The spirit of sharing that sums up all that’s best about the UK
As Britain f inally heads out of lockdown, a heartfelt plea – let’s celebrate the ties that bind our nation together, rather than create reasons to tear us apart
THE COVID-19 crisis has challenged the whole of our United Kingdom. But it has also reminded us of the precious things we are lucky to share. Our National Health Service, founded by a Welshman and staffed by citizens from across the country, embodies the principle of social solidarity which is at the heart of our Union.
Friends of mine from school in Aberdeen are among the many brilliant doctors who have done so much to keep us safe.
Scientists from across the UK have also worked together to try to understand and combat this terrible disease.
Experts on the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies hail from across the UK, including my friend Ian Boyd, a professor at St Andrews with whom I worked in the past to improve the natural environment we all share.
Our Armed Forces, drawing talent from across the UK, have been at the forefront of the fight against the virus.
Our Army helped scope the new Louisa Jordan NHS hospital in Glasgow.
The RAF airlifted critically ill patients from Shetland, Orkney and Arran to get treatment on the mainland. Men and women from the military established new mobile testing centres across Scotland which helped us beat back the spread of the virus.
And the UK Government has worked with the devolved administration in Edinburgh to strengthen our resilience at this testing time.
UK embassies across the world helped source precious PPE supplies. UK Government ministers invested in the Scottish companies producing new stocks of PPE. And hundreds of thousands of jobs in Scotland have been protected through the furlough scheme paid for by the UK Treasury.
Throughout this crisis there has been consistent and co-operative work behind the scenes to make sure all UK citizens are protected.
On Friday, I had one of my regular calls with the First and Deputy First Ministers of the devolved administrations to share thinking and refine policy.
I hugely value these discussions with Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney, Mark Drakeford, Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill.
And they build on months of close co-operation co-ordinated by the UK Government.
During the most intense period of the Covid-19 crisis from midMarch, I chaired 40 meetings with ministerial colleagues from across the UK Government, sitting around a virtual table with ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There were many other meetings led by the Prime Minister, Chancellor and the Health Secretary with Scottish Government ministers, and many more discussions between our dedicated civil servants. My fellow Aberdonian, Kirsty Blackman, former SNP deputy leader in Westminster, was generous in acknowledging the benefits this co-operation had brought.
She praised all the UK’s politicians for ‘working as well together as we possibly can’.
It’s that spirit of sharing – of ideas, of money and of sacrifice – that is at the heart of our United Kingdom.
It is a noble ideal that has been a force for good for centuries and, while it has been tested over time, it has never been more relevant than now.
Our United Kingdom is made up of different nations, its diversity is its strength and it is why we are both such a welcoming home for so many across the globe and such a force for progress worldwide.
No other country in Europe has so many people from BAME backgrounds in such senior positions in public life – great role models such as Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel, Humza Yousaf, Vaughan Gething, Alok Sharma and David Lammy.
And no other European country has the profile on the world stage we have – with our defence and development spending keeping people safe and tackling poverty across the globe.
I am also particularly proud that, as UK Environment Secretary, I was able to ensure we protected more of the world’s seas and oceans from exploitation than any other nation.
Together, the people of the UK are environmental pace-setters, as the UK Government decision to hold the COP 26 conference on climate change in Glasgow demonstrates.
The end of the year marks a new start for the whole of the United Kingdom. We will take back control of our fishing waters, bringing new jobs to the North-East of Scotland and making our seas more environmentally sustainable. We will be able to introduce a pointsbased immigration system which welcomes more great scientists to our UK universities and health workers to our NHS. And we can replace the environmentally damaging Common Agricultural Policy with a system of support for our farmers that pays them for environmental enhancement.
The devolved administrations lead in their respective nations on issues such as fishing, farming and the environment. And as the UK transition period with the EU comes to an end, dozens more powers, in these areas and others, will flow back from Brussels to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont.
The Scottish Government will gain new powers in 111 policy areas. This power surge is a strengthening of devolution.
And devolution ensures that Scotland’s parliament can make the decisions Scotland’s people want while sharing in the strength of the UK. But some SNP politicians have been trying this week to argue that apples are oranges and Holyrood is actually losing powers at the end of this year.
Despite repeated questioning, no one in the SNP can point to a single Holyrood power that is going. Indeed, in the past SNP politicians hailed the return of these powers. A few years back, Mike Russell told the Scottish parliament that gaining control of these powers was ‘vital’.
The Nationalist MP Joanna Cherry, QC, specifically refuted the idea that these powers were ‘technical and regulatory’, saying the ‘list affects huge swathes of our justice system’.
The only conclusion I can come to is that SNP politicians aren’t so much interested in strengthening devolution as undermining the cooperation at the heart of our UK. Rather than standing taller in our family of nations, they would prefer an expensive divorce.
And separation would indeed be expensive. The rest of the UK is the biggest market for Scotland’s goods and exports.
Under devolution within the UK, Scotland can have the best of both worlds – deciding for itself on issues such as the minimum pricing of alcohol, while enjoying unfettered access to the economic opportunities the rest of the UK brings. In order to strengthen both devolution and economic opportunity, the UK Government launched a consultation this week on how we can best maintain and strengthen our internal UK-wide market to support jobs, growth and investment in the years ahead.
We are keen to work with businesses, political leaders and other stakeholders right across the country to get the right policy for Scotland.
Again, the SNP in the past called for a ‘fully integrated market with products able to be bought across Scotland and the rest of the UK’.
Indeed, the convening member of the Scottish parliament’s finance and constitution committee, Nationalist MSP Bruce Crawford, endorsed the need for ‘principles to enable the functioning of the UK internal market’.
But now that we’re working pragmatically to protect jobs in Scotland, SNP politicians, who publicly walked away from internal market work last year, appear to have decided that it’s in their political interests to start another stooshie on the constitution rather than help rebuild the economy.
How can it be in the interests of fishermen in Fraserburgh or distillers in Dufftown for the Scottish Government to impede their access to the rest of the UK?
The coronavirus crisis requires us all to unite to put the care of the vulnerable and the security of people’s jobs first.
I hope wiser heads in the SNP will prevail, dial down the noise on the constitution, set aside this headlong drive for separation and work in the best Scottish, and UK, traditions of solidarity to strengthen both devolution and our economy.
UK embassies across the world helped source vital PPE supplies The Scottish Government will gain new powers in 111 policy areas