Meeting of the Parliament [Draft] Business until 17:36

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Official Report 959KB pdf

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Scottish Government Priorities

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-18671, in the name of John Swinney, on priorities for Scotland.

15:10  

We gather today at the start of the fifth and final year of the sixth session of Scotland’s national Parliament—a Parliament that is more than a quarter of a century old, its place anchored at the heart of decision making in Scotland today, a Parliament elected to chart a way forward for Scotland and to wrestle with the challenges that face our people.

In this session of Parliament, our country has faced a number of those challenges, including the lasting effects of the Covid pandemic and the illegal invasion of Ukraine, with its consequences for energy costs and security. In the middle east, we have witnessed, and I have repeatedly condemned, Hamas’s barbaric attacks on 7 October 2023. I also share the concerns of other Governments and other international leaders that the brutal actions of the Israeli Government in Gaza constitute a genocide. That has unleashed widespread suffering and has caused such anguish.

In the United Kingdom, we are seeing the prolonged application of austerity at a time of desperate need to rebuild in our society.

These are difficult days. For many in our society, the implications of those events are that money is tight, prices are rising and hope is in short supply. The danger in such circumstances is that all those difficulties are marshalled together to be made the fault of others in our society, and that some get blamed for supposedly causing those problems. That has been ever present during the summer recess, when migrants have been put in the spotlight and the politics of intolerance has been stoked by some.

Let me be clear, at the outset of this final year of the parliamentary session, that I reject that demonising behaviour. Let me be clear that I intend to defeat the politics of fear and division by offering a clear, principled alternative based on the decent, welcoming values that have served Scotland so well throughout my lifetime. That is why I want to use every opportunity that is available to my Government to give that leadership to Scotland and to deliver improvements in the lives of people in Scotland.

Since becoming First Minister, I have heard loud and clear the desire of the people for effective delivery in Government alongside a meaningful message of hope. Today I will speak mostly about how we have delivered, how we are delivering and how we will continue to deliver for the people of Scotland in ways that will improve their lives. It is a story of much achieved but more still to do, of a corner that is being turned and of progress that is once again being made.

I will start with the national health service. I often hear my political rivals say that the national health service is broken. I reject that. I say that, thanks to our dedicated staff, Scotland’s national health service remains fundamentally strong and an asset for this country. Yes, it has problems, and why would it not, after a decade and more of Westminster austerity, after Brexit and after the foundation-shaking experience of Covid? That is not just my view; it is what the Labour Party says about the NHS in Labour-run Wales.

In Scotland, 97 per cent of people leave hospital with no delay, 95 per cent are registered with an NHS dentist, and 7 million treatments have been delivered since November 2023. Scotland’s core accident and emergency system has consistently outperformed that in England and Wales for the past decade, as has been repeated again in the most recent figures. Those are not just numbers: last year, more than 1 million patients were seen within four hours in our accident and emergency system, which is around one patient every 30 seconds in Scotland.

I am sure that everyone across the chamber supports our hard-working NHS staff. However, does the First Minister recognise that his words will come as cold comfort to everyone who has been waiting in line on the phone for a general practitioner appointment this afternoon and to every one of the 2,000 Scots who are stuck in hospital well enough to go home but too frail to do so without a care package? Will he recognise that his words will come as cold comfort to everyone, in general, who is looking for social care in our communities?

Let me address those particular issues. In our programme for government, we promised 150,000 extra appointments and procedures, but we now expect to exceed that and to deliver 213,000, meaning that, in total, we will deliver an extra 300,000 appointments and procedures. That extra capacity means that, right now, in-patient waiting lists are falling, a record number of hip and knee replacements are being carried out, more people are surviving cancer than ever before and the numbers of paramedics and GPs are increasing. There is work to be done, but substantial progress has been made in strengthening the NHS under this Government’s leadership of the NHS.

I totally believe that John Swinney is just making up what he has been saying. There are 900,000 people on waiting lists, which is one in six people in Scotland. What has he got to say to my constituents and everybody else waiting on lists who are in pain?

I am very happy to reinforce the point that I made a moment ago about the extra capacity that means that, right now, in-patient waiting lists are falling in Scotland. I am happy to put that on the record once again for Rachael Hamilton’s benefit.

The latest statistics confirm our progress, with planned care activity up, the number of operations performed in July 2025 at the highest level in more than five years, the child and adolescent mental health services waiting time standard met for the third time in a row and the lowest number of eight-hour and 12-hour waits for A and E since September 2023, despite the highest July attendance level for six years.

It is not a broken national health service; it is an NHS that we can be proud of. It is an NHS that, after Covid and after the Government’s decision to put record investment into the NHS—record investment, of course, that neither the Labour Party nor the Conservatives in the Parliament supported—is getting better once again. Much has been achieved, but there is much more to do to strengthen the NHS in Scotland.

Thanks to choices made in Scotland, the child poverty rate is now lower than it has been for a decade, despite UK Government actions that have pushed more children below the poverty line. Indeed, if Scotland had the same rate of child poverty as the rest of the UK, an additional 90,000 Scottish children would be in poverty.

Progress has been delivered because of innovative policies—made-in-Scotland policies such as the Scottish child payment—and because of our prioritisation and hard work in bringing people together to ensure that we delivered lower levels of child poverty in Scotland. That has had an effect on our schools, where free school meal provision has been expanded and where the pupil equity fund has enabled 3,000 additional staff to be employed—staff who can work with children to ensure that they have more of the support that they need to thrive.

Will the First Minister set out to members how many newly qualified teachers are unemployed this year as a result of the Government’s failure to match supply and demand in the teaching workforce?

What has helped in relation to the recruitment of teachers has been the pupil equity funding that we put into the budget and the increased levels of local government funding that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government put into the budget, which Pam Duncan-Glancy was unable to vote for when the budget came to Parliament. That did not help one tiny little bit.

The first fruits of our interventions can now be seen, with more Scots from the most deprived areas entering university full time and the poverty-related attainment gap continuing to narrow at all three key qualification levels. Across the board, more and more Scottish children are getting the chance to learn and to grow in skills and confidence, with attainment levels in literacy and numeracy at key stages of primary and secondary school reaching record highs.

There is also progress on the economy. Scotland is by far the fastest-growing start-up economy in the United Kingdom and one of the fastest-growing in Europe. New business incorporations here increased by almost a fifth in the first half of 2025, compared to the final six months of 2024. This remains the best place outside London at attracting overseas investment, with investment in the tech sector alone increasing by a massive 120 per cent between 2020 and 2024.

Wages are up in real terms, unemployment is down and our economy is growing. Much has been achieved, there is more to do and more will, no doubt, be done, because life is tough right now for the people we serve and we are acting to address those concerns.

While Norway forges ahead, our oil and gas industry is dying before our very eyes. Will the First Minister at last support it, or will he, like a modern-day Brutus, go down in history as its co-assassin?

The voices that speak to me from the oil and gas sector tell me that the cost regime that is applied by the taxation levels of the United Kingdom Government—which this Government does not support—is undermining investment to sustain activity in the North Sea. This Government is investing heavily in supporting the energy transition that we must make to ensure that we achieve our climate change objectives.

That brings me to my comments about energy. I know that people in Scotland share my frustration that households are not feeling the benefit of the rapid expansion of low-cost renewable energy generation here in Scotland. A clear Scottish policy success is not delivering the savings to consumers that it should, because of policy choices made by successive United Kingdom Governments, and some of what Mr Ewing has just raised with me is relevant in that respect.

