think that the SNP is wrong to claim that labour is being silent on Brexit. Our colleagues are working day after today to work to stop the Tory Government with their hard Brexit, to see a different approach that supports our businesses, supports workers and to stop the damage that the Tories are doing to our economy right across the UK. As I said in my intervention, David Lamie provided an excellent critique of the Tories last week, but he did not just do that. He said what was the way forward, repairing damaged relations, building closer relationships with the EU and our friends across Europe. Yes, of course. I thank the member for giving way. She probably knows what I am going to ask. Is the Labour Party in favour of rejoining the European Union? I have to say to that member that if more of his members had supported us and voted to stay, we would not have gone, just look at it, 36 per cent of SNP voters voted to leave. We have a challenge in making sure that we devolve power to our communities. It was also a significant number of Labour supporters as well. There is a challenge for all of us here. The SNP are, ironically, changing their tactics on a daily basis. First, it was the de facto indyref for the next UK elections, then it was that or a de facto referendum at the next Scottish elections, then, with one SNP MP saying that it could be a SNAP Scottish Parliament election brought forward from 2026 and with Angus Robertson saying that that will be a de facto referendum on leaving the UK and joining Europe at the same time, but no details as ever leaving the difficult questions to one side. I think that, while it is the same old Tories and Westminster, it is the same old SNP in Scotland, no clear plan for the people who need support now. Now, there are elements that we would very strongly agree with in the SNP motion today, so we have kept those bits to be constructive. The retained EU law bill is massively damaging, seeing potentially around 4,000 pieces of legislation wiped off the statute book, a massive job for civil servants, potentially losing key protections by accident, and the response from businesses, the food sector trade unions, those campaigning for safety and environmental standards is absolutely clear. Those bits of legislation were not invented overnight, they are the result of years of consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. I have to say, for all the warm words from Alexander Stewart today, there is an issue about the importance of rejecting the Tory Government's anti-trade union laws. They are regressive, they are stepping back in time, they are not respecting people's hard-earned-down rights at work, and the Tories are not on the side of working people. They have failed to earn fire and hire contracts and banned precarious zero-hours contracts. For all the talk of a minimum wage, if you are on a zero-hours contract, you do not know when you are going to get that £10 an hour, and people are terrified about losing their employment. Those are all things that we need to change now. When we campaigned to remain, we highlighted the dangers of leaving a union we had been in for decades, the certainty, the co-operation that we had built with our European neighbours, and our SNP Government needs to do so much more now. We need to see the political leadership, not a culture of blame, that is an excuse for failure. Let's just think about it. Erasmus could have been replaced by now. We could have seen our young people not missing out on skills and experiences that would help them developing their careers and contributing to our economy. We just need to look at the Welsh Labour Government's Erasmus replacement, their TAS scheme. Now young people in Wales are getting much missed opportunities. We want the Scottish Green SNP Government to be more ambitious. I want to particularly focus on the issue of using procurement powers. The issues raised by Richard Lochhead are things that the SNP and the Green Government could be doing now, right across the public sector, raise standards, decent salaries for workers, invest in skills, decent terms and conditions—not a far-off promise but work now. It's no wonder that Unites pulled out the national care service because it doesn't deliver the national terms, conditions and the career opportunities a fair deal for vital staff. It's no wonder that it's hard to crew staff per carers given the way they're treated. We've still not got that £15 in our commitment, but instead £1.3 billion wasted on bureaucracy and centralisation. So we want action now. We will support elements of the SNP motion, but our amendment ends with demanding that we don't just get the Tory Government to stop undermining devolution, whether deliberately or inadvertently. We have our Governments working together, even when they don't agree. There was a talk today about working with our European neighbours. We agree with that, but we don't agree with all the European Governments that have been elected. Democracy means that different countries get different Governments, but it doesn't mean that they don't work together, and we need the same co-operation with our EU neighbours as we do with the UK Government. That's why we want our Governments to sit together to work co-operatively, whether it's stronger action on developing the new green revolution with affordable heat and power networks, developing trade relations that support our communities or investing in innovation and research with our universities and businesses. That's what our businesses, our workers and our communities need now, not more constitutional stand-offs. We've got one Government that blames its own failures by going into the if only mode for getting their lack of leadership for 15 years, and then the other, the Tories clinging on to power as long as they can get away with it. But people want change. That change will only come with the Labour Government elected to rebuild their relations damaged after Brexit, to rebuild our economy, rebuild the infrastructure impacted by Covid and the cost of living crisis, and instead of the regressive unfair trade union laws that will push our country back by decades, a Labour Government will modernise workers' rights for the 21st century, respecting and empower workers with giving them democratic and economic rights. People do not go and strike without thinking about it carefully. It's a big decision. It means a loss of salary. They do it because they're fighting for a better deal, for respect, not just for them but for the future generation of workers to support their families, pay their mortgages, pay their rent, feed themselves and to turn on their heating. So the sooner we get rid of the Tories and replace them with a progressive Labour Government, the better. I move the amendment in my name. We will support Labour's amendment today, as it neatly sets out the reasons for opposing the Conservative Government's trade union legislation. It argues for a progressive approach to industrial relations, along with greater, not fewer protections for workers. It states that, at its heart, we need a fairer and a stronger economy. I would argue that the Conservatives have been cavalier—cavalier with the EU retained law bill, throwing out perfectly good legislation in a cavalier fashion but also cavalier with its minimum standards bill. I think that it's a sign of defeat from the Conservative Government, that they're incapable of negotiating agreements with trade unions. To resort to those minimum standards is very aggressive in no way to have a more, a fairer and a stronger economy. Three years on from leaving the European Union and six years plus on from the vote on Brexit—let me get this off my chest. I think that we were right about Brexit and we were right to campaign against Brexit and I've always maintained that Britain made a mistake by leaving the European Union. Europe's largest stock market is now Paris, not London. The minister rightly said that the Centre for European Reform has highlighted that GDP is down compared with the last quarter of 2022, if we otherwise had been in the European Union. The investment is down, that goods trade is lower. We are poorer as a result of leaving the European Union. Mark Carney said that, in 2016, the British economy was 90 per cent the size of Germany's, now it's 70 per cent. Devaluation that came with that did not result in the exports boost that would normally come because of the trade barriers that we had set up as a result of Brexit. Michael Saunders formally from the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee said that the UK economy as a whole has been permanently damaged by Brexit and there has been no tangible Brexit freedoms. We have not diverged on standards or regulations. Other than copying EU trade agreements, the UK has only secured deals with Australia and New Zealand and even the farming minister that partly negotiated that deal has now condemned that deal. It was disappointing that, when I asked the minister about the keeping pace powers, he didn't have a clue about what actual keeping pace powers we have utilised. That says something about the rhetoric of this Government. It states position but it rarely follows through. It uses issues like Europe to advance independence rather than campaign on Europe in its own right. Even today's motion, tying it up with workers' rights, is an indication that their tools are an argument for independence rather than issues in their own right. I have a constructive approach today about Europe. The public mood has turned against Brexit. I think that there is no doubt about that. The changing mood means that I am more optimistic about our relationship with the European Union than I have been for some time. There are now efforts across the political spectrum to re-engage. All the UK debate at present is about working with rather than working apart from the European Union. I do not believe that the Conservatives were ever thinking about adopting a Swiss model, but it reveals a line of thinking. Labour now talks about making Brexit work. My party, I would argue, has a gradualist approach, something that the SNP might be familiar with. We need pragmatism to remove barriers and align where it is of mutual benefit. Let me give you some practical examples about how that could be done. Sarah Boyack referred to the Erasmus Plus scheme. We could get on and do what Wales is doing with the Teth scheme. Students are benefiting right now from exchange in other European countries. Why on earth has the Government still not moved forward on the Erasmus Plus scheme? We could do that now. We should be an associate member of the Horizon University research funding scheme. We could have mutual recognition on trades and professions to allow people to work across the UK and the EU—not just now. Mutual recognition between the UK reach and the EU reach chemicals arrangements. We could agree a bespoke veterinary agreement to reduce SPS checks at the border. We need advanced linkage between the UK and the EU emissions trading schemes. I hope that the EU will remove the block of the UK application to the Ligano convention, which provides for the recognition and enforcement of a wide range of civil and commercial judgments between the EU and EFTA states. With all that closer