Thanks to Westminster economic mismanagement, businesses across Scotland, including in my constituency, Falkirk East, are facing pressures, including extra costs and red tape due to Brexit. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the impact of the United Kingdom Government’s new post-Brexit border checks on business in Scotland—checks that are costly, unnecessary and supported by Tories and Labour alike?

I have touched on some of the implications of Brexit already today in response to Clare Haughey’s question about the availability of people.

Michelle Thomson is absolutely correct. I cannot speak to a business in the country that is not suffering from the effects of Brexit, whether that is about the availability of staff, the cost of doing business or the loss of opportunity, because it is just so much more difficult to advance some of those questions.

The most recent information that I have is that the National Audit Office undertook a report that estimated that UK traders were facing additional costs of £469 million per year. That is on top of annual costs of £7.5 billion since 2019 for completing customs declarations on UK-European Union trade. That is the scale of the competitive disadvantage that has been inflicted by the folly of Brexit, which, unfortunately, is supported by both the Conservative and Labour parties and which the Scottish National Party would want to address by establishing Scotland’s independent membership of the European Union.