Westminster will happily take our energy but will do nothing to lower our energy bills and nothing to give Scottish business the competitive advantage of lower energy costs. That is why Scotland’s energy resources should be in Scotland’s hands, but that can come only with the control that independence would give to the people of Scotland.

It is my firm belief that our vast, low-cost, renewable energy generation has the capacity to be as transformational for Scotland’s economy, and for the wealth of our people, as corporation tax was for Ireland’s. It has the capacity to send Scotland on a new, more prosperous course.

The fundamental truth that anchors all my politics is that the people who care most about Scotland, the people who choose to live here, should be the ones setting our nation’s course—not politicians in Westminster for whom Scotland is too often just an afterthought.

That principle has been delivered in part by the creation of this Parliament. We have some ability—but limited ability—to shape our nation, but for so long, as big decisions about our budget, our economy, immigration, membership of the European Union, energy, jobs and wages have been taken elsewhere, there has been a brake on what our country can achieve. Westminster choices hold us back when we should be moving forward.

Let us consider immigration. Not having control of immigration means that our national health service and our care homes are facing critical staff shortages. The UK Government has made it more difficult for them to recruit abroad, which impacts on the levels of care that they can offer. It is a completely unnecessary problem that has been manufactured by Westminster’s toxic immigration debate, and Westminster policy is doing, and will do, real damage to Scotland’s national health service and to our care sector. The solution is a simple one: a Parliament with the power—

Will the First Minister accept an intervention?

The First Minister is concluding.

I need to bring my remarks to a close.

We need a Parliament with the power to create an immigration policy that works for the people of Scotland.

We move ahead on eradicating child poverty, but then a new Westminster decision pushes us back. We seek to create jobs and boost prosperity, but a clumsy, ill-judged Westminster national insurance tax grab pushes businesses to the brink.

The Scottish Government will do everything that we can within our powers to secure the future of the people of Scotland and improve their lives, but make no mistake—this country needs to have the full powers of independence to transform the lives of our people, and this Government is going to work to deliver exactly that.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the Scottish Government’s continued focus on its four key priorities of eradicating child poverty, tackling the climate emergency, growing the economy, and ensuring high-quality and sustainable public services; recognises that the delivery of these priorities is within the significant constraints of a constitutional settlement that hampers achieving those priorities due to the policy decisions of UK Conservative and Labour administrations, and recognises that it is only by choosing independence that Scotland can get the fresh start that its people need and deserve.

15:25  

In just over eight months’ time, this parliamentary session will come to an end. Over the past four years, Parliament’s achievements have been too few and its mistakes too many. Barely anything has been done to encourage the economic growth that powers our country and pays the bills. Little effort has been made to create jobs. There has been next to no consideration about how to make life easier for workers and businesses, or to give families a helping hand with ever-rising bills.

This Government has nurtured a culture of anti-aspiration, holding back those who want to get on. In this time, when people have looked at Holyrood, they have been dismayed at what they have seen. They watched as the Scottish National Party passed extreme gender legislation. They watched the disastrous attempt at a deposit return scheme, which harmed business and hammered taxpayers. They watched the SNP target free speech, criminalising what can be said in one’s own home. They watched it fail to build two ferries and to stem the desperate death toll from drugs, as today’s figures show.

Why does almost everything that Holyrood touches go so badly wrong? Why does it waste so much time debating things that are either outwith its remit or really not that important? All the while, it neglects the issues—the real issues—that it has the power to change. Whatever John Swinney claimed today, the blunt reality is that this Parliament has not focused on what people truly care about. It has not made it any easier to get a GP appointment. It has not fixed dangerous roads. It has not raised school standards. In short, Holyrood has not focused on Scotland’s priorities.

Does Russell Findlay think that this line of argument keeps both his MSPs and the population voting for him, given that he is at record low levels at the moment? Do you think that this is working for you and for your party?

Always speak through the chair.

Let us talk about this Parliament and what it can do—or, rather, what it is not doing because of this Government. It does not look at the interests of those who are aspirational or ambitious, nor at the priorities of workers and businesses, nor at the priorities of—frankly—anyone in mainstream Scotland who just wants politicians to show some basic common sense.

Since becoming an MSP in 2021, I have been struck by how disconnected this place is from the real world. I became a politician to get things done and to try to make a difference to people’s lives, but if we asked the average person what Holyrood has done to help them in the past four years, I do not think that we would get a positive answer. We should pose that question to small business owners in Perth or Peebles who are struggling to stay afloat; to high-street workers in Dumfriesshire or Ayrshire who are trying to get a mortgage; to families in Glasgow and Edinburgh who work around the clock to make ends meet while others stay idle only to get things handed to them on a plate; to oil and gas workers in the north-east, where I was this morning, and those at Grangemouth who think that this Government would rather that they lost their jobs; and to young people leaving school across Scotland who despair at the lack of opportunity.

Let me give Mr Findlay a flavour of some of the practical things that the Government is doing to help people with the cost of living challenges that they face. Council tax bills are generally 30 per cent lower and water bills 20 per cent lower than those south of the border. Yesterday, we abolished peak rail fares, which will halve the cost of rail journeys for the average commuter between Edinburgh and Glasgow every single day. Mr Findlay mentioned small businesses in Perth. Many small businesses in Perth will benefit from the small business bonus scheme that this Government voted for in the budget, but which Mr Findlay never voted for in the budget. That is just a flavour of what the Government is doing to protect people’s incomes.

That was a bit of a long intervention. I am very glad that the First Minister listened to the Scottish Conservatives last December when they called for the end of peak rail fares. That was very good of him. However, he should also stop hammering households and businesses with additional tax and additional red tape.

The Parliament must face up to the fact that the public agree on one thing: this place is not working for them. We are all elected to serve the interests of the public. In the short time before the next election, it is time that we started to do so.

My party is the only one that is willing to stand up and admit to our mistakes, say plainly what we need to do better—[Interruption.]

Mistakes such as backing Liz Truss.

We are really not the only ones, Neil Gray, who should be doing that.

I did not back Liz Truss.

Cabinet secretary, please desist.

He is very noisy when he is sat down—he has a big mouth when he is sat down.

The only way that any of us will win back public trust and earn the right to represent people is if we do things differently. In the eight months ahead, the Parliament has the opportunity to do that, rather than fritter away endless time on debates that achieve nothing except for letting MSPs feel good about themselves. We need to use that time to kick-start Scotland’s economy and get it growing again. We must make that a top priority. The focus of the Parliament should be on the creation of jobs and the expansion of business. We have to create the conditions for Scotland’s economic renewal, repair the relationship between Parliament and business, and nurture an environment in which more people have the confidence to start a business. More of the same from John Swinney is just not an option.

Members must look at where we are now. Four out of every five small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland believe that their very survival is at risk over the next 12 months. Just one in 10 Scottish firms thinks that the Scottish Government understands the business environment. A report from the Confederation of British Industry and the Fraser of Allander Institute found that the Scottish economy is struggling to keep pace with the UK-wide economy on almost every metric.

John Swinney knows only how to squeeze more out of workers and businesses while imposing more rules that stifle innovation and expansion. For more than 18 years of SNP rule, our economy has been in decline. The business community feels overlooked or ignored. Workers do not get new opportunities from the SNP—just higher bills. The entire SNP economic model is at breaking point. Our country cannot afford to keep spending so much on a huge and unreformed public sector and an ever-growing benefits bill.

