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Will the minister give way?

I am very grateful to the minister. Will he address the concern, which I outlined in my speech, that although ministers might need to give their consent, there will not necessarily be an opportunity for this Parliament to scrutinise the legislation?

I am sure that the packed chamber and the many millions of people who are riveted as they watch at home will be disappointed to know that I will not be taking all of my six minutes—unless I get lots of interventions, of course, which I would welcome.

I will make a brief contribution to the discussion on the legislative consent motion relating to the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, for which the third reading in the House of Lords was completed on 4 June. As we have heard, the purpose of the bill is to ensure a level playing field for businesses that operate online or on the high street, to ensure the maintenance of high product standards, and to support businesses and promote economic growth—a very worthy and positive set of intentions. The bill relates to public safety, efficiency, effectiveness, environmental impact and other standards, as well as metrology issues, and it applies to tangible products.

As the minister outlined, the Scottish Government initially did not recommend that the Scottish Parliament consent to the bill but has since had a change of heart. The LCM before us proposes that consent be granted.

We have a number of concerns about the bill as it stands. It gives very extensive powers to ministers in the UK Parliament. It is best described as a framework bill, and the full extent of those powers will not be clear until we see the relevant secondary legislation, perhaps some months or years down the track. Therein lies part of our difficulty with it. The secondary legislation that will be produced in the Westminster Parliament will not come to the Scottish Parliament for scrutiny and will not be subject to an LCM process. Scottish ministers have said that any lawmaking in this area by the UK Government will be subject to their consent. However, it will not necessarily come to the Scottish Parliament for consideration or scrutiny.

The bill allows UK ministers to introduce regulations that might align the UK more closely with the EU. Conversely, it also allows UK ministers to further depart from EU rules. Given that the Scottish Government’s stated position is to align more closely with the EU—which, incidentally, we do not necessarily believe is in the interests of Scotland or its economy—it is curious that Scottish ministers seem so relaxed about agreeing to grant legislative consent.

That might well be the case. I am sure that that is a debate that we could have at another time. I will simply reflect that the Scottish National Party Government seeming to be more willing than the Scottish Conservatives to pass powers to UK ministers is a rather odd position to be in.

We are concerned about the level of ministerial discretion that has been granted in the bill and about the role of this Parliament in providing adequate scrutiny. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee highlighted that there would be no scrutiny role for this Parliament and no need for Scottish ministers to consent to the making of regulations that fall outwith statutory instrument protocol 2. We believe that that issue should be properly addressed.

Given our concerns about the situation and specifically about the lack of scrutiny, Conservative members will not oppose the LCM, but we cannot support it.

During the previous debate, I observed that 11 members were in the chamber. I see that we have now increased that number dramatically—to 17. Such is the quality of the debate this afternoon that members are flooding in to hear our exchanges. I hope that we can improve that quality as we go on.

The legislative consent motion that is before us relates to the Employment Rights Bill, which, as we have heard, is UK-wide in effect. It is a wide-ranging piece of legislation that was introduced by the Labour UK Government, implementing plans that had been proposed in a Labour green paper published in September 2022. The bill covers a range of subjects, including the regulation of zero-hours contracts; greater rights for flexible working; removing the three-day waiting period for statutory sick pay; removing the qualifying period for paternity leave and ordinary parental leave; expanding eligibility for bereavement leave; providing employees with additional protection from harassment; and removing the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims.

Although Scottish Conservatives would agree with some of the measures that are set out in the bill, we have concerns about the overall economic impact of what is being proposed. Business organisations have expressed concern that the rules on unfair dismissal that it is proposed to change would make it less attractive for businesses to hire staff. One of the most vocal critics of the bill has been the Federation of Small Businesses, which has expressed concern about the impact, on smaller businesses in particular, of having to cope with 28 changes in employment law simultaneously. Similarly, the Association of Professional Staffing Companies has expressed concern that conferring day 1 rights would have adverse effects on recruitment practices for risk-averse employers, who might, as a consequence, look at methods of pushing those risks on to others in the supply chain, such as staffing companies. Those are the potential unintended consequences of the bill’s proposals.

Changes in employment law must strike a balance. On the one hand, giving greater rights to employees is generally beneficial. However, if that leads to additional difficulties for businesses in hiring staff, which make them reluctant to do so, the overall impact can be negative. We have to see that against a backdrop where Labour’s ruinous increase in employer national insurance contributions is already having a negative impact on the wider economy and on businesses’ ability to attract and retain staff.

As we would expect, the minister again set out the Scottish Government’s stated aim to see all employment law powers being devolved to this place. I understand why that is its position. However, that demand is opposed by business organisations across Scotland, which want to see a level playing field across the United Kingdom. That is particularly important for businesses that operate in all parts of the UK and do not want to run different regimes that apply to different members of staff. For an Administration that claims to support growing our economy, it is curious that the Scottish Government takes that particular approach when business is so firmly opposed to it.

The fact that Scottish Conservatives have concerns about the parent legislation is not, in itself, sufficient reason for us to vote against the legislative consent motion, so we will not do so. However, we have concerns that the legislation has been rushed through with insufficient thought and consideration of the wider economic impact. For that reason, we cannot support the LCM that is before us, but we will not oppose it.

In May 2022, the then SNP Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes, who I do not see in the chamber, pledged that the Scottish Government would reset the public sector, return the size of the workforce to pre-Covid levels and freeze the pay bill. We now know that all three of those promises were broken. The public sector pay bill has ballooned, while the civil service full-time equivalent head count has gone up from 17,700 in 2019 to 27,400, which is a staggering 54 per cent increase. At the rate of reduction of 0.5 per cent a year that has been announced today, how many years will it take to get the public sector workforce back to pre-Covid levels, as promised? I make it 70 years. Does the cabinet secretary agree with my arithmetic?

