DAVID Mundell has insisted there will be no “special deals” for Scotland in the Brexit negotiations when he was questioned by MSPs yesterday.
SNP ministers are seeking to maintain access to the single market after the UK quits the EU, but the Scottish Secretary said his Government was aiming to reach a unified agreement.
“What is envisaged ... is that there would be a single agreement for the whole of the United Kingdom,” he told members of Holyrood’s Europe committee.
“That doesn’t mean that within that agreement there can’t be specific issues that would relate to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
“There won’t be a Scotland-only agreement, or a Wales-only agreement, or a Northern Ireland-only agreement.
“There will be a United Kingdom agreement, but that agreement can include differential arrangements in different parts of the United Kingdom if, as part of the negotiation process, that is seen to be the best way forward.”
Mundell said access to the single market will be discussed by the new Brexit cabinet committee when it meets early next month.
Joan McAlpine, convener of the Europe Committee, pressed him on how he can represent the voices of Scottish stakeholders when he was not on the committee as a full-time member.
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Mundell told her: “My purpose is to focus on those issues that are most important to Scotland, therefore I will attend that committee when issues that are most relevant to Scotland are on the agenda.”
He also said: “My view is we want to maximise our involvement in the single market.
“What the UK is looking to achieve is a bespoke deal, a deal that is best for the UK, including the best for Scotland, but it is bespoke.”
He indicated: “I’m looking for an outcome that allows UK businesses to participate in the single market without tariffs and without barriers.”
European leaders have said such a deal would be “impossible” unless the UK also accepts free movement of people but pressed on this point, the Scottish Secretary responded: “We’re going to read all sorts of quotes from all sorts of people about what’s not possible and what is possible.
“What we, as the UK Government, are not going to do is we’re not going to conduct these negotiations in public.”
During the session Mundell also appeared to reiterate Brexit Secretary David Davis’s dismissal of suggestions that Scotland could be given control over its own immigration policy.
He said: “What I support is that it will be for the United Kingdom to determine who enters the United Kingdom from the European Union.”
He added: “The objective in the negotiations is to return control of immigration ... so that we can determine ourselves who comes to the UK from the EU.”
He was also asked about future border controls, replying that a common travel area with Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom preceded both states’ EU membership, and was a situation the Government wanted to continue.
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