It is unsustainable to always take more and spend more. It is unfair to expect people to continually forfeit more of their own hard-earned money just to watch Holyrood politicians throw it down the drain. More of the same reckless agenda from John Swinney risks the solvency of Scotland. The SNP needs to abandon the folly of its economics, which prioritise abstract and woke thinking—does anyone really know what the wellbeing economy actually is?

The only way to change is to put our focus instead on Scotland’s economic renewal. Opportunity and aspiration, productivity and profit—that is where my party stands. We are going to reconnect with the astute values of mainstream Scotland.

[Made a request to intervene.]

Mr Findlay is bringing his remarks to a close.

We will focus on efficient spending, champion self-reliance, demand freedom for people to aspire and to succeed, and bring forward common-sense solutions to cut red tape.

A thriving economy gives us a chance to fix public services. A failing economy will mean only more of the same, from what is a failing Government. That is the choice that the Parliament faces over the next eight months: take the path towards prosperity or stay on the SNP’s road to nowhere. That is the choice that the country will face next year: a continued slide into stagnation under the SNP or a new way forward for the common good.

I move amendment S6M-18671.4, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“recognises that the Scottish Government has failed to take action on the priorities of taxpayers, like cutting NHS waiting lists, fixing crumbling roads and stimulating economic growth; acknowledges that, despite repeatedly raising taxes, public services have not improved in Scotland; laments that, increasingly, the Scottish Government has focused on its obsession with independence, as well as fringe issues like gender reform and subjects wholly outside its remit like foreign affairs; notes with concern that Scotland continues to have a bloated public sector, with a huge number of quangos that often have overlapping functions and remits; argues that public money would be better spent being diverted to frontline services rather than on the bureaucratic state, and calls for the Scottish Ministers to prioritise economic growth and improving public services rather than yet another push for an independence referendum.”

15:34  

I welcome all members back to the chamber for the new session. It may be a new session, but, for this knackered SNP Government, it is the same old script and the same old tired voices. No matter how much John Swinney shouts about hope and delivery, the truth is that he is hopeless at delivery—and Scotland can see it.

As much as he tries to reheat and rehash the same old playbook, the difference now is that Scots can see right through him. John Swinney talks of his priorities for Scotland, but, in his own motion, he claims that the only way that he can deliver on those priorities is—surprise, surprise—through independence.

I want to give John Swinney credit, however. He is a politician of rare consistency. The guy has been in the Government for almost 20 years and, over all that time, throughout his entire career, he has pleaded powerlessness over his inability to improve Scotland. His answer to every hard question remains the same: he blames somebody else or talks about independence. But while he continues to beat that drum, the people of Scotland are paying the price of his and his Government’s inaction.

This Government’s inaction is clear for all to see, across all of John Swinney’s stated, claimed priorities.

In my speech, I quoted the statistic that if Scotland had the same level of child poverty as the rest of the United Kingdom, 90,000 more children would be living in poverty in Scotland today. Our figures are the result of the actions that this Parliament and this Government have taken to keep children out of poverty. Why cannot Mr Sarwar see the value of that impact on the lives of children in Scotland? Why is he prepared to support a Labour Government that is pushing child poverty in the opposite direction to the one that it should be going in?

I welcome the Scottish child payment, which we have continually supported. However, this Government is failing to challenge structural poverty, which I will come on to in a moment.

Let us take our public services. On John Swinney’s watch, our public services are in utter disarray. Almost 900,000 Scots are on NHS waiting lists and more than 100,000 Scots are waiting more than a year for treatment. The number of cancer deaths is rising. A and E waits remain dangerously long, and former routine services such as dentistry and hip and knee replacements are slowly being privatised due to the failure of the SNP to provide the level of services that people need. The health secretary is saying, from a sedentary position,“No, they’re not.” However, every single week, Scottish families are forced to empty their savings or remortgage their homes to pay for medical treatment, and the responsibility for that lies with John Swinney and the SNP Government.

Will Anas Sarwar give way?

If the health secretary wants to stand up and apologise, he is free to do so.

As I pointed out to Jackie Baillie earlier, the rate of private operations in the health service is 54 per cent lower in Scotland than in the NHS in England.

Does Anas Sarwar support his UK Government colleagues’ reducing the number of health and care visas being approved by 77 per cent over the past year? How does he think that that and threatening the deportation of social care workers in Scotland will help health and social care services in Scotland?

There we go again—the same old playbook: blame somebody else. The harsh fact is that 40 per cent of the hip and knee replacements that happen in our country happen in the private sector because of this SNP Government’s incompetence.

Our schools are also feeling the strain after two decades of the SNP. The poverty-related attainment gap stubbornly persists, teacher numbers have been decimated across Scotland, and teachers, pupils and parents are fearing for their safety as discipline breaks down in schools across Scotland—and again this Government turns a blind eye.

John Swinney mentioned tackling child poverty, but we all know that we cannot properly tackle poverty unless we address the structural issues, one of which is the need to ensure that people have safe and secure homes to live in. Under the SNP, for too many Scots, that is not the case. We are in the midst of a housing emergency. Record numbers of homeless children are being left to spend their nights in hotels and bed and breakfasts, and house building completions are at a record low. A generation of young Scots feel totally frozen out of the housing market, with home ownership an unattainable dream. Again, the responsibility for that lies with John Swinney and this SNP Government.

Just this morning, the human cost of SNP failure was demonstrated again. There have been 1,017 deaths from drug abuse in the past year and 6,000 such deaths since the drugs crisis was declared. The rate of drug deaths is still three times higher in Scotland than in the rest of the UK and is the highest rate in Europe. Every single one of those deaths is avoidable—precious lives lost needlessly because of the scourge of drugs. Again, some of that relates to this Government cutting the number of rehab beds, cutting our hard-pressed police and so much more. Again, the responsibility lies with John Swinney and this SNP Government.

We all know that John Swinney has only one priority in the next eight months—to somehow try to cling on to power—and he is going to use the independence card to keep his knackered, failing Government in power. He is not interested in improving people’s lives today, fixing services tomorrow or making Scotland a better place any time soon; he is just desperately talking about independence—but why is he doing it? John Swinney is many things, but he is not daft. He has been in this game a very long time and he knows that he cannot stand in the election on his record, because Scots have had enough. That is why he wants to make the election about independence—not because he believes that he can achieve it, nor because he thinks that the SNP can win a majority, but because he thinks that it is the only way that he can keep enough people together to sneak over the line and cling on to power. It is cynical, it is desperate and it is John Swinney all over, but I do not believe that it will work, because Scots are canny and can see right through it. [Interruption.]

John Swinney shouts about focus groups, but the focus groups say, “You guys are out and getting beat,” because whether Scots voted yes or no, people have had enough. They want a Government that gets back to basics—that fixes the NHS, schools and transport—and they know that the SNP is failing on every measure. John Swinney wants to talk about focus groups. Ask the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse who helped to beat the SNP. Ask the people in Barrhead who helped to beat the SNP. I promise that, in Scotland next year, they will help us to beat the SNP all over again, because, after nearly two decades, Scotland is crying out for a new direction.

People want a Government that will fix public services and get the basics right. They want a Government that shares their ambitions for Scotland’s future. We will tackle the housing crisis by actually building the homes; we will get our businesses growing by backing entrepreneurship; we will stop the antisocial behaviour in our schools by banning mobile phones, supporting teachers and supporting our communities; and we will fix our NHS by taking on the bureaucrats, empowering doctors and pulling out all the stops to clear the backlogs. That is the new direction that Scotland needs—new thinking, new ideas and new leadership, not the same old arguments from the same old knackered SNP.