relationship comes the easing, I would argue, of the tension in Northern Ireland, which is at the centre of that. It is in the interests of the EU and the UK to be close. We trade, we are Europeans, we share culture, have common interests and we need to settle this. However, we also need to learn the lessons of Brexit and not repeat them with independence. If the last six years have taught us at least one thing, it is that breaking up is hard to do. Even those supporters of independence have warnings about the current plans. Their growth commission admits the volatility of small economies. They say that independence would mean cuts for up to 10 years. Senior independence supporter Jonathan Shafie said that sterlingisation clears so tightly with the economic infrastructure of the United Kingdom that undermines the point of pursuing the project at all. That esteemed colleague Patrick Harvie said that we would gain political independence without real economic control. The growth commission agrees that it would cede effective sovereignty over monetary policy. That is where it is important for this debate, because they all say that sterlingisation erects barriers to joining the European Union. Professor Richard Murphy said that, without using a Scottish currency, Scotland cannot join the European Union. For as long as we had sterlingisation, we would not only be dependent on the economic decisions of a foreign country over which we had no control, but we would also be prevented from joining the European Union because we did not have our own currency. That would take 10 years. The First Minister recently admitted that there would be checks at the border with England after years of denial. Let us get this straight. A decade of super isolation stuck on our own outside the UK and the EU, all in the words of independent supporters. If we thought Brexit was damaging, just wait for independence. Thank you, Mr Rennie. We will now move to the open debate. Speeches are up to six minutes. I call Alasdair Allan to be followed by Sharon Dowie. Sometimes Governments undertake a task of breathtaking, Byzantine complexity. Sometimes they do something of such pointless stupidity that few in any party can truly fathom what they have done. Rarely, however, does a Government manage to pull off the two feats simultaneously? The UK Government, however, is working hard to do the political impossible in just this way in the form of the EU law revocation and reform bill. I am not going to rehearse again today how it was that Scotland never voted for Brexit and so does not deserve the fallout from it. Some things are pretty self-evident. The relevant point today that I want to make is that even people who did vote for Brexit could not, in their wildest imaginings, have thought they were voting for this bill, which, in tandem with the UK Government's blatantly anti-trade union legislation, does have the potential to destroy decades of legislative progress in protecting workers' health, safety and wellbeing. After all, the public were assured by the UK Government and countless project leave advocates, both at the time of the Brexit vote and in its aftermath, that workers' rights would in fact be strengthened outside of the EU. Some of them may even have believed what they said. Because at least as far as I can understand their reasoning, Brexiteers wanted Parliament to take back control from Brussels—not this Parliament, obviously, the other one—but they believed that countless opportunities awaited us once freedom from the EU had been achieved. I did think, along with most others, that this notion of taking back control was supposed to be about giving Westminster the right to make future laws unilaterally. In other words, if the UK discovered post Brexit that there were things wrong with our laws, then the UK Parliament would fix them. What nobody was told was that Brexit might also be about scrapping some 47 years' worth of existing UK law and then hoping for the best, and yet, rather incredibly, that is exactly what the UK Government's EU law, revocation and reform bill now seeks to do. It will repeal virtually every piece of UK legislation known to have any European associations passed during the whole period during which the UK was an EU member state. This cleansing of the legislative Augean stables will admittedly not be done in the 24 hours given to Hercules, but the timescale proposed is not far off that in its ambition. Within the next 10 months, we are invited to believe that the UK will have sun-setted, which is to say scrapped by default, some 2,400 extant UK laws, for no reason other than that they have their origins in Britain's former membership of the EU. Actually, it might be 4,000 laws, but nobody really knows. Just to be clear here, and apologies for labouring this point, we are not just talking about abolishing laws that the UK Government does not like or may have good reason for not liking. We are talking about them abolishing all those thousands of laws and then trying at some later date to work out what to put in their place. The expert evidence that we have taken on the SEAC Committee has been universally scathing as to both how and why this is all being done. Hard fought workers' rights and protections are among some of the thousands of laws that the UK Government has in its sights for the post-Brexit bonfire before the end of this calendar year. Because employment law remains reserved, the Scottish Government cannot move to ensure the continuity of rights and protections for workers directly through legislation. There are, of course, and others have alluded to this, some things that the Scottish Government can do here. In the meantime, to try to pick up some of the pieces, we can continue promoting fair work, including paying the real living wage, encouraging employers to adopt flexible working policies, exploring the possibility of introducing a universal basic income to support workers and their families. The Scottish Government should use every available lever through public spending and policy agendas to raise the bar on employment standards. Until employment law, business law and other areas are devolved to this Parliament, a position to which all parties who care about those issues should sign up, Scotland is at the mercy of unhinged pieces of UK legislation, such as the one that is being discussed today. That is without even going into the impact of acute labour shortages affecting almost every sector, certainly in my constituency, from agriculture to social care, childcare and the NHS, all of them exacerbated by the UK Government's short-sighted fixation with reducing migration at all costs. It is harder and more expensive for businesses to export goods and services to and from the EU and to employ EU nationals in their workforce. The UK Government continues to refuse to engage with the Scottish Government on any viable solutions to the problems of its own making. Scotland's democracy, economy, consumer and workers' rights and environment all continue to be threatened by the UK Government's ill-thought-out, if-thought-out, at all plans in the piece of legislation that we discuss. So, Presiding Officer, like many people, my most immediate hope in all this is simply to discover that Westminster has heeded this Parliament's objections to this bill, or perhaps simply to find out that the UK Government merely tabled it in jest. Thank you, Dr Allan. I call Sharon Dow to be followed by Jenny Minto up to six minutes please, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Today's motion from the Government speaks of workers' rights, but in reality the SNP are pursuing their usual tactic of seeking grievances with the UK Government on every single issue. This is another divisive SNP debate. It's not about Scotland's key priorities, it's about the SNP's political priorities. They could have spent the time in this Parliament and how the Scottish and UK Government could work together to attract workers from other parts of the United Kingdom or further afield. That would have been a worthy debate. Thank you for taking the intervention, Sharon Dowey. I'm interested to know how the member expects the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government when they treat the Scottish Government with such visible contempt. I thank the member for the intervention. I think that we've heard from every single debate, every single question that we hear in the chamber that the SNP treats the UK Government with contempt. My thing in this chamber is that we need to be working together constructively because it is a devolved Government. There are things that the SNP and this Government are responsible for and we need to focus on that instead of trying to have what I'm covering in my speech, instead of trying to cause continual division within the United Kingdom. That would have been a worthy debate where we could have examined ways to grow Scotland's tax revenues and increased funding for public services, or they could have discussed a points-based migration system that they once supported back in Nicola Sturgeon's 2013 white paper. That could have been an opportunity to explore what we need to do to attract more highly skilled workers and non-EU citizens, or they could have debated why Scotland is the only UK country. One of the things that the Migration Advisory Committee stated was that the field technology social care workers were skilled. Is that not something that, if that was switched around, we might be able to recruit staff from Europe if they are considered skilled workers? That's the point of the whole debate. We could have had a debate on how we're going to encourage people to come to Scotland, how we're going to increase our workforce, but instead we've got this debate again on Brexit. My point is that we need to concentrate on things that are actually devolved and that we are responsible for in this Parliament and we need to work with. Dowie, is your microphone definitely on or in the right position because we're finding your voices just a wee bit less audible than... Yes, perfect. Thank you very much. Please continue. Or they could have debated why Scotland is the only UK country with a projected fall in our population by 2045. That could have established why the rest of the UK seems to be better at attracting people to live and work, but instead this debate is mostly the SNP Government taking aim at the UK Government. Of course, among the radical claims that the SNP makes, there is plenty to mention. They don't mention a word about the fact that the high standards of rights are being maintained by the UK Government now that we have left the European Union. They don't raise that the UK Government is one of the best records and workers' rights in the world. They don't speak about any of the benefits for business that could come from cutting red tape and bureaucracy. They don't bring up that the UK already goes further than minimum EU standards on annual leave, paid maternity leave, flexible leave and parental leave. They don't say that the minimum wage is higher in the UK than in most EU member states. Statistics show that the UK has the fifth highest minimum wage in the world. They don't mention that the UK provided the right to paternity leave nearly 20 years before the EU way back in