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Does anyone have a more definitive split?

I am not asking for more information. I am making the point about the sift and the wave upon wave of directives that come from the European Union. When you were a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, cabinet secretary, those were automatically admitted into UK law. No resistance was possible—you had to agree to the directives. We do not have that now. That is why I am focusing on your pragmatism, which I applaud. I hope that you will take my compliment that you are being pragmatic in accepting that there is a need for divergence.

I will ask a broader question about the need for us to be in any kind of alignment with the European Union, given the current state of things in Brussels and in Strasbourg. There has been a subtle—actually, not very subtle—change in the dynamics of European politics, particularly on competition policy. The President of the French Republic said that the EU could die and that

“We are on the verge of a very important moment. Our former model is over—we are over-regulating and under-investing.”

He went on to say:

“In the two or three years to come, if we follow our classical agenda”—

he is referring to the regulatory agenda—

“we will be out of the market.”

We have to be very careful about this. The composition of the European Parliament has changed and the nature of the Commission’s remits are changing. There is a move towards deregulation, is there not? Should we not be very careful that we are not swimming in the wrong direction?

You do not need to do that. I just need to hear that what you said earlier is the Government’s position. Divergence will be pursued when anything that you previously signed up to, which you do not know about—the unknown unknowns—comes in our direction if it is not in Scotland’s best interests. The Government will not move in lockstep with that EU directive.

On the principle of divergence, you are a pragmatist.

Professor Portes, do you want to comment?

You are speaking, but we cannot hear anything.

The balance of our exports to the EU is towards goods rather than services. Mike Buckley has put his hand up, so he might be about to shed some more light on that.

What is your analysis of the reason for that? How much is being driven by the issues that we are discussing today and how much is being driven by market opportunities for UK service companies?

Yes, Bob’s your uncle.

Law is the biggest issue.

That is not the point.