I move amendment S6M-18671.2, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“notes that the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration has overseen the development of a housing emergency, allowed NHS waiting lists to soar, leading to a two-tier system with those who can afford to pay going private, been forced to scrap its legal climate change targets due to its own inaction, wasted billions of pounds of public money through incompetence and bureaucracy, and stood by while school standards declined; recognises that SNP incompetence means that people in Scotland are not feeling the benefits of the £5.2 billion in additional funding delivered by the UK Labour administration, which is working to restore public services and kickstart economic growth, and believes that Scotland is a country that is full of potential but that it is being failed by the SNP administration, and that, at the election in 2026, people in Scotland can choose a new administration that shares their ambitions and works to deliver the services that they deserve.”

15:42  

We have a lot to be proud of. The Scottish Greens certainly have a lot to be proud of in this session of Parliament so far: the removal of peak rail fares, which will save commuters hundreds—and, in some cases, thousands—of pounds; the fact that this is the only part of the UK where child poverty is going down; and the fact that, just two weeks ago, when the schools started again, there were 6,000 more children eligible for free school meals as a result of agreements made in this Parliament.

However, we cannot deny the fact that people are angry. Communities are being pulled apart and families feel unhappy, and it is because their lives are not getting better. This country is not working for them. Whether it is the cost of living or the climate crisis, it is not because the systems are broken—it is because they are rigged. That is what we need to change. To change it, we need to take on those who have rigged the system. We need to take on the super-rich, the big polluters and the greedy landlords.

My message to the people of Scotland is that the Scottish Green Party is on your side. We are fighting your corner. There are too many politicians—including in the chamber now—who are whipping up hatred in our communities and who are lying to the public about who the enemy is. Trans people and asylum seekers are not the problem. They did not sell off the community centres, privatise the buses or increase rents. We will take on the bigots and the conmen who are directing that anger at the most vulnerable in our society and we will direct it at those who are often bankrolled by the people who are really at fault—the people who have rigged the system. This country is not working for ordinary people because it was not designed to, and I want to change that.

I am proud of the Greens’ track record on changing the system. We have taken every opportunity to rebalance the scales in favour of our planet and ordinary people. We are delivering rent controls, taking power from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. We stand up for Scotland’s natural heritage against corporate greed, as in our campaign to protect Loch Lomond from Flamingo Land. We have fundamentally transferred wealth in this society, taxing those who can afford it in order to extend the Scottish child payment and free school meals, to deliver free bus travel for young people and to buck the UK-wide trend of rising child poverty. I am proud that we have done that through co-operation with colleagues in the SNP, but there is so much more to do.

That is why the Green amendment focuses on our public finances and tax. It is outrageous that—as the Scottish Government confirmed last week—the richest 2 per cent of households in this country have more wealth than the bottom 50 per cent. This morning, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government agreed with me that that is not good enough, but the Scottish Government does not appear to have a plan to go any further on wealth redistribution.

I am proud of what we have already done together, but it is clear that more is needed. We cannot lift more children out of poverty, cut emissions or hire more hospital staff without the money to pay for it. People are sick of politicians with big promises but little follow-through and absolutely no plan to pay for what they have committed to.

The Greens have a plan, because we are brave enough to be honest with the electorate that a better society needs to be paid for and that the wealthiest people can afford to pay, and should be paying, far more.

Despite the doomsday predictions over most of the past decade, changes in our tax policy that the Greens have delivered have worked, and they are popular. Our income tax changes mean that, this year alone, there is £1.7 billion more to deliver for public services such as our schools, hospitals and public transport.

We have doubled the additional dwelling supplement, taking on the buy-to-let landlords—in particular, short-term let landlords—and freeing up thousands of homes for young families to live in, while raising £0.25 billion to invest in public services. We have delivered more powers for local government, including the visitor levy, which will raise millions of pounds to deliver on the issues that people really care about, such as the quality of their roads and pavements and their libraries and schools.

We need to recognise that it is no wonder that people are angry when they see a hugely wealthy country—Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world—yet they still cannot afford to take their children on a holiday or even buy new school uniforms and they cannot afford their rent. That is why the Green amendment

“calls ... on the Scottish Government to make bold use of its existing tax-raising powers, including the creation of new revenue-raising mechanisms for local government.”

That means fixing our broken council tax system. It cannot be right that the poorest households are paying the highest share of their income in council tax or that we have a tax system in which more than half of all households in this country are paying the wrong rate—a system that is based on property values from before I was even born.

I say to the Scottish Government, in response to its line that we can achieve council tax reform only through consensus, that that is not going to work. There is no prospect of consensus, particularly as we look ahead to the next session of Parliament. However, there is a majority to deliver council tax reform if the Government is brave enough to lead that majority.

It is absolutely true that Scotland has done more than any other UK nation to tackle child poverty and the climate emergency, but it is also true that we are still not doing enough on either of those issues. Indeed, on climate action, the Government’s ambitions are being scaled back. Scotland needs MSPs and Government ministers who are bold and brave enough to take on those who have rigged the system: the super rich and the big polluters. Only by doing that can we defeat the forces of hate who are exploiting our communities and build the fairer, greener society that the vast majority of people in Scotland want to see.

I move amendment S6M-18671.3, to insert at end:

“; is concerned that Scottish Government action to tackle the climate emergency has been scaled back, that targets for reducing child poverty have been missed and that the wealthiest 2% of households in Scotland hold more wealth than the bottom 50%; recognises that tackling the climate emergency, eradicating child poverty and ensuring high-quality and sustainable public services will require further redistribution of wealth, and calls, therefore, on the Scottish Government to make bold use of its existing tax-raising powers, including the creation of new revenue-raising mechanisms for local government.”

I remind members who wish to speak in the debate to check that they have, in fact, pressed their request-to-speak button.

15:49  

Before I start, I associate myself with the First Minister’s remarks about the situation in Gaza; the scenes that we have seen unfolding there, in particular this summer, should strike a humanitarian chord with every member in the chamber.

From Stranraer to Shetland and from Skye to St Andrews, Scotland has so much going for it, but everywhere you go, people say that right now, things feel broken. If you talk to people the length and breadth of the country about how they are feeling, they say that they are tired and frustrated, and they are right to be.

They will not stand for the protestations by this First Minister, who, in addressing my intervention, effectively took to the words of Jim Callaghan—“Crisis? What crisis?” It is all around him. It can take weeks to see a GP. You are lucky if you can find an NHS dentist locally. The waits for many operations and treatments are measured out in years. People are stuck in hospital because they cannot get a care home place or the support that they need to live back at home. Islanders are fed up of ferry cancellations. Communities are fed up of dangerous roads, such as the A9—the backbone of the Perthshire and Highland communities—which finishes each year with a body count. Families worry about violence at school and the lack of support for pupils who need it, and about whether they can find childcare that fits around their work.

I am pleased that Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned the A9. At the forthcoming election, will the Liberals include a manifesto commitment to dual the A9 from Inverness to Perth and to bring forward, if possible, the completion of that dualling before the planned date of 2035?

I am grateful to Fergus Ewing, and I also make the same commitment for the A96.

To put it simply, if the M8 were killing upwards of 10 people every year, it would be dualled by Christmas, yet Highlanders have had to wait for nearly 20 years of commitment after commitment but have not seen that vital road dualled. People deserve better, and Scotland deserves better.

Nearly two decades into SNP rule, for many people, it feels like our country simply is not working as it should be and as it used to. The SNP has had long enough. We know that the only thing that will truly bring about the change that Scotland needs is a change of Government. Scotland needs change, and it needs to be change with fairness at its heart—fairness for everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from.