the Employment Act 2002. They don't raise that the time for UK maternity leave is nearly three times more than the EU minimum requirement. In the UK, statutory maternity leave is 52 weeks and 39 are paid. However, EU legislation sets the minimum period for maternity leave at just 14 weeks. They don't state that the strikes bill only allows the UK Government to make sure that there are minimum service levels for key services including health, education, fire and rescue, transport, border security and nuclear installations. They don't bring up the fact that so many countries across the European Union have laws that protect a minimum service level, including France and Italy. So what we end up with today is an SNP debate that doesn't advance or protect workers' rights. It doesn't do anything to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. All the SNP motion today seeks to do is point the finger of blame at the UK Government. Yet again, all the SNP that is interested in doing is complaining that a UK-wide referendum produced a UK-wide result that the UK Government is delivering. However, we know that Nicola Sturgeon's Government doesn't like respecting the results of referendums. I would have had more respect for the SNP in the issue of workers' rights if they approached it in good faith with Scotland's best interests at heart, but they haven't done that. The SNP have acted out of blatant political self-interest at every turn. Instead of doing what they could to make it work as best as possible for Scotland, they spent all their energy in trying to exploit it in a vain attempt to drive up support for another divisive independence referendum. The SNP tactics are not working. Time and time again, they focus more on provoking a fight with the UK Government rather than giving all their attention to Scotland's real priorities. This debate is no different. It looks less like a sincere attempt to stand up for workers' rights and more like a shabby attempt to further a political grievance. No matter what the UK Government seeks to achieve, the SNP will oppose it. It is not interested in working together for the benefit of the people of Scotland. It is solely concerned about its own selfish political aims. Instead of backing the SNP's latest attempt at division, I urge colleagues to support Alexander Stewart's amendment to today's motion. I would point out to members that we don't have any time in hand, and therefore, if they wish to take interventions, which is up to them, they should factor that into the length of their contribution. I call Jenny Minto to be followed by Martin Whitfield up to six minutes please, Ms Minton. Three years ago at midnight in Beaumaud, a vigil was held to mark Scotland being removed against its will and vote from the European Union. As the final notes from Ode to Joy, from a solo recorder drifted into the cold night sky, everyone joined together to sing All Lang Syne. Candles flickered, the mood was reflective, but we still had hope. Hope that Europe would leave the light on for Scotland. Only independence offers Scotland the way to rejoin our fellow Europeans. As it would appear that no matter who holds the keys to 10 Downing Street, there is no route for the UK to rejoin, despite widespread polling showing support for this. Michelle Barney has just released his secret Brexit diary, or La Grande illusion, as it is titled in France, The Great Illusion. Might I suggest that The Great Illusion included the misapprehension that the UK sovereignty was at stake, the misconception that the EU was undemocratic, the false belief of taking back control. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, even with the vote leave campaign promising more powers for Scotland, clearly another Brexit illusion, as the retained EU law bill, a shameless Westminster power grab and disrespectful to devolution. It gives UK ministers the power to legislate undevolved matters without the consent of our Parliament. That, alongside the UK Internal Market Act and the Northern Ireland protocol bill, threatens Scotland's democracy, economy, consumer and worker rights and environment. Scotland can do so much better than that. As part of the evidence sessions in the SEAC Committee referred to earlier by my colleague Alasdair Allan, I asked the panel of legal representatives for practical illustrations of how the retained EU law bill would impact on our daily lives. A clear example was given as article 157 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, the right to equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value, which is not fully replicated in the current Equalities Act 2010. Another was the working time directive, but it was also emphasised that EU law is so woven into laws that it is now difficult to imagine a sector or area of our law in which there will not be impacted of some kind. The rule bill rips up 47 years of protections for Scotland's workers and environment and workers' rights, leaving any right democratically shaped by the EU subject to deletion by the end of this year. As Thomson solicitors said, nobody signed up to giving ministers and Westminster free reign to abolish or restate workplace rights, like paid annual leave, parental leave and protections on transferring transfers of undertakings. That is not taking back control for UK workers. With employment law currently reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Government is unable to improve statutory rights and protection for workers. The Scottish Government motion highlights the importance of a progressive approach to industrial relations alongside greater protections for workers, ensuring that their voices are heard and that they can be represented by trade unions. By devolving those powers to the Scottish Parliament, it would allow us to protect and enhance workers' rights by making the minimum wage, the real living wage and tackling the inappropriate use of zero-hours contracts. I was pleased to see that the constitution secretaries of Scotland and Wales wrote jointly to the Financial Times and Solidarity with the businesses and trade unions who have voiced clear opposition to the bill. On the point that she was making a moment ago about the devolution of employment law, does she agree with me that the retained EU law bill does give the Scottish ministers the power to restate the retained EU law and therefore align with the EU law and keep pace with the EU law as per Scottish Government policy? I thank Donald Cameron for that intervention. The retained EU law does give some powers, however it is the whole impact of that legislation throwing us off a cliff edge at the end of this year that is raising the biggest concerns. I started my contribution suggesting that the benefits of Brexit that vote leave promoted were simply an illusion, but sadly, those myths continue to be perpetrated. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that Britain would be prosperous, dynamic and contented when he signed the Brexit trade deal. In reality, Brexit has crippled the UK economy. The only member of the G7, as has been said earlier, with an economy smaller than it was before the Covid pandemic. Business investment has been damaged, the pound has been devalued, making imports more expensive and stoking inflation. Trade barriers have reduced investment, while ending free movement has resulted in labour shortages in key sectors, including food production, lorry drivers and hospitality. The downward trend is set to continue. Principal economist at the CBI, Martin Sartoria, said in the statement, that businesses continue to face a number of headwinds with rising costs, labour shortages and weakening demand contributing to a gloomy outlook for the next year. Stanley Kubrick said that if you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered. That is what the Westminster Government is doing. The UK economy is fundamentally on the wrong path. Even when the Scottish Government has clearly stated its concerns, the Tory Brexit ideology continues to drive the retained EU law bill and the reduction of workers' rights, as opposed to safeguarding the best interests of our citizens and businesses. Only independence offers Scotland our escape from this illusion. Ms Minto, I can advise the chamber that we are tight for times how to be grateful if all members could stick to the speaking allocations even if they take an intervention with that, I call Martin Whitfield, to be followed by co-capture up to six minutes. I'm very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I hear your warning. It's a great pleasure to follow Jenny Minto in this debate and indeed I could agree with much of her speech, although whether or not Governments speak brilliantly north or south of the border on this, I'm slightly more concerned about it. However, it would be a brave person who can't see that the current post-Brexit settlement is not working. It's not working for Scotland, it's not working for the UK, and I would also add, from discussions, I'm not sure it's working for Europe. We have a belligerent attitude of a Tory Government in Westminster that is jeopardising not only the future co-operation with our EU friends and allies but also the rights and protections of workers and consumers at home. The Tories are continuing to govern to appease a faction within their own party rather than the interests of this country, and the next general election is the best opportunity to replace this tired, disruptive Tory Government with a reforming, outward-looking Labour Government. However, this is an important debate for a number of matters, and I would like to just spend a moment at the first part talking about the legislative consent motion and the retained EU law, but not from the positions that have been posed already in this debate. I am very open to interventions regarding the attitude of the Scottish Government with regard to the Constitution, Europe, external affairs and culture committee, and indeed it's a great pleasure to see so many of the committee members here today, because I am concerned that with this debate and with previous debates and with motions that this chamber has voted on, that to a greater extent the very positive work that is being done by the committee, who I understand has already heard oral evidence and indeed taken written evidence in respect of these matters, is being curtailed. Our committees are the source of the expertise on which people in this chamber make decisions, and it may well be, in fact, I would probably go to Fuzz to say that I would be surprised if this chamber, as a whole, did not agree with the way that this debate is progressing. However, I am concerned that this Government has chosen on a number of occasions to place debates through the bureau into this chamber that does cut across questions that we have asked committees, we have indeed instructed committees to go into and look at. Now, I'm not raising this as a matter of a fight or contention, it just would be interesting if in summing up there could be some comment as to why there was the feel, the need to do that, because I have great faith in our committee system, but that faith can only exist if our committees are handled with respect and shown respect, both by the Parliament as a whole, but also by the