My hon. Friend may well have been looking over my shoulder, because I was about to come on to that very point.
My constituency of Argyll and Bute is suffering from massive depopulation. We are losing population at a rate that we cannot sustain. We need to get people to come and live, work, invest and raise families in Argyll and Bute, and much of our plan is predicated on EU nationals coming to Argyll and Bute to fulfil that function. We are being denied access not only to funding, but to people. Unless we can find a way of squaring that circle, which I do not think is possible, then I fear for the future. That is why independence, with an independent Scottish Government being represented as an equal partner in the European Union, is without doubt the only way that Scotland is going to prosper.
It has been reported just today that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary has told the National Farmers Union, in relation to UK farmers, that
“there is no absolute guarantee that we would be able to continue to export…to the EU”
under a no-deal scenario. This is the chaos into which we have descended.
As has been said, the UK Government have of course promised to replace EU funds with a much-vaunted UK shared prosperity fund, but despite all the repeated promises, still no detail or definition has been given about how that new structure will operate. May I ask the Minister when we will find out the detail of this shared prosperity fund, and when will we know exactly what it will mean for people across the UK, including for people in my Argyll and Bute constituency?
Will the Minister tell me, post-2020, when the cycle of these current EU funds comes to an end, how the proposed new system will operate? What consent and control will the devolved Administrations have in relation to this future funding model? What consultation has been carried out to ensure that this new system will have the consent of and remain consistent with the devolution settlement? Will he explain why, as I said to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), this statutory instrument has come to the Floor of the House before the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill have even reached their Report stages in this place?
Given that the President of the European Commission has promised to support Irish farmers financially in the event of a no-deal Brexit, why have the UK Government not offered similar support to Scottish farmers? Finally, does the Minister agree that so much of this worry, angst and trauma we are being put through and putting other people through could all be prevented if the Government simply took no deal off the table.
3.58 pm