Liberal Democrats will always hold this Government to account, but we will also roll up our sleeves and get things done. That is what our councillors and MSPs and our record-breaking 72 Liberal Democrat MPs are doing.

For us, the number 1 issue—for both the remainder of this parliamentary session and the coming election—is the NHS and care in our communities. The equivalent of one in six Scots is now stuck on a waiting list. That means months of pain, anxiety and lost time. Liberal Democrats would invest in a first-rate health service so that people can see a GP or dentist when they need them. It is not hard to imagine a time when we used to have that, and that should be the aspiration now. We would deliver faster access to mental health treatment because nobody should be left waiting years for help.

All those waits are holding people back. They are holding growth back and they are holding our country back. On doorsteps across Scotland, families tell me the same story—their bills are soaring, their money does not go as far as it used to, and they are struggling to get by. We would tackle that head on with a national programme of insulation to bring warmth to the homes of Scotland and to bring down stubbornly high fuel costs.

We also want local communities to truly benefit from renewables projects in their areas, so that people actually see the gains from Scotland’s energy wealth. To be shivering in the shadow of a wind turbine and unable to heat your home is not a fair deal when you live in a part of the country that is a powerhouse of the renewables revolution that will move us to net zero and guarantee energy security for all those islands. Jobs in the trades, warmer homes, lower bills—those are the practical differences that a competent Government can make.

It is 10 years since Nicola Sturgeon promised to close the poverty-related attainment gap. It was the number 1 priority—the yardstick—of SNP Government. However, Scottish education has fallen further down the international rankings. Parents and teachers are increasingly worried about what is happening in classrooms, especially about the violence. Workforce planning is a mess, which is leaving good teachers out of work.

The progress on closing that yawning attainment gap has been minuscule. We urgently need a plan to drive up education performance and improve outcomes for our young people. It means recruiting and retaining great teachers properly, supporting pupils with additional support needs and ensuring that every child gets the best possible start in life.

I am not given to quoting Kemi Badenoch, but I will do so now. She said that the Lib Dems are in local communities and that

“A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof.”

She is sneering at the Lib Dems for being a party that will come and fix your church roof and be in your local community, but that is something that we hold as a badge of honour. Her words show exactly why the Conservatives have lost the public’s trust. Many people who once backed Ruth Davidson are completely scunnered at what that party has turned into.

We will be the champions for every town and village in Scotland. We will be champions who will fight for carers, for those who are waiting for operations or care packages, for families who want to see a GP without weeks of delay, for parents who want the best for their children and for businesses that want to see a customs union and youth mobility scheme to fix our broken relationship with Europe.

People are tired of political spin and constant division. They want competence, compassion and care. This is what the Liberal Democrats stand for: thousands of seemingly tiny acts of public service up and down this country, working to make our communities better, to fix what is broken, to build anew and to protect liberal values at home and abroad. This is how we restore hope in our communities and trust in our politics: by fighting for change with fairness at its heart. Scotland deserves better, and the Liberal Democrats are ready to deliver that.

I move amendment S6M-18671.1, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“recognises that people feel let down and frustrated, and considers that Scotland deserves better than the current Scottish National Party administration; calls for first-rate healthcare, help with the cost of living, more support for pupils to help get Scottish education back to its best, and an end to the ferries fiasco, and believes that Scotland needs change with fairness at its heart.”

We now move to the open debate.

15:55  

I am glad to be back in the Parliament. I am positive about the future of Scotland and about how we can make things better. It was good to hear the First Minister tell us about his positive ideas to make Scotland better, even with the challenges that we have to deal with.

On the other side of that, for politics to be better, we need to get something better from the Opposition, because the Opposition—both Tory and Labour—is extremely negative about everything. There is no idea of what they will do. Anas Sarwar has gone from talking about “change”—within a year of the UK Labour Government there has been no change; things just got worse—to talking about “a new direction”; that seems to be his new one. It seems that they have got nae direction whatsoever, because we never hear one thing about what they will do and what they will try to achieve. That is what the people want to hear—the public want to know what you are doing as the Government and how you are achieving things. They do not want to hear or listen to the spin from Labour and the Tories; they want to hear real issues and ideas come to fruition.

The First Minister was right to remind us that, as we came into this parliamentary session, we were going through the end game with Covid, and how difficult that was. Even when we were back in the chamber, we were still a metre apart from one another. For the first year of the session, the Parliament did not operate in the way that it should have. For anyone to brush off the challenge of coming out of Covid is complete and utter nonsense, because that would be a challenge for any Government and it is one that everyone else in the world is dealing with.

The First Minister mentioned Ukraine and the genocide that is happening in Gaza. To those who say that the Scottish Parliament should not talk about what is going on in Gaza, I say: take a long, hard look at yourself and think about what kind of person you are when you can see what is happening in that country and you do not want to talk about it when, as a politician, you have an opportunity to do so. You need to take a look at yourself and move on. Scotland has a voice and a role in the world, and using that is what we in the SNP are all about.

The First Minister is right that what has happened over the summer period regarding the demonisation of some in the community is absolutely disgraceful and needs to be called out. We have seen this before in history, when those on the right attack minority groups—they have done it before and it is a game plan that they use all the time. That should be called out on every single occasion.

This year, we move forward towards the election. It will be no surprise when I say that I come from Paisley. My fellow buddies and I speak in a pretty plain and straight manner—there are no airs and graces. I will tell a story that is connected to the way in which we think and do things. A while ago, I was doing the Paisley 10k and, at this stage, I was walking through Ferguslie Park. A woman in her garden articulated her point of view to me about the fact that I was not running and said that I should go a bit faster. I cannot use the language that she used, because parliamentary protocol would not allow me to, but she motivated me to move forward.

We do not dress things up in Paisley; we tell it how it is. We always look for solutions to the challenges and problems. If a wean is hungry, we feed them; if the hoose is cold, we heat it; if something is broken, we fix it. That is the way that our town and the people in my area have been thinking for all their days. I cannot be someone who does not think or work that way. There are difficulties and challenges, but we must find a solution. What makes us relevant when we speak to the public is looking at the job in hand and getting on with it.

Compare all that with the approach that is taken by those in Westminster. When people say that they need help, they do not find a solution or try to solve the issue. They do not find ways to help to feed them, to heat their homes or to fix things. Instead, they point, shout and hope that nobody notices the mess that they have left. They blame one other and others. Like a typical bully, they blame the easy target—those who cannot defend themselves.

In Scotland, we see action; in Westminster, we see distraction. That is the fundamental difference. I am not interested in playing Westminster’s type of game, but I am interested in what delivers for the people of Paisley and of Scotland. That is what is important to me, and it should be important to every member in the chamber.

For me, the major difference between the two Governments is that our SNP Government is focused on the four big issues: ending child poverty; growing the economy; investing in public services and tackling the climate emergency. Those are not slogans or soundbites. Tackling those issues requires hard work, and our hard-working Scottish Government is actually doing that for people.

Let us take the issue of child poverty. More than 326,000 children are supported through the Scottish child payment. That is more money into families’ pockets. Meanwhile, Westminster is still clinging to its cruel two-child benefit cap. That policy is so daft that even the Government’s back benchers cannot support it. So far, Scotland’s Government has given £1 billion to families who need it, whereas Westminster offers nothing but austerity.

Scotland is bucking the trend, while the UK is stuck in reverse gear. It makes us wonder what the point of the UK is. Our economy in Scotland has outperformed the UK again, we are top for inward investment outside London and we have tripled green jobs since 2021. While we are building an economy for the future, Westminster is running an economic circus.