Government. I want to take the opportunity in the shorter time that I have to talk about some of the other Brexit legislation and EU programmes that have gone to challenge and the fact that the Tories have needlessly taken the UK out of additional schemes that were separate to the membership of EU. I talk, of course, about the Erasmus Plus programme for education and also the crucially important horizon research and development scheme, because while the SNP promised a replacement for Erasmus Plus, it will not act on this until at least 2026, is my understanding, where I would like, of course, to draw attention to the Labour Government in Wales, who have already replaced it with their own TATH programme. The programme that supports learners and staff across all kinds of education providers in Wales, both the formal and the non-formal, learners and staff who are benefiting from over £13 million available to all the sectors for this year's projects. The pathway 1 project, which started last year, focused on the mobility of individuals launched in February. Those projects are bringing opportunities to 5,000 staff and learners in Wales, life-changing learning experiences across the world that involve 75 countries, 28 of them in Europe. On 5 October 2022, the TATH pathway 2 was open for applications, and it is designed to give even more support to projects with a more strategic focus, developments in education, diversity, inclusion and climate change, £2 million available for these projects in youth, schools, adult education, further education and vocational education sectors, a promise and delivery from a Labour Welsh Government of a partnership that endures, despite the loss of Erasmus. It is to this that we should look for our young people. It is this promise of reaching out across Europe and indeed further so that they can experience culture, they can experience friendship, they can experience challenge, they can experience those things that will make them greater contributors back home in Scotland when they return than they face now. With the greatest respect to the SNP green government, it is devastating that we cannot offer those to our children who are in high school now and indeed it will be the children of the primary school at the earliest who will be able to benefit from that with the promises that have been made. I find that a dire disappointment to our young people and something that a Labour Government at Westminster would seek to change because, as has been said about the horizon project, it is about developing the industries of the future with the technologies of the future, with the skills of the future, for a workforce of the future that can make this a better and stronger place. I wholeheartedly agree with Sarah Boyack when she talked about the if-only attitude of so many parliaments north and south of the border, if only we had this, if only we did that, if only they did this. It speaks to the fact that these two Governments here in Scotland and in Westminster need to sit down even if they do it in quiet and speak and talk and reach a consideration and understanding that works for the people of the UK. I know that my colleague Sarah Boyack called it an if only, but I find it merely deflection and blame, as always, on to someone else. I am grateful to the Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you, Mr Workfield. Before calling on the next speaker, I just a reminder if any member makes an intervention but is planning to speak later in the debate, they will need to repress their button, and with that I call Cokab Stewart, followed by Maggie Chapman, up to six minutes, Ms Stewart. Brexit, three years on. What a dismal phrase to hear, particularly in Scotland, where 62 per cent of the people voted in 2016 to remain in the EU, a much higher proportion than the 51.8 per cent across the UK who voted to leave. Glasgow voted, of course, 66 per cent and, as recently as August last year, a panel-based poll for the Times newspaper found that 72 per cent of voters across Scotland would now vote to remain in the EU. But here we are, three years on, reaping the economic and social whirlwind of the most ludicrous self-destructive policy a nation has ever inflicted on itself in recent times. Citizens, workers and students look as their employment rights and living standards are stripped away before their very eyes. So many promises made by Brexiteers and so many promises not delivered. Workers' rights are already under threat from yet another Tory Government who are pursuing legislation that will effectively ban strike action and whose public order bill would see unprecedented restrictions on the right to protest in England and Wales. The retained EU law bill, without a doubt, poses the most serious threat to workers' rights. So many of our employment rights are bound up with EU membership and, in particular, membership to the EU social chapter. I remember the heady days of the 1997 general election, which saw not a single Tory MP return to Scotland. Tony Blair's Labour Party finally managed to win, and he made good on his commitment to remove the Tory opt-out from the social chapter of the Maastricht treaty, meaning that UK citizens, at last, gained access to rights enjoyed by workers across the EU—rights relating to working hours, childcare, parental leave, health and safety. Things, they told us, could only get better. But now, we are locked in a UK, run by increasingly right-wing Tory Governments. We have had our EU membership removed against our democratically expressed view, and it appears not a single unionist party is interested in returning to EU membership or standing up to the full range of rights represented in the social chapter. The trade union unison wonders about the EU-retained law bill and its warning, which we ignore at our peril. Unison states that the bill has set a fast-moving conveyor belt in motion, which will see all protections of workers and citizens that come from EU law fall off a cliff edge in December 2023 unless the Government decides to produce new and equivalent UK laws. I have attended many trade union rallies outside this Parliament, and I am currently a trade union member myself. Some of the rallies that I have attended include the Fire Brigades Union and the University and College Union. Although there is anger and clamour for investment in people and in the services that they provide, I have heard more than one of those events and acknowledgment that dealing with the Scottish Government is a completely different matter to dealing with the UK Government. I would suggest that this is because the Scottish Government is committed to a progressive approach to industrial relations and it recognises trade unions as partners in delivering economic and social goals. Which one of us believes that this Tory Government has any interest in resolving current disputes in partnership with trade unions and the workers that they represent, or in developing employment law that will safeguard rights in the way that they are protected today by the various clauses in the EU social chapter? I suspect that it is not the trade unions, not the striking workers and certainly not me. In conclusion, I hope that colleagues across the chamber acknowledge the potential bonfire of workers' rights and protections that the retained EU law bill represents. Scotland must not sit on the sidelines in this debate. We have made our views on EU membership and the benefits that it confers, clear, time and time again. I echo the words of those who will be gathering this evening calling for the EU to leave a light on for Scotland. I, for one, hope that we will be back one day, ideally as an independent nation. As others have said this afternoon, Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for Scotland. On the third anniversary of Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will, we know that Brexit has increased staff shortages in the NHS, in social care, hospitality and other sectors. It has damaged Scottish businesses and ended the right for people in Scotland to live, work and travel across the continent. In the run-up to the EU referendum in 2016, many of us who campaigned to remain part of that union talked about the importance of the rights and protections that our membership of the EU afforded us—workers' rights, environmental standards or the wide-ranging protections under the European Court of Human Rights. We were told by Brexit supporters that we were scaremongering, that none of those rights or protections were under threat. Promises to improve things, indeed, were made. However, we know now, just as many of us knew then, that those promises were hollow and empty. We have clear evidence of this today. The UK Government's retained EU law, revocation and reform bill will mean that all EU law-derived UK legislation will automatically be repealed and will therefore expire on 31 December this year. Unless specific legislation is implemented by the UK Government to retain it, so unless we get explicit positive action by Westminster, existing employment protections will be lost at midnight on 31 December. That creates a very uncertain outlook for the future of employment legislation. Yet what we are seeing are regulations and bills in Westminster that will further erode the rights and protections of workers. Let us remember that we are not exactly leading the world on the protections that we have in place compared to many of our European neighbours. I will say a little bit more about what we could do on this later. Now I want to spend a moment reminding all of us how EU membership enhanced significantly the rights of one group of workers. Gender equality is a founding aim of the EU, and it is recognised as a fundamental right in EU law. Since the UK joined the EU in 1973, women in work have gained significantly from the strong underpinning to their rights. EU law says that the UK have drawn on expanded the right to equal pay, strengthened protection from sex discrimination and improved remedies and access to justice for women who have been unfairly treated. They have strengthened protection for pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace and created new rights that have helped women balance work with care and encouraged men to play a greater role in family life too. They have benefited the many women who work part-time or on a temporary basis, improving their pay and conditions and giving them access to rights at work that they were previously disqualified from. I know that many of us in this chamber do not want us to lose any of those protections. There are other significance implications for workers' rights too. We face the possibility of employee protections being lost, such as the loss of the transfer of understandings protection of employment rules, changes to part-time and fixed-term worker regulations, changes to agency worker protections. Specialists in employment law, industrial relations and human resources have a good understanding of the industrial chaos that would result from the material undermining of employee rights and protections, unlike most of the red tape bonfire politicians in favour of Brexit. Those specialists are also clear. It would be a disaster for workers and actually for their employers and the wider economy in the longer