Seòmar agus comataidhean

I want to ask you about the dynamics of what has happened over the past few years, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Energy prices have skyrocketed on the continent and here. The Germans have their particular problems, which we need not go into but of which we are all aware. Is there pressure in the EU for a deal in that area? You are lobbying on this side of the water. Given the energy cost crisis, is the whole of Europe facing pressure to bring about the improvements in the mechanism for trading that you are describing or is it a war of words as usual?

I have a final question for you before I turn to Mr Bain. You mentioned fisheries. Will you weave that into the context to help me to understand the position? Is a deal on fisheries a pretext for any of the other things that we are talking about, or is there something else about fisheries that I do not understand from what you said earlier?

I have one last question, which is on something that we have not mentioned at all this morning but which has featured heavily in other committee sessions. I am wondering why it has not come up in this evidence session. It may be because we have not asked about it; it may be because it is not as important an issue in the round as it is made out to be. The issue is the mutual recognition of qualifications. Could you comment on that? How much of what you get back from your members, particularly service sector businesses, about barriers to trade with the EU is to do with mutual recognition of qualifications?

Of course, I completely get the stuff about culture and experience that you have raised, but putting it in the context of skills shortages becomes politically problematic, given the nature of the current debate about levels of legal migration into this country.

More broadly, I would like to ask you about what you started off talking about: the economic trends of where services exports are going. In regard to market opportunities, you mentioned that there has been a change of priority from the EU to the rest of the world. You mentioned that there has been 13 per cent growth in services exports from the UK to the rest of the world, and I think that you said that there has been 9 per cent growth in services exports from the UK to the EU? Is that a trend that has been going on for a much longer time than the period since we left the European Union? Can you trace it back to the decade before we left?

Which service sectors in particular mentioned that?

So, that was number 4. Did you say that number 1 was mobility?

I will ask a question from a layman’s position. Mr Berman, will you describe, in layman’s terms, the dynamics of the electricity market between the UK and the EU? I understand that there have been record levels of imports and exports of electricity in the past couple of years, and you are describing the improvements that you would like to make. Will you elaborate on that for me?

The problem is that every report in serious media about Brussels’ position on the review of the agreement mentions the issue of fish as being up front, not behind the scenes. Brussels is up front that a deal on fisheries is a pretext for anything else that is talked about. That will, I suspect, be problematic for the UK Government.

What are the roots of the dynamic of exporting more to the rest of the world? You mentioned North America and the United States—why are those markets more attractive to our services companies and individuals to operate in than the EU, or am I reading too much into the growth dynamic and concluding the wrong thing?

I hope that both sides of the table are listening to your positivity and enthusiasm about how it is possible to bring about an agreement to remove those barriers.

Mr Bain, in your evidence to us this morning, you mentioned youth mobility as a key British Chambers of Commerce ask in the review, and you mentioned a skills shortage. I am a bit confused, if I am honest with you, because the current political debate in the UK is dominated by last year’s net migration figure of a million people coming to this country legally, with skills shortages as a justification for those people entering the UK and living here. What specific skills shortages would a loosening of mobility with the EU address?