When it comes to the problems with the climate, Westminster still cannot decide whether climate change is a real thing or just another culture war to fight on “GB News”. I cannot be bothered with that nonsense.

The choice is simple: people can stick with Westminster or they can build a future with an independent Scotland in which the Scottish people make the decisions for Scotland.

I advise members that we are well over time. I will keep members to their time limits.

16:01  

The topic that is before us today is Scotland’s priorities. I am sure that we will all contest exactly what those are. Each party will put forward its own interpretation of the issues that deserve the most attention, but, in truth, the priorities of most Scots have not changed in the 18 years since the SNP came to power. The things that mattered most to people then still matter most to them now. The overwhelming majority of the public do not care about fringe obsessions such as gender, and they do not see independence as a big issue that needs action.

I am sure that the member would agree that one of the great achievements not just of the SNP but of the Parliament was the reopening of the Borders railway, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Saturday. Things have been delivered for the people of Scotland.

I very much look forward to joining Christine Grahame to celebrate the 10th anniversary. I have always been a supporter of the Borders railway.

People do not sit at home discussing small-time topics such as pardons for witches—unless, of course, they are saying, “Can you believe that Holyrood actually spoke about such things?” As Russell Findlay said, what people want is for politicians to show basic common sense. They wanted that in 2007, and that is what they need now. In 18 years of SNP rule, they have not had that. They did not get it under Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon or Humza Yousaf. They are not getting it under John Swinney, either—the man who has been sitting around the Cabinet table for all but one of those 18 years. He was the right-hand man for almost all of his predecessors’ time in office, and he very much represents more of the same SNP way that has let Scotland down for decades. He will not do anything about Scotland’s top priorities, because he never has.

If John Swinney finally wants to change course and do things differently, as he has been promising today, Scotland’s current top priority, just as it was in 2008, is to have a thriving and growing economy. We know that a prosperous economy is the key to increasing tax revenues and providing more investment for much-needed improvement in our public services. Without higher economic growth, we will never have the funds to reduce NHS waiting lists, on which I intervened on the First Minister earlier, or to invest in more teachers and sort out the attainment gap that other members raised in their earlier interventions.

The economy is the crucial bedrock on which everything else is built, but, under the SNP, it is way down the list of its priorities. On the nationalists’ watch, businesses do not feel that they have a say in what happens. Barely any companies think that the Government understands their business. Companies are regularly disadvantaged compared with their competitors south of the border, as happened when the SNP refused to pass on the hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of business rates relief that the UK Government provided.

For a few years, the SNP even brought into government a party that does not believe in economic growth and sees it as a bad thing. It was the First Minister who infamously helped to negotiate the deal to bring the extreme Greens into government. The Greens might be gone, but their influence remains, and the SNP has been pursuing the same disastrous approach for years now: setting higher taxes, introducing more regulation, taking more of people’s hard-earned money but providing less in return, limiting innovation and curtailing opportunities.

Does Rachael Hamilton agree that the windfall tax must be either abolished or substantially reduced? Otherwise, we will see that industry die before our very eyes.

I am grateful to Fergus Ewing for the intervention, because I know that he is a huge advocate for the north-east’s oil and gas sector, as are the Scottish Conservatives. We know that if we do not issue extraction licences and get oil and gas out of the ground, those energy forms will become more unaffordable. People will have less in their pockets to spend and will see their household energy bills go up. It is therefore very important that we support that sector.

Things need to change, and they need to change fast. The SNP must do things differently and put our economy at the top of the agenda. That is why, in the months ahead, my party will call for—and will stand for—there to be a renewed focus on effective spending, for innovators to be encouraged to start and to grow businesses, and for more high-quality jobs to be brought to Scotland.

On Fergus Ewing’s point, we want those thousands of jobs in the north-east to be protected so that workers can transition as we move towards our net zero target, because it is they who have the required skills, experience and knowledge.

We want less red tape for businesses. It is not only Scottish Conservatives who are saying that—it is the businesses themselves. We do not want people wasting their time by filling out paperwork. We want the expansion of opportunities to ambitious and aspirational Scots, whose expectations the SNP is not meeting now. As I have just mentioned, we want lower bills so that families can decide how to spend more of their own money.

By putting our economy first, there will be more revenue to give to the education system and to increase our rankings in the international league.

I do not have more time, so I will come to a close. To summarise, our economy, our education system and our NHS cannot tolerate any more of this failing SNP Government.

16:08  

Today, too many households are still struggling with the cost of food, energy bills and everyday essentials. Decisions that are taken at Westminster continue to make life more difficult for families, communities and businesses across the country. They have faced years of austerity, a hard Brexit that has been imposed on Scotland, and completely and utterly catastrophic economic mismanagement by successive UK Governments.

No doubt my Scottish Labour colleagues who sit to my right will again try to distance themselves from the billions of pounds-worth of cuts made by their UK Labour colleagues, but I will set the scene with a quick rundown of just some of their greatest hits. They have refused to end the two-child benefit cap, and so have pushed more children into poverty. They have blocked compensation for the women against state pension inequality—the WASPI women. They have slashed international aid. They have tried to introduce billions of pounds-worth of cuts to disabled people and imposed a tax on jobs and public services by hiking employer national insurance contributions. The pockets of the young, the poor, the disabled and the elderly have been raided under Labour, and speculation is mounting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is set to announce another wave of tax rises and spending cuts.

We are only just into September, and I am already hearing from constituents who are worried about yet another rise in energy bills. Those are the same constituents who had Labour leaflets pushed through their doors, promising that their bills would go down by £300.

Today, I will expand on one of those points: child poverty. The persistence of child poverty is testament to how families across the UK and the whole of Scotland have been absolutely failed by Westminster. It should be a mark of shame for the Labour Government that child poverty is rising in the rest of the UK and is expected to hit record highs by the end of this Westminster session.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the First Minister has said that the eradication of child poverty is his single most important objective, and the Scottish Government is taking action and turning the tide. Organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have highlighted SNP policies such as the Scottish child payment and the mitigation of the two-child limit as ones that see Scotland bucking the trend.

Research led by Professor Ruth Patrick shows that the Labour Westminster Government could cut child poverty in the UK by a sixth if it were to match Scotland’s investment in social security. That represents 700,000 children who would be lifted out of poverty overnight. We have to ask the question: what is stopping the Labour Government? The progress that Scotland has made on driving down poverty rates shows that another way is possible if the political will is there.

Last week, I visited Rutherglen and Cambuslang Foodbank in my constituency to meet the new manager and to learn more about its upcoming move. With that visit and today’s debate in mind, I was very interested to read a report on the Scottish child payment that the Trussell Trust commissioned from the Fraser of Allander Institute. The Trussell Trust praised the payment as an example of

“an important lever for reducing the need for food banks”

by lifting families out of the deep poverty that leads to their use.

The report found evidence that the Scottish child payment

“successfully reduced food bank usage”

for single-adult households with children, households with three or more children and those with children aged five to 16. Although that research was exploratory in nature, the results are very promising and give us reason for optimism for when larger data sets are available. We are talking about breaking cycles of deep poverty and allowing families not just to pay for essential items and live with more dignity and freedom but to participate in more opportunities and to thrive.