term if we ended up with weaker health and safety protections, if discrimination in the workplace was easier and cheaper, or if our trade unions were no longer able to organise, campaign and deliver better conditions for workers as a whole. Alexander Stewart said earlier in his remarks that we should be discussing opportunities for improving workers' rights in Scotland. Well, maybe if his colleagues, along with those from Labour who actually vetoed it, had supported the full devolution of employment law to Scotland during the Smith commission process in 2014, we might be able to do just that. We might be able to have a much more meaningful discussion and debate today. I would love us to be able to be discussing how we could strengthen trade unions in Scotland, how we could outlaw zero-hours contracts across the board, not just for our public sector workforce, how we could require all employers to provide safe travel to and from work, but we just don't have those powers because parties represented in this chamber refused to give those to Scotland. However, we are taking some of the steps we can within the limitations of the devolved settlement. We secured a commitment to conditionality in public sector grants as part of the Bute House agreement with the Scottish Government. That makes the first Government in Scotland to enshrine the criteria of fair work first, effective voice, opportunity, security, respect and fulfilment in its contracts with the public sector. We have done this because we know that workforce fairness and equity underpin economic efficiency and productivity. We believe that public sector funding should lever in wider benefits for our society as a whole, because we know that when workers are well supported, well compensated, well treated, then they are happier, healthier members of society who are less reliant on social security and health services. We have more to do—yes, of course we do—but we know that the Brexit bonfire of regulations and laws that the UK Government has seen contained to stoke and tend will be bad for everybody. They will be bad for workers, they will be bad for Scotland's economy, they will be bad for everybody who lives here. We need to make sure that we do whatever we can to resist those changes to enshrine workers' rights in Scotland's law. Thank you. Thank you. I now call Clare Adam. It's time to be followed by Jamie Halcro. Do you want to stand up to six minutes, Ms Adamson? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As I rise on the last day of January, I'm going to quote from Robert Burns. The best-laid schemes of mys and men, gang after glee and liars not, but grief and pain for promised joy, while the Bard could have been writing about Brexit. It represents the biggest act of self-harm that politicians and Westminster have wrote on the UK. If only the leave campaign and the ERG had listened to the majority of voters out with Scotland or the voters out with Scotland and Northern Ireland had listened to our council's suite and heeded our trade advice, but here we are. The erstwhile triumphalism of three years ago seems oddly muted as we mark three years since Brexit officially darkened our doors. The Brexit agenda has driven us to the worst economic outlook for generations. As I am reported today, the UK forecast leaves as the only country in the G7 with an economy projected to have negative growth. Even Russia, with a literary of economic sanctions in place due to its shameful invasion of the UK, has a more positive growth forecast. The UK is in rapid, sustained and self-inflicted decline. A decade-long Westminster assault on our public services and social security systems have compounded the current cost of living crisis. The conversation has shifted from start choices between heating or eating. Now many cannot afford either. An alliance on third sector to fill in for the UK Government failures continues apace. Food bank demand surges and the Tory response is indifferent and we steadily normalising the practice of food banks, which wholly indicates a state failure. More is to come. The Cantard data group reported this morning that grocery inflation is running at 16.7 per cent, adding £800 a year to shopping bills. The Parliamentary Forum, which I attend, is convener of the Constitution, Europe, Exeternau, Affairs and Culture Committee, is dominated by post-Brexit problems. We had a session at the last IPF on touring artists, complex bureaucracy, the type of which we were promised would disappear. Remember that bonfire of red tape, but it means that short-term working in the EU for UK music workers has become directly incredibly difficult. Visa costs and cabotage issues mean that touring Europe with UK goods or as a UK service is a nightmare. It is disastrous for our artists, groups and national performing companies already contending with recovery from the pandemic. As Michelle Barnier put it on Sunday, not all difficulties come down to Brexit but I am convinced that Brexit makes everything more difficult. Our students have been denied opportunities like Erasmus, and our universities are at a rank disadvantage as horizon funding is held to ransom, while Westminster has failed to resolve implementation issues over the Northern Ireland protocol. Yrschilff von Dylian's comments on the UK's attitude to an international treaty that seems to be capable of breaking our well-documented. I am not speaking as convener today, but I wish and I thank colleagues at Mark Woodfield in particular and my colleagues from the CERC committee who have highlighted our work and published reports. I will reflect on some of those and on the evidence that we have taken on which end EU law bill, although our report is not due to be published for a few weeks. In our post-Brexit UK internal market inquiry, the committee has found to demonstrate that there are fundamental concerns that need to be addressed by the Scottish Parliament in relation to how devolution works outside the EU. In our report on the legislative consent memorandum for the Northern Ireland protocol, the committee said that the bill provides further evidence of a need to reset constitutional arrangements within the UK following EU withdrawal, both in respect of relations between the UK Government and the devolved Governments and between the four legislatures and Governments across the UK. Those relations are clearly not working as well as they should and this needs to be addressed. That is not about grievance and it is not about disrespect, it is about a broken system post-Brexit. The committee agreed in our September 2022 report that the impact of Brexit and devolution in the Sule convention is under strain. The First Minister has said that it is broken. The Institute of Government put it as that there is a risk of the convention and the legislative consent process that puts Sule's men to practice collapsing altogether. That is the legacy of Brexit. The rule report will be coming out soon. We have, again for raising the concerns that have been read around animal welfare, regulatory chaos, employment rights, product and chemical safety, from stakeholders such as the Faculty of Advocates, Law Society of Scotland, Trading Standards, NFU, RSPB and the Scottish Environmental Link. The list goes on, which just leaves me with one question for my fellow Scottish people. Are you yes yet? Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In his opening comments, my colleague Alexander Stewart hit the nail on the head. That could and should have been a debate about the Scottish Government's vision for workers' rights, the importance of fair work and the contribution that workers' rights make to our economy. However, it has been as is ever the case with this Government, just another debate where ministers and SNP members are sent out with their prepared soundbites to play grievance bingo. I would like to reiterate some of the points included in our amendment, which my colleagues Alexander Stewart and Sharon Ndari have already made, but are worth making again. Firstly, the UK Government has, time and time again, repeated its commitment to maintaining and to enhancing workers' rights, and that has demonstrated that commitment. The United Kingdom has one of the best records on workers' rights in the world. The minimum wage is already higher in the UK than in most EU member states and will rise by nearly 10 per cent in April. Maternity leave entitlement is nearly three times higher in the UK compared to the EU equivalent. The UK introduced the right to two weeks of paternity leave 17 years before the EU did, and the working time directive has been retained in UK law under the EU withdrawal act 2018. This UK Government has made clear its determination to build on that progress, made over a number of years. Progress, which means workers' rights in the UK already go further than many countries in the EU. That is not what those in other parties, particularly the SNP, want you to believe. It is so often with the case that nationalist narrative is far from reality. On the impact of leaving the EU, it is further from reality than normal. For example, while the number of non-EU nationals in Scotland has increased by 29,000, the number of EU nationals in Scotland since Brexit has increased by 31,000. There are now more EU nationals living in Scotland than before Brexit. That is welcome because, to quote the words of former Prime Minister Theresa May, EU citizens make an invaluable contribution to our United Kingdom, to our economy, our public services and our everyday lives. They are an integral part of the economic, cultural and social fabric of our society. That is very different to the language used by the then SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon in 2014, who responded to reports, later confirmed by the EU itself, that an independent Scotland would not gain automatic entry to the EU, said. There are 160,000 EU nationals from other states living in Scotland, including some in the Commonwealth Game City of Glasgow. If Scotland was outside Europe, they would lose the right to stay here. What a surprise we do not see that on SNP leaflets sent to EU nationals. We cannot be complacent because there are labour shortages in Scotland and in the UK, and there are labour shortages in the EU, too. This has been a constant theme through the work of the Economy and Fair Work Committee that I am a member of, and we have heard from a number of sectors, including tourism and hospitality, of the challenges that they face in recruiting and keeping staff. However, some of those issues were issues even before we left the EU, because Scotland was not attracting the inward migration that our economy needed. That has continued with even a member of the Scottish Government's regional economic policy advisory group, David Bell, suggesting that, while the UK's post-Brexit immigration policy was showing promise, Scotland punches below its weight in attracting foreign migrants. Other issues are a hangover from Covid, with an increase in economic inactivity, a challenge for countries across the world. Getting people back into work, which includes supporting them when necessary, is something all Governments need to be focused on. That is why it is disappointing that the Scottish Government has cut over £50 million