Mr. Michael Russell:

I thank the Senator for that range of questions. Let me start with the review. I agree that tourism is a key issue. We essentially have to reconsider and reinvent tourism after the pandemic. It will not be the same. The area which I represent is extremely rural and includes islands, and the tourism industry there has been badly affected by the pandemic. It has been a year of three winters. What we need to do is rebuild that industry, but to rebuild it in a sustainable way. I am sure the review will contribute to doing that and that the joint product will be an exciting one.

There are other things in the report, however. There are references to the food and drinks sector, for example, and I will come back to that when we talk about agriculture. The other issues addressed concern energy, cultural exchange, climate change, depopulation and rurality, which I think we can address, and language. Those are all things we need to look at in this context, and they are strands on which we can build and develop. I am sure we are going to do that as a result of the review, which is a very positive thing.

Turning to the issue of trade, I think it is impossible to tell what will happen. The biggest pressure undoubtedly lies in the short straits and some of the English ports. That will be problematic. How much this issue will come up between Northern Ireland and Scotland, and how difficult it will be, will depend on volume, phytosanitary inspections and how much would be waived through in the first six months, which is a worrying thing from my perspective regarding in respect of what that might mean. It is not going to be business as usual, however. Another element concerns how well prepared people are. It is understandable but still concerning that many companies have, inevitably, been focused on Covid-19 rather than Brexit, and therefore the level of preparation may be lower than we would want.

Moving onto the issue of agriculture, a no-deal Brexit will mean that the imposition of tariffs will be very damaging. If we look at Scots and Welsh lamb, for example, a tariff of over 60% would just completely destroy that trade, so there are problems in this area. We have responsibility for setting agricultural support in the Scottish Parliament, and we have indicated that this should be what we think we will be a period of transition and security. We are not, therefore, trying to make enormous changes to agricultural support. The UK Government, however, seems to want to make much more profound changes in agricultural supports. We are, though, much more often supporting people on marginal land. Agricultural support is not homogenous, just as fishing is not homogenous, and that impacts on what we do and how we put forward agricultural support supports.

It also impacts on how we relate the agricultural sector to the food and drinks industries. There has been an enormous growth in those industries in Scotland in the last ten years. We have been in government for 13 years, and one of our priorities when we entered government was to expand the food and drinks industries. We, or more accurately the people of Scotland, have very much succeeded. These industries are vitally important and they will be hit by what is about to happen. As the committee knows, food supply chains are difficult things. It is not necessarily easy to divert local products into local chains, because there are issues with price and sustainability in that process. We are looking at all those aspects, however. I hope the future of agriculture is bright, but it will be difficult and it will be a difficult period for people in that sector.

On the subject of what will happen with the referendum, as I said in my opening remarks, which the Senator may have missed and I am sorry about that, it is not in our gift to simply hold a referendum. If it was, we would have done that by now. It must be agreed between the Scottish Parliament and the House of Commons. It was a positive mechanism when the Scotland Act was originally passed in 1998. Alex Salmond and I negotiated that with the then Government of the UK and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the late Donald Dewar. It meant that there was no glass ceiling to devolution, because there was a mechanism through which the people of Scotland could move on.

Reading the debates on that Bill will make it clear that the intention was that the mechanism was to be automatic, so that if the people of Scotland chose to have a referendum they could do so. It has essentially been weaponised by the current UK Government, and its predecessor, to state that there cannot be agreement because it will not allow a referendum to be held. The response of the same people in government in London can be imagined if the EU had told them that they were not allowed to have a referendum on Brexit. The sky would have fallen in, but that is the position we are in. It is an issue we must address and we will address it through the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections in May.

Support for independence has not fluctuated much since the referendum in 2014, where the final result was 54% to 45%, although there was one period in the last ten days before that referendum where the "Yes" vote had been ahead. The last 16 opinion polls in Scotland have now put support for independence ahead of opposition to it, and that is very positive. Like most things in Scotland, however, we will treat that with caution. We have a big set of arguments and debates to be had on this subject, but the first thing we must do is to get that referendum and get the referendum Bill passed. We have already set the franchise and done the technical work in that regard. We now need a short Bill which turns the key on this referendum process and posits the question and the timescale. I have repeatedly said that I hope a referendum could be held reasonably quickly. We have decided and made it clear as a party that we will publish the final part of the referendum Bill before the elections in May. We will put that Bill to the people in the election. If people who endorse it are elected, then we will pass the Bill rapidly and move quickly to a referendum. I can see no reason that should not take place next year. It is certainly desirable to have it soon.

We must also ensure that this matter does not drag out and create insecurity or uncertainty. We want to ensure that this decision is made by the people of Scotland and that we can then move on. After that, there will be a process to be gone through in joining the EU. We have observed the acquis communautairefor nearly 50 years and done many of the things required, but there will be a process and we will have to go through it. It just depends on what it looks like. In the process of accession, of course, the debate and argument and the way we move forward will be different. I hope all of us will approach it in a constructive spirit, if the people in Scotland indicate that that is what they want.