In South Lanarkshire, where my Rutherglen constituency is based, more than 20,000 children and young people are benefiting from the Scottish child payment. More than 21,500 children and young people received best start grant and best start food payments. Those are families in our communities who are getting money directly in their pockets, which eases their household pressures. That is what tackling child poverty head on looks like. Although Labour continues to sit on its hands at Westminster, refusing to reverse the cruel two-child cap, which is widely recognised as one of the biggest drivers of child poverty, the SNP has taken action to effectively scrap that cruel policy in Scotland from next March.

With the powers available to us via this Parliament, the SNP Government is taking action to keep more money in people’s pockets through these tough times. Whether we are talking about social security support that is available only in Scotland, the expansion of free school meals, funded childcare worth £6,000 per year, free prescriptions and eye appointments, free university tuition, free bus travel for 2.3 million people or scrapping peak rail fares, that action is making a difference to families across the country. The SNP Government is saving people money, but the UK Government is doing nothing to help people in our communities with soaring bills. This is a story of action versus distraction, and the SNP has chosen action, which demonstrates what happens when decisions for Scotland can be—and are—made in Scotland.

As an independent nation, we could do so much more, and that is what the SNP is fighting for. Through our actions and our vision over the next year, we will show that independence is the fresh start that Scotland needs.

16:13  

I welcome the opportunity to debate Scotland’s priorities. Eradicating child poverty, confronting the climate emergency, growing a stronger economy and sustaining high-quality public services are ambitions shared across the chamber, but the real test is not whether those aims are worthy but whether they are being delivered. The sad reality is that they are not, and the people of Scotland know it.

The SNP has had nearly two decades to lift children out of poverty, yet persistent child poverty is up. It has had two decades to confront the climate emergency, but it has missed its climate targets. It has had two decades to grow the economy, but it has overseen huge skills gaps in areas where skills are needed to do that. It has had two decades to sustain high-quality public services, yet NHS waiting lists are leaving people in agony for years, teachers are leaving the profession, pupils are being failed and colleges are on their knees.

This Government had £5.2 billion in additional funding this year, yet people’s lives are not getting better. We are in the midst of a housing emergency, which is felt keenly in Glasgow. NHS waiting lists have created a two-tier system, in which those who can afford to pay are going private. The SNP has wasted billions of pounds of public money through incompetence and bureaucracy, and it has stood by while school standards have declined.

It is in education that we can see Scotland’s potential. It is in schools and our education system that we change life chances, celebrate achievement and deliver opportunity for all. However, sadly, in Scotland it is also where we see the impact of our Government’s catastrophic failures, because our Government is distracted and failing to open up opportunities for all Scotland’s young people. The work that our teachers, lecturers and support staff do, from early years through to lifelong learning and additional support, in apprenticeships, universities and colleges, can transform lives, reduce poverty and deliver the Scotland that we all want. The message from them, from families, from young people and from staff is simple: “Get the basics right and give us a fighting chance, and we can and will flourish.” However, the Government has failed to do that. If the Government is to deliver on what it says in its motion are priorities, those must be matched by real outcomes in classrooms, campuses and workplaces across Scotland.

Ministers came to office saying that education was their number 1 priority, yet thousands of young people are being held back as the poverty-related attainment gap persists. Data shows that the gap between our most and least deprived pupils remains stark—at primary school level, it is around 20 percentage points. Someone from a poorer background is still less likely to get a national 5 or an advanced higher than other pupils. This Government is failing pupils in our poorest communities. Some primary 1 pupils, who have started school in recent weeks, were already behind before they even found their peg.

Although the Government has tinkered around the edges to address attendance, which is too low, the reality is that it has failed to tackle the fundamentals that lock young people out of school—the fact is that classroom violence is rising because pupils and staff do not feel supported. The support and the scaffolding around them have been broken. Long waits for CAMHS, the lack of pathways to provide support for neurodiversity, and excessive workloads are causing teachers to leave the profession. Despite what the Government tells us, teacher numbers are nowhere near what they should be in key subjects and localities, which is leaving children short of opportunities. All the while, many teachers are out of work. Support staff are stretched to breaking point and, although inclusion is promised, support is rationed.

Colleges, which should be our regional engines of opportunity, are being asked to do more with less, while employers warn of a skills gap that holds back growth and the mission to transition to net zero. With enrolments falling, funding squeezed and capital budgets cut in real terms, I say to the First Minister and his team that Scotland cannot close its skills gaps by shrinking the institutions that train our workforce and our young people. That is not focus; it is drift and managed—or, as some have said, unmanaged—decline. Devolution gives real powers over schools, skills, colleges, universities, childcare and much more, but the Government has failed to grasp the opportunity that it brings. Scots see through it, and they need leadership. They need a Government that shares their ambitions and works relentlessly to deliver the services that they deserve. Put simply, we need a Government that is back in the service of the people of Scotland.

At the election in May, people in Scotland can have that, with Scottish Labour and a new direction. They can have a Government that is focused on investing in our future by ensuring that every child in every community can believe that success belongs to them. They can have a Government that does more than move a motion and has ambition for all our young people, with a plan from cradle to career to match and deliver it. Scottish Labour has a plan that builds strong skills in literacy, oracy and numeracy. It is a plan that delivers a knowledge-rich curriculum with world-leading digital and science, technology, engineering and mathematics capability; supports creativity; and develops a skills system that delivers for young people, career changers and employers, with colleges, universities and educators at its heart. It is a plan with ambition for school staff, which includes action to reduce teacher workloads and properly match jobs with newly qualified teachers. It will be a Government with an ambition for safe and thriving schools that takes solid action on behaviour, attendance and proper support for pupils with ASN.

Scotland’s young people need a Government with ambition that takes action to remove barriers and deliver affordable childcare that works for working families. Having ambition and taking action in all those areas is how we deliver opportunity for young people. Those are the priorities of Scotland’s people, and they will be the priorities of a Scottish Labour Government.

16:19  

After a long recess away from Parliament, it is good to be back talking about our priorities and about what matters to my constituents and to folk across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has four key priorities: eradicating child poverty; tackling the climate emergency; growing the economy; and sustaining public services. In Aberdeen we can see how those four priorities are interlinked and are combining to provide one single clear direction for the future of our city and our country. Let me talk through them in turn.

We might think that the value of giving every child the best start in life and eradicating child poverty would be clear for everyone to see. However, if we truly want to protect children, we must start by protecting them from poverty. Instead of that, we have a Labour Government that is still persevering with the two-child cap, which is forcing thousands of our bairns to go to bed at night hungry. Thank goodness that we will take a different path in Scotland, and that the Scottish Government will abolish the two-child cap. With that, alongside the baby box, the Scottish child payment, best start grants, 1,140 hours of free childcare a year and a continued investment in our nurseries and schools, we are ensuring that every child gets the best start in life.

The second priority involves the climate emergency. Some may say that that is an issue for the world that our young folk will inherit. However, in Aberdeen—Europe’s energy capital and the future net zero capital of the world—the journey to net zero has already started and is already impacting on folks’ lives. Many young folk have a parent who works in the energy industry. If those jobs are not there when they grow up, there is a big question mark over what jobs there will be.

The third priority is growing the economy. In Aberdeen, as I have already alluded to, the energy sector is the biggest part of our economy. Thousands of folk in our city work for energy companies and thousands more work in the supply chain, and the money that they spend supports a high proportion of other local jobs. For decades, the fortunes of Aberdeen have risen and fallen with oil prices and, throughout that time, we have considered what a future without oil and gas might look like. Whether it is phased out, is forced out or runs out, there will come a time when Aberdeen no longer has an oil and gas industry, but being home to a workforce that is so highly skilled offers us a golden opportunity to establish ourselves as a net zero capital.

Will the member take an intervention on that?