from its employability budget. However, we also need to see Governments and sectors working better together, making sectors more attractive and working with our further and higher education sectors and with apprenticeship providers, ensuring that the recruitment pipeline is supported. There are areas where the UK Government can and already has acted to alleviate shortages. Health and care professionals looking to come and work in the United Kingdom can access a fast-track visa application process. Lobbying by the Scottish Conservatives and others has seen the number of seasonal workers allowed to come and work in the UK agriculture increased to 30,000. I would like to turn briefly to the strikes minimum service levels bill. This new legislation will not make the United Kingdom an outlier. EU countries such as Spain, France and Italy already have similar legislation in place. It is about balancing the right to strike with the need for key services to be able to continue, and the bill aims to protect key services that include health, education, fire and rescue, transport and border security. I think that most people would consider that entirely reasonable, but as predictable as the nationalist claim that independence is the answer to everything, Labour's go-to position is to call for another general election. Even Labour's position on strikes as it is on so many issues is utterly confused. UK leader Keir Starmer would not let his MP join picket lines. He said, when I quote, you can't sit around the cabinet table and then go to the picket line. He even sacked his shadow transport minister for doing just that. But tomorrow, while hundreds of thousands of people will be stopped from going to work, Labour MSPs will choose not to. They won't show up for work when others can't. On those benches, we will be here tomorrow, doing our job. Presiding Officer, in 2014, more Scots voted to stay in the UK than voted to stay in the EU in 2016. Three years on from the UK leaving the EU, and despite years of taxpayer-funded, nationalist, agitation and obsessive ministerial naval gazing, most Scots still want to remain part of the UK. You need to conclude. I am going to move on to the next speaker before Mr Hawker-Johnston. If you could resume your seat, I did indicate earlier that members should stick to their speaking allocation. Could I also remind members that the expectation is that, after you deliver a speech, you remain in the chamber for at least two speeches thereafter with that, I call Katie Clark. To be followed by Emma Roddick, up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As has been said already by a number of speakers, it is becoming increasingly clear what a complete disaster Brexit is with labour shortages, difficulties in obtaining many products and appalling growth predictions. I welcome this timely debate that focuses on workers' rights, rights that were hard fought for. During the EU referendum campaign, trade unions warned of the risk of Brexit leading to the loss of vital employment rights and protections. The UK Government's retained EU law Bill shows that trade unions were right in their warnings. The Work Foundation at Lancaster University has warned that the bill will put the rights and protections of more than 8.6 million UK workers at risk. It could lead to the loss of protections for part-time, fixed-term and agency workers and could also lead to other employment rights such as holiday pay and maternity leave being impacted. The UK Government is using the minimum service levels bill, which is currently being debated in the House of Commons, to undermine workers' ability to take strike action in defence of their pay and conditions. The bill will empower ministers and employers to force workers to work during strike action. If the workers fail to comply, they risk being sacked. Trade unions who fail to comply face huge damages. The rights of individuals to take strike action and the rights of trade unions to operate legally were hard fought for. The tough fail decision in 1901 led to the Trade Dispute Act which provided the legal immunity that trade unions currently have where their members take strike action. Rather than addressing the concerns of nurses, firefighters, public transport workers and others, the UK Government is now threatening to sack them if they choose to exercise their right to strike. We have gone from clapping our front bench, our front line workers, to sacking them. The bill is fundamentally undemocratic, forcing workers to cross picket lines even when they have voted to strike in a legal ballot. The TUC are right to call the bill draconian. In this Parliament, we must oppose this bill and work with trade unions across Scotland to protect the right to strike. I am pleased to hear that the Scottish Government is willing to refuse consent to the bill, given the potential impact that it will have in devolved areas. However, as the UK Government attacks workers' rights, we must also reflect on whether this Parliament is using all of our powers to strengthen workers' rights in Scotland. The Scottish Government's current fair work first approach does not go far enough. Fair work first is too focused on encouraging employers to change their employment practices rather than delivering enforceable standards that employers must adhere to. There is also no clear consistency from the Scottish Government in its own application of fair work principles, with employers who have poor records on workers' rights receiving significant public contracts. Amazon has received tens of millions of pounds of public money from the Scottish Government over recent years. Despite the fact that we know that to Amazon warehouses in Scotland the experience of the workers is that they have been denied basic employment rights. We have heard the reports of workers being forced to stand for hours at an end, being denied paternity leave and even being followed by managers into bathrooms. When I was a constituency member of the Westminster Parliament, I had many constituents who came to see me, who travelled from Ayrshire to the Gyrwch warehouse only to be told that there was either no work for them or be given one or two hours' work when they were expected to give full day and then only being paid for those hours. We have heard whistleblowers describing conditions at Amazon as being that of a work camp. If the Scottish Government is serious about fair work principles it must cut all ties with employers like Amazon. In recent months Scotland has seen and is going to see a wave of strike action across the public sector and indeed in this building tomorrow. If the Scottish Government is serious then it needs to have an engagement with the trade unions that represent those workers on fair pay and conditions. I strongly welcome this debate but the Scottish Government must tell everything it can to put its warm words into practice. Emma Roddick is the final speaker in the open debate up to six minutes. It is hard to believe that it has been three years since we left the EU and it has been a difficult few weeks for anyone who supports independence or devolution or democracy. The unprecedented use of a section 35 order to block a bill passed with a two thirds majority in this Parliament was an affront to democracy. The subsequent refusal of Whitehall ministers to have a discussion with and explain themselves to committees here just adds insult to injury and Tory MSPs can keep calling for the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government as they do in their amendment today but Whitehall does not want to work together. We have seen that again and again. Its ministers are not interested in discussion or explanation and they do not respect this place but its section 35 is not the only example of how skewed the union is against Scotland and against this Parliament. Brexit itself was a tough pill for many to swallow with all 32 local authority areas in Scotland voting to remain in 2016 only for Scotland to be dragged out anyway thanks to the decisions of other countries demonstrating that we are not a so-called equal partner in this union. This week I learned of data gathered by unheard which shows all but three constituencies in the UK now agree that it was wrong to leave the EU. Only 29 per cent of folk in the northern and western Isles disagree that it was a bad move and that's 27 per cent in Inverness, Nairn, Bednoch and Straths Bay. My constituents can see the failure of Brexit for what it is. Since Brexit we have seen even more efforts to bypass this Parliament and the people of Scotland in decisions that affect them. Devolution was created with the fundamental principle that anything not reserved is devolved and that's why schedule 5 of the Scotland Act not only specifies whole portfolios like immigration, employment rights which I'll get into later and defence as reserved matters but also more specific issues like Antarctica gambling in time and space. It's why specific pieces of legislation like the Human Rights Act are also protected from modification by this Parliament. We can legislate on everything else because everything not reserved is devolved and the Sewell convention states that the UK government will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of MSPs here. That principle has been completely torn up by the actions of the UK government and its retained EU law bill. More concerning to workers specifically but hopefully all of us is what is being pushed through in place of Scotland getting to take decisions itself. It rips up decades, 47 years of progress on workers' rights as well as around 4,000 other laws to be replaced with the Conservatives' race to the bottom attitude, putting at risk working time regulations, paid annual maternity and parental leave rights and rights to breaks. Even amongst those who voted to leave, I think that you would be hard pressed to find someone who'd say they did so because they thought it would put their rights in the workplace at risk. It doesn't even work. I assure you that I'd be stood here arguing against this attack on workers even if it were benefiting the economy. However, for all its rhetoric, the UK government's attack on workers and race to deregulate whatever it can is not even boosting the economy. As my colleague Clare Adamson pointed out, the IMF has just predicted that the UK is the only country in the G7-facing economic decline and a worse decline than that forecast for Russia. That is ridiculous to the point of being laughable but I doubt my constituents will take any comfort in the comedy of it while inflation continues to push up the cost of their food, energy and building materials out of their reach. Brexit also saw many workers' labour health and social care sector and hospitality both sectors that are struggling now in the highlands and islands and across the UK. The staff are now working extra hours doing the work of vacant positions needing more rights, not fewer, and the UK government is responding with legislation to prevent them going on strike to say so. Opposition members have criticised me and my colleagues today for linking those issues with Brexit and workers' rights to independence, but that is all related to independence, not because constitution is the most important issue on the table but