Leaving the EU: the Rural Economy

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Calum Kerr]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am getting rather over-excited, but I will always be passionate when defending my constituency and rural Scotland against those who want to do it harm based on a hard-right, Tory Brexit.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being generous. On the subject of trade, does he agree that actually the EU is Scotland’s growth market area? We have seen a 20% increase in the export of goods since 2007, and for services the figure was 50%, so actually the EU is our growth market for the future.

[Calum Kerr]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, as always. If we look at the numbers, we see that 68% of Scottish seafood exports that leave the UK go to EU countries, and that 80% of beef and lamb exports from Scotland are destined for the EU.

Outwith the EU, as we hear the Government trying to carve out a policy, those exports will be at risk of tariffs. I want to look at the risk that that poses. Let me take the example of red meat. Quality Meat Scotland has conducted analysis that shows that if we were subject to the current tariffs that apply to non-EU countries, there would be, on average, a 50% increase in costs for importers buying our products.

At the Oxford Farming Conference, the Secretary of State spoke of fields of opportunity but in the press conference afterwards, she admitted that UK exports would decline if tariffs were erected. That is the prospect faced by exporters in Scotland and, indeed, the whole UK. We call upon the Secretary of State to outline which products her Department thinks should be prioritised in upcoming negotiations.

There is no easy way to withdraw from the world’s largest trading bloc, and the search for alternative markets will involve a host of costs and compromises. For example, Canada’s standard tariff on beef stands at 26.5% and South Africa’s is currently at 40%. Do the Government really think that alternative markets, many with lower production costs than our own, can compensate for restricted access to the EU? The recent success of Scotland’s £14 billion—I was slightly taken aback by the size of that figure—food and drink sector shows that we are already an exporting global country. New trade links cannot mitigate the economic vandalism of cutting off access to a market of 500 million people on our doorstep.

Real political leadership is about seeking solutions to combat the impact of leaving the EU not just in Scotland, but all over the UK. If all the tangible benefits of single market membership end up being frittered away in pursuit of a red, white and blue Brexit, or a global Brexit, the Scottish people, who have shown that they want to build, not sever, their links with Europe will recognise a familiar pattern. They will recall that the Heath Government sacrificed Scottish fisheries when we joined the EU and that the Thatcher Government decimated Scottish industry in the 1980s, and they will conclude that this Tory Government, with no mandate for the damage they may cause, will wreck Scotland’s rural economy and ignore our overwhelming wish to retain our links with Europe.

If this Government have already made a calculation that rural Scotland is expendable in order to engineer a clean break with Europe, they can never again turn to the people of Scotland and claim that the Union is a partnership of equals. Will the Government take this opportunity to recognise the potentially devastating impact that a hard Brexit could have on the Scottish rural economy or will they be content to make a desert of rural Scotland in the name of Brexit?