David Baldock, Senior Fellow at IEEP UK, gave oral evidence on 20 February 2025 to the Scottish Parliament’s Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Select Committee on the Scottish Government’s alignment policy with the EU.

Joined by Mark Roberts from Environmental Standards Scotland, and Lucy Ozanne from Quality Meat Scotland, the inquiry looked at a variety of topics related to agricultural trade, including competitive advantage, appliance of border controls, and the impact of alignment on innovation.

In his responses, David spoke of the EU’s comparatively strong negotiating position, and hence the importance of the UK demonstrating what they could bring to the EU. He highlighted the risks of the UK diverging from the EU’s more ambitious approach on the circular economy, and the need for an increased focus on the potential long term consequences of divergence from EU policy. David stated that while there are some areas where alignment may not be appropriate, it would be advantageous for Westminster and other devolved nations to develop a clear policy their ambitions for alignment, similar to that of Scotland’s policy.

The Committee also raised the possibility of the UK rejoining the European Environment Agency, to which David illustrated the benefits that this could provide in terms of sending a clear message of unity on environmental issues and enabling the UK to benefit from sharing of data and information, co-learning and greater cooperation with EU member states.

David’s oral evidence builds upon a written submission that IEEP UK provided to the committee which can be found here.

The recording of the session is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJDTt4ZcktQ