because it is the fundamental change that would transform how whichever parties the electorate puts into government in Scotland at any time can react to events and progress, not regress, the laws of the country. If Scotland were independent today, we might be debating things like making the changes that Scottish Labour has just been calling for this afternoon, the same ones that SNP MPs are calling for in Westminster. Action on fire and rehire, yes, I will. The point is that you are talking about the future with vague plans and what we want to do is to use the powers that we have in this Parliament now, and that is the key difference. It is about getting on and supporting people and businesses and workers now, not the members long into the future aspirations that have no details whatsoever. I think that what I just outlined was quite detailed and certainly not things that Scotland is able to make changes on at the moment, which is the whole point here. I would hope that Labour, looking at what the UK Government is doing right now and what we are unable to change right now, might back us in calling for those powers to be devolved so that we can do better by workers. We could also be talking about what is happening in the EU that we might have been a member of and aligning ourselves with international best practice. We could be making our own way in the world instead of waiting to see how bad the latest UK Government shambles is going to be for the people that we represent and hoping that our letters to UK ministers get a positive response or a response at all. It is not off-topic to point out that Scotland cannot do anything but call for the UK Government to stop this attack on workers' rights. That is fundamentally about democracy and the rights of the people who live here to have a say in how we are governed. I recall the surreal moment of being given 15 minutes, as other members did, to read the highly confidential first assessment of Britain's decision to leave Europe. We had to hand on mobile phones over in the Donald Dure library. I do remember that, reading that assessment, it was utterly jaw-dropping. It was a UK Government that led us to this point. David Cameron's recklessness, in my opinion, and a poor campaign did not seem to understand that ordinary people felt remote from Europe's decisions. I could not really see the good that it also did. As Martin Whitefield said, it is not working for Scotland, not working for the UK. In fact, this arrangement is not working for Europe either. It is certainly not working for workers or ordinary people. The things that they took for granted, to do more movement, easy access to Europe, low cost, mobile tariffs and many more things, what we are beginning to realise was the benefit of being in Europe. Since the vote to leave the European Union, both the UK and Scottish Labour have insisted upon workers' rights to be maintained and further enhanced. We are still arguing, said by previous speakers, at Willie Rennie in an excellent speech about their Northern Ireland protocol three years on. Threatening long-term peace, tens of thousands of hours civil servants have been tasked with trying to solve the real and economic and political problem of goods travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland has affected many businesses and patterns of trade. I have to say that Willie Rennie's entire speech I probably agree with. I also agreed with what I thought was a very considerate speech by Alasdair Allan. He talked about the UK Government being incapable of negotiating with unions something that should have been entirely possible and exposed the fallacy of the trade agreements that were promised. Now we find that they do not really exist and even the agreements with Australia and New Zealand put to see whether or not they are actually going to make any difference. So this morning the international monetary fund forecasting that the UK economy will perform worse than any other major advanced nation, a point made by many others. In other words, Scottish workers will count the cost of Brexit and the IMS says that Britain faces the bleakest two years of any major industrial nation. Many core workplace protections such as holiday pay, maternity pay and equal pay for women and men, mentioned by Maggie Chapman, come from the European Union and for decades European Union laws have ensured decent working standards in the UK, shielding workers from exploitation and discrimination and trade unions have been crucial in advocating those policies on sick pay, maternity and paternity pay, bereavement, health and safety and many other aspects of working life. Workers right now do not really understand what this retained law and the anti-trade union laws that we are recently talking about means for them, but if the bill passes it does look like it could be yet another slap in the face. As the minister says in his opening speech, the bill has been described by unions as a bonfire of workers rights. It is a time bomb beneath the vital working regulations alongside EU-derived law. Why did it need to get to this point? If we have left Europe and many members of the benches opposite, I know that we voted to stay in Europe, should it have to be this bad? Without the shield of EU law, I wonder where that leaves workers exposed to every day in the UK. Disabled people, minority ethnic communities, refugees and asylum seekers and women tend to be at higher risk of poverty and insecure employment or unemployment at more than average, as it turns suggest that they are more reliant on public services and anti-trade union discrimination law. I believe that the bill does pose particular risks for protections of women in the workplace. As Unison has said, some of the family friendly policies, even equal pay law, may be questioned by the current framework of UK legislation. During the pandemic, young women and particularly young black and minority ethnic women on low incomes were much more likely to have their salary furloughed, surviving without a furloughed salary that were most at risk. If we want to live in a better country, the UK Government has to step up to the mark. Recent analysis has shown that the impact of Brexit is acute. It was clear that it made this point. The pandemic has caused problems for the economy, of course it has. The cost of living crisis, however, has been a massive impact on households, but Brexit has made it far more acute. Scottish Labour calls for the UK and Scottish Government to work together to solve some of the problems now of post-Brexit. In the past Parliament, I found myself agreeing with Mike Russell on some of those points on many occasions who would have thought not me. However, I was at one with him when he was minister, saying that there is more in common than there is disagreement on what we need to do now to make sure that this is not the worst Brexit that can happen here. I conclude on this. The history of the UK does not matter. What matters is now—by the way, to Jamie Halcro Johnston and I'll be proud that other Labour MPs will be to support solidarity for the trade unions tomorrow. Sarah Boyack said that it did not have to be like this. The most harmful, hardest Brexit, a rational immigration framework, the handling of the Northern Ireland protocol, destroying our relations with the European institution was not what the public expected or needed. Let's get on with this and let the UK Government step up to the mark. I now call Donald Cameron for up to seven minutes. Thank you. Apologies, Deputy Presiding Officer, for that error. This has been a strange debate. Many things have been discussed. We've had talks about Brexit, devolution, independence, workers' rights, strikes, fair work. These are linked issues, but they are very different. There is a slight sense on my part of jamming them together with perhaps a lack of focus. I've listened very carefully to everyone that has spoken of it. As the title of the debate acknowledges, it has been three years since the UK left the EU and almost seven years since the British people delivered their verdict that the UK should leave. Of course, many people here will remember that in the last session of Parliament, the SNP Government held debate after debate on Brexit. In my view, it did not offer anything positive to say. In some ways, the debate is a trip down memory lane. Yet again, we have an SNP Government continuing to obsess over this. Yet again, we have an SNP Government refusing to accept the democratic outcome that people across the United Kingdom delivered. Instead of trying to make the UK's exit from the EU a success, the SNP will it on to fail, and we all know why. We on these benches have consistently acknowledged the challenges produced by Brexit. We have always said that there would be issues along the way and that it would take time to adjust, but the unrelenting negativity of the Scottish Government serves nobody. It means that the important issues that people across Scotland care about most remain neglected. As other speakers have already noted, the UK has often taken the opportunity to go further on a range of areas than other member states of the EU. Let us not forget that Brexit meant that the UK was able to take a more rapid decision on the Covid vaccine, meaning that we had one of the fastest vaccine roll-outs anywhere in the world. On workers' rights specifically, the UK has in a number of areas already exceeded EU protections for employees even before Brexit. Of course, people across this chamber will agree that we need the strongest rights for workers that are possible. People across Scotland expect proper job security, robust working practices, employers treating their employees fairly, protection against discrimination and avenues to recourse where a difficult situation may arise. However, those principles are not undermined because of Brexit. I will come to the minimum service levels legislation in a moment, but Brexit has led to not one, not one diminution of employment rights. In fact, the UK Government has consistently said that it wants to enhance workers' rights, and I welcome the commitment from Rishi Sunak that the UK will maintain high standards in the future, and there will be no race to the bottom. I would love to, but I am afraid that I am already down in time. It is important to understand where the UK currently stands on workers' rights. I restate what my colleague Alexander Stewart said. It was the UK who introduced the right to paternity leave in 2002, 17 years before the EU introduced it. Maternity leave entitlement is nearly three times higher compared to the EU equivalent. The minimum wage, which is due to rise to £10.42 an hour from April, is one of the highest compared to the EU in 2017. Those are positive things, and whilst no-one is suggesting that we stand still, they are important to acknowledge. Significant part of adjusting to life after the EU will be listening to employers and employees about the things that work for them. That is what has been done, and referenced by Jamie Halcro Johnston to both the seasonal agricultural worker scheme, but also the significant point that, since Brexit, Scotland has seen increases in both EU and non-EU nationals. I want to briefly touch on the other aspects of the Government's motion