I will take a quick intervention, although time is quite tight.

I am grateful.

The SNP’s draft energy strategy maintains its presumption against new oil and gas. Does the member support that presumption?

I am talking about the energy industry in Aberdeen; the member has gone off topic just slightly.

The climate crisis and the efforts to tackle it will affect everyone but, with the right investment and support, Aberdeen will lead Scotland and the world in the move to net zero. As I am standing here now, more than 30,000 industry professionals and our Deputy First Minister are attending the Offshore Europe conference in my Aberdeen Donside constituency. The focus of that event is the future of the energy industry, which is a priority for all of us, especially those of us in the north-east.

The motion talks about being hampered by the policy decisions of the UK Government, and the north-east and the energy industry represent probably the clearest example of where it is getting it wrong. It has been far too quick to announce a windfall tax only for energy companies, it has been far too quick to increase it and it has been far too quick to remove investment incentives, while it has taken far too long to back and invest in the Acorn project. I suspect that we will be waiting a very long time to see any meaningful amount of jobs created within Great British Energy. The UK Government has utterly failed to take any meaningful action to save energy jobs in Scotland, be that in the north-east or at Grangemouth.

The Scottish Government has stepped up, not just with the £500 million just transition fund but with a range of local investments, such as the millions of pounds that it has committed to Aberdeen’s first green academy building in Hazlehead, which conveniently ties in with all of the Scottish Government’s priorities.

I turn to the fourth and final priority: delivering and sustaining good-quality public services. I grew up with the idea that a welfare state would support me from the cradle to the grave. Although the welfare state has been eroded by 15 years of austerity, it is still worth fighting for, and I am pleased that the Scottish Government is delivering in the same spirit. From baby boxes and best start grants to funeral support payments and everything in between—free university, free doctor appointments and a helping hand when folk have children—those are the Scottish Government’s priorities. I can see the difference that they make to people’s lives as the Government works towards and delivers on those priorities every day.

In contrast, I am not so sure that I see what the UK Government’s priorities are, and I am unsure whether Keir Starmer does, either. However, I can see what the UK has delivered for people: a proliferation of food banks, record levels of inequality, reduced opportunities, Brexit, attempts to sow division and two decades of wage stagnation. I look forward to folk getting to choose between a Scottish Government that is focused on delivering for them and a broken Britain that looks to be in its dying days.

16:25  

This debate serves to show one thing and one thing only: namely, despite the opportunity for self-reflection and a reset over the summer, the First Minister and his Government have learned no lessons at all. We return to the Parliament today, and the SNP’s first act, sadly and predictably, is to press for independence. Over the summer, I have spoken to residents on doorsteps and in surgeries from Aberlady to Sanquhar. Let me tell the First Minister, who has just left the chamber, that independence was not a priority for a single person to whom I spoke out there in the real world.

Between now and the election, we will be locked in this downward and depressing spiral of constitutional debate, because it is a distraction by a discredited First Minister who has not offered a single effective solution to the problems that his Government has created, which are getting worse by the day. Mr Swinney’s priority, I am afraid to say—he is not here, but I will repeat this if he comes back in—is the dwindling band of nationalist diehards who grow shriller and shriller as each month passes.

Let us offer a reality check to Mr Swinney and his colleagues. We do so because the real priorities of people out in the country are very different from those of his Government. Rather than obsessing over gender issues, people would like his Government to fix the NHS. One in six Scots is still languishing on an NHS waiting list, stretching primary care to breaking point.

People want more of their own money in their pocket. Instead, taxes are sky high; hard-pressed Scots are being bled dry, with £1.7 billion in additional income taxes that are resulting in behavioural change and damaging the Scottish economy.

Driving on Scotland’s roads, particularly roads in rural areas, which are forgotten about by the SNP, is now increasingly like driving on the surface of the moon. Worse still, the failure to upgrade key roads such as the A75 is putting lives and livelihoods at risk.

What of Ivan McKee’s commitment to public sector reform, which is, apparently, a priority? Right on cue, Mr McKee has arrived in the chamber. When he announced his public sector reform plan earlier this year, he said that it was “rooted in realism”. He said that it was not done

“in a headline-grabbing way that simply throws out random targets based on no evidence”.—[Official Report, 19 June 2025; c 57.]

However, we now know from an freedom of information request response that Mr McKee’s policy is a sham. Civil servants warned him that there are “significant caveats” and “limitations” around the figures underpinning the “very challenging” target that he set. That included “inconsistencies” in how public bodies had “self-reported” their previous spending activity, compounded by a “light-touch verification” system. His own directorate for public service reform warned him of that in May, when it said:

“There is not a specific breakdown of the £1 billion target and there is an element of risk in this approach.”

We found out that, in May, cabinet secretaries raised with the minister what they said were “considerable concerns”, but, today, Shona Robison could shed no light on what those specific concerns were. In short—

The Minister for Public Finance (Ivan McKee) rose—

I am short on time, but I will take a brief intervention.

I just want to let Craig Hoy know that, of course, there is risk, but we are going to deliver on the policy. There are challenges, but we are going to deliver. The target is, indeed, rooted in reality; it is based on the data that we collected—it is 20 per cent of that. That is what we are going to deliver on. He might want to stand there and say that we have problems and challenges and that it is not going to happen, but I am letting him know that we are committed to the policy, we are going to deliver on it and everybody is committed to making that happen.

The minister knows only too well that his plan is not rooted in reality but was written on the back of a fag packet to get him through the next Scottish Parliament election. If his own officials and colleagues do not believe that there is a plan, why should the country have any faith in his proposals? Is it not true that it is facing a £5 billion budget black hole by 2030—one created by SNP ministers—which means that the Government is now clutching at straws to get itself through next year’s election? Is the reality not that, in order to pay their bloated public sector and welfare bills, ministers will have to make very tough decisions and that, although they will not tell us this now, that will mean huge tax increases or massive public spending cuts if the SNP is re-elected next May?

Over the course of the summer, I knocked on thousands of doors across Dumfriesshire. I can tell the First Minister and the Scottish Government—people who care little for South Scotland or for regions that do not vote for the SNP—what the Scottish people’s real priorities are. They are tackling long waits in our NHS, fixing our roads and providing certainty to farmers who are scared witless by Labour’s family farm tax.

I say to the First Minister, the Government and SNP back benchers that they could not be further away from real people’s views on immigration. Many of the ordinary Scots who I spoke to over the summer live with the reality of an asylum hotel, the Mercure in Dumfries, on their doorstep. It is not—as it is for the First Minister—an abstract matter: it is what they live with day by day. It has changed the character of their community, and not for the better. We need a Government that focuses on the needs of communities such as those in Dumfriesshire, not one that focuses on allowing more and more people into our country in breach of the law. Britain is our home; it is not a hotel for those trying to enter the country illegally. Sadly, this SNP Government, this First Minister and this self-indulgent Parliament simply will not understand that.

16:31  

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests regarding my former employment.

I will focus today on missed opportunities and on how the SNP is letting down people in my area. As ever, we heard blame today, even though our new Labour Government allocated this Government an extra £5.2 billion in Barnett consequentials. That is real money that should be making a real difference to people’s lives, but it is not being delivered where it is needed because of SNP waste.

We have pushed SNP ministers so hard to focus on the day job. We saw that with the Edinburgh eye pavilion when, after huge public pressure, they were forced into a U-turn, and we saw it again with peak fares when, once more, the Government had to U-turn after pressure by Labour members. [Interruption.] Colleagues should remember those debates—they are in the Official Report.

Our constituents