On the issue of another referendum, we now know that dozens of anonymous pro-independence online accounts calling for another referendum went dark on 12 June after the Israeli air force took out Iranian cyber infrastructure. Does it not concern the Scottish Government that its central policy objective is being actively backed by the terrorist state of Iran as part of its campaign to weaken the United Kingdom?

According to the figures that we have just seen from the Government, the underspend in the Deputy First Minister’s economy and Gaelic portfolio is £106 million. That is a staggering 7.4 per cent of the total budget in that department. It is responsible for growing the economy, for the enterprise networks and for VisitScotland, all of which have seen their budgets slashed by the SNP in recent years. If growing the economy is so vital to the Government, how does the minister explain that underspend in that vital spending department?

We are continually being invited by the Deputy First Minister to be positive about the Scottish economy and to celebrate success stories—indeed, we just heard that from her colleague, the finance secretary. I regard it as one of my purposes in life to try to make the Deputy First Minister happy. [Laughter.] That is why, this afternoon, we are going to do just as she wants and talk about the success and strength of the Scottish economy and, in particular, our vital defence sector. I hope that she and her Scottish National Party colleagues will be as enthusiastic as we are about that vital industry for Scotland.

Scotland’s defence sector provides a considerable contribution to our economy. As of 2023-24, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence spends almost £2.1 billion per year in Scotland—that is more per head of population in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

We not only make military equipment for the UK here in Scotland; we export, very successfully. The total contribution of the aerospace defence and security industry to Scotland was estimated at £3.2 billion in 2022. That sector employs 35,000 people, including 1,500 apprentices.

Right across Scotland, we see companies providing high-quality, well paid jobs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics sector. BAE Systems is building frigates on the Clyde for the Royal Navy and directly employing 2,700 people. At Rosyth and Faslane, Babcock is supporting more than 3,000 jobs.

Is it not something of an irony that we can have world-leading shipbuilding on the Clyde and at Rosyth, building ships for the Royal Navy, but the SNP Government cannot even supply two ferries from its nationalised shipyard at Port Glasgow?

We have Leonardo, known for many years to people in Edinburgh as Ferranti, building world-leading avionics and supplying radar systems for Lockheed Martin, among others. We have Thales, employing almost 800 people across two sites in Glasgow and Rosyth. In Glenrothes, which is in my region, we have Raytheon building the javelin anti-tank missiles, which are being deployed so effectively right now by our brave Ukrainian allies, taking out the Russian tanks that are illegally invading their country. We should be proud of that.

We should celebrate those successes, but we should also recognise the opportunities for the future. Every western Government that is faced with the situation in Ukraine, instability in the middle east and an increasingly isolationist US Administration is devoting more resources to military spending. In last week’s spending review, the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that defence spending would rise from 2.3 per cent to 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product by 2027. If delivered, that will equate to an £11 billion uplift in spending, providing real opportunities for Scotland, not least in the upgrading of the nuclear submarine fleet at Faslane.

There are massive opportunities to grow our exports to nations across the world that are similarly increasing their defence spending, to earn more wealth for this country and create more jobs. Against that backdrop, we might expect the Scottish Government, which claims that it stands up for Scotland, to look to support the industry, seize those opportunities in full and create more jobs and apprenticeships. Instead, we see negativity and downright hostility.

One of the sector leaders, Rolls-Royce, planned to establish a specialist submarine welding facility on the Clyde—an £11 million investment to deliver a world-leading facility to support the construction and maintenance of the submarine fleet. That project had been in development for years and would have reduced costs, cut carbon emissions and created high-value jobs—just the sort of project that we should welcome and support. The project depended on a critical £2.5 million grant from Scottish Enterprise. However, the SNP decided that that grant could not be given, because of its policy of not funding “munitions”. Shame on it, Presiding Officer.

Yes. I welcome the fact that the UK Government has stepped in, because those jobs and that investment would have gone elsewhere. Steve Carlier, president of submarines at Rolls-Royce, made it very clear:

“the project cannot continue, and the facility will not be built and resourced in Scotland”.

If the UK Government has stepped in, that is good news, but it is no thanks to the SNP Government. The project did not involve weapons or munitions; it was simply the building of submarines. The SNP’s approach is naive and immature.

The approach does not make any logical sense either. SNP policy is for Scotland to become independent. In that case, presumably, we would need armed forces, and those armed forces would need to be supplied with weaponry and equipment. Is the SNP really saying that, in that event, it wants all that to be imported rather than manufactured here, and the jobs to go elsewhere? None of that makes any sense.

What we see from the SNP is the politics of the student union, not of a grown-up Government that continually tells us that it is supportive of the Scottish economy and Scottish jobs. That is why the SNP needs to think again on its short-sighted and destructive policy. Scotland needs a grown-up Government, not one that is run by wannabe student politicians playing silly political games at the cost of real jobs and real wages. If the SNP cannot provide that leadership, it should step aside for the Scottish Conservatives, who will.

I have pleasure in moving,

That the Parliament recognises the significance of the defence industry to Scotland’s economy, in providing secure, well-paid and highly skilled jobs and in driving innovation in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) sector; notes that proposed increased spending on defence provides a substantial opportunity for growth; regrets that Scottish Government policy has meant that a Scottish Enterprise grant to support the Rolls-Royce specialist naval welding skills centre in Glasgow for submarine construction has been refused, and calls on the Scottish Government to drop the policy, which prevents public funds being invested in projects such as this.