today, the reforms over strike action. We recognise that the right to strike is important, and in Scotland we know that we have teacher strikes and the first firefighter strike in 20 years. There is obviously a huge dispute between the Government and those striking on the subject of pay, but no-one actually questions the right of anyone to strike within the law. However, we also believe that a strike should be the last resort and acknowledge that all Governments have a duty to the public to ensure safety to protect access to vital public services and help them to go about their daily lives. Across Europe, as others have said, many countries have similar minimum service level laws when it comes to strikes, and that is why these reforms are necessary. I urge the Scottish Government to work proactively with the UK Government, rather than carp from the sidelines. Deputy Presiding Officer, can I turn briefly to some of the contributions that I have mentioned Alexander Stewart? I listened very carefully to what he said, but I had to say with some incredulity, as he suggested that nothing would change. Like him, I voted Remain, but seriously did he think what would happen if the UK voted to leave? What would be the point—the whole point—of Brexit, whether you supported it or not? Is divergence? Clare Adamson mentioned the work of the committee that she convenes in which I sit on. Whilst I did not agree with much of what she said, I think that it is important to acknowledge the work of the committee and the evidence heard in their report, which is due to be published soon. To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, we support the strongest rights for workers, and we support the work that the UK Government is doing to ensure laws that work for employers and employees are protected and enhanced. The UK remains ahead of the EU in a number of areas, and the UK Government will continue to ensure that we remain at the forefront of delivering high-quality jobs and a strong economy. Instead of fighting old battles, such as the SNP Green Government continues to do, we on those benches will look to the future and do whatever is needed to meet the challenges ahead. Emma Roddick said in opening her own contribution that she cannot believe that it is three years since Brexit, and I am sure that most of us are thinking that to the degree as well. What we can also reflect upon is the fact that many, if not all, of our worst fears have come to pass. Brexit has impacted on our economy, how we travel, jobs and also our universities, our young people, our colleges, and so the list goes on and on and on. So, for some of the Conservatives and indeed some of the Labour Party to say that perhaps we should not be debating all the points that we have raised today is of course plain nonsense, because this is about people's livelihoods and it is about the damage that has been caused to Scotland by Brexit, a Brexit that we did not vote for. We have lost free trade, we have lost freedom of movement, and based on recent OECD and IMF forecasts, the UK is predicted to have one of the highest inflation rates among the G7 nations in 2023, and many members have already raised to today's IMF forecast also about growth, where the UK is the only nation forecast of negative growth, and indeed this afternoon I saw a graph of 30 nations with the UK coming 30th and the only country forecast to have negative growth in 2023. So it's not over and we are set to lose a lot more as well. The Government of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey said in November that Brexit is causing a long run downshift in UK productivity, with the office of budget responsibility expecting UK GDP to be 4 per cent lower as a result of Brexit in the long run, and that equates around 100 billion pounds in lost output and 40 billion pounds in lost public revenues each and every year as a consequence of Brexit. 40 billion pounds in lost public revenues, a time that we are debating in this chamber and over and over the impact of the cost of living crisis. And many employers across many sectors of the economy are experiencing workforce challenges as well, the end of freedom of movement, as exacerbated labour shortage across key sectors, such as food production, manufacturing, administration and so on, and especially hospitality and social care, and areas of the economy, all of which have been typically relying on EU workers. Indeed, data from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey indicated that in October 2022, 39 per cent of businesses with over 10 employees faced recruitment difficulties, and of those, 23.6 per cent cited fewer EU applicants as a factor, rising to nearly 50 per cent in accommodation and food services. So we have constantly called the UK Government to make urgent changes to its immigration system in order to enable a migration system that is fit for purpose for Scotland and, for instance, by implementing a Scottish rural community immigration pilot and aligning the shortage's occupation list and visa conditions to the sectoral needs of the Scottish economy. Sharon Davie said that we should be debating Brexit today, we should be debating working with the UK Government how we can attract more people to come and work in Scotland and address those labour shortages. I have written several times to the UK Government asking for a labour shortage's workforce to be set up with all four home nations. I do not even think that I have had a reply yet. I appreciate the people on changing ministers, but I even wrote to the US Minister and I am still waiting for a reply. So it takes two to tango, I say to Sharon Davie, and we are getting no buy-in from the UK Government to address Scotland's labour shortages. Meanwhile, the other fear that has come to pass, of course, is the fact that Brexit would lead to the race to the bottom and deregulation. That is another focus of today's debate, is the impact on workers' rights and employment rights. As a Government, we have long championed the role of trade unions and continued to work in partnership with them as part of an inclusive wellbeing economy. Meanwhile, the UK Government is further entrenching its position as having the most stringent anti-trade union laws in Western Europe by seeking to pass yet more legislation to further undermine and limit the hard-fought rights and protection of workers. We oppose the 2016 trade union act and continue to call for its repeal. Michael Marra. I wonder if you reflect on his comments from his ministerial colleague earlier today, who was calling into question United Unions' right to speak about a national care service due to what he believed to be a lack of members in the care sector. Is that a respect in trade unions? I think that many commentators have looked at some of the difficult issues that have been dealt with north and south of the border, and what they are saying is that Scotland has been much more constructive in dealing with the difficult issues that we are dealing with in Scotland opposed to the UK Government and the Tories, who have been aggressive and pouring fuel on the fire particularly south of the border, which is the wrong way to go. We have opposed any weakening of workers' rights protections, which are still under threat from the UK Government's retained EU law bill. We also oppose the proposed legislation on minimum service levels, which strips workers or their democratic right to strike. The retained EU law bill puts at risk the high standards that people in Scotland have rightly come to expect from EU membership. The UK appears to be rolling back on over 40 years of protections in a rush to impose a deregulated race to the bottom in that kind of society and economy, which we do not want to see in Scotland. Safe limits on working hours, the right to take a break, holiday pay, parental leave and more, all will become subject to amendment by the UK Government with a clear ambition for deregulation and stripping back workers' rights. I am very grateful and very shortly was any consideration made of the committee's work with regard to the diarying of this debate? If the committee has any concerns that should write to the relevant minister about that issue, I want to focus a bit more on the minimum service levels bill, which has been a focus of today's debate, because the UK Government has coupled this rush to remove rights for workers with yet more anti-trade union legislation. The bill is just the latest in the series of steps that the UK Government has taken to erode workers' rights and weaken industrial relations. While the UK Government has claimed that the international labour organisation supports the legislation, it failed to mention that the ILO requires the presence of compensatory measures and independent arbitrar and many other things, neither of which are provided for in the UK Government's bill. In fact, the ILO's own director general has said that he was worried that workers would be forced to accept a situation that is way below par compared to the rest of Europe. There are many other experts that have lined up to criticise what is happening in terms of UK trade union law. In contrast, the UK Government does maintain a very progressive approach to industrial relations, along with greater protections for workers at the heart of a fairer, more successful society. As Governments, we should be working with the public sector and trade unions to reach fair and reasonable settlements, which respect the legitimate interests of workers not seeking to limit the right to strike. We are doing that through our fair work agenda. Some members have mentioned that. We have published our action plan to transform Scotland into a fair work nation by 2025. We recognise that the cost of doing business has increased dramatically with consequential costs passing to consumers and customers, but the fair work agenda is good for business as much as it is good for workers. Before I close, I do not think that in all my years in this Parliament I have ever mentioned the name of one of my relatives, so I am going to do it today. Agnes Somerville Marshall. She was my great-great-grandmother, and in 1866 she lost her father, Thomas Marshall, aged 57, in the many accent. She lost her son, David Robertson, in 1909, aged 22, in the many accent. She lost her husband in 1911, aged 58, in the many accent. Imagine losing your father, your son and your husband in separate many accents. I mentioned that not just to thank my wife for researching my family history, but to explain all the blood, sweat and tears that has been in for many, many years to deliver protection for workers in this country and their rights. This Government will oppose every effort to dilute or remove employment or worker protection. That is part of what this debate is about, because the UK Tory Government is using Brexit to try and do that. We need powers to evolve to this Parliament. Employment powers is backed by the president of the STUC in Scotland to help us to make sure that that does not happen, but most of all, we need independence, because we have looked at the damage that Brexit has caused, we have looked at the threat of workers in this country and it is clear that we have to be back into the heart of Europe and Scotland's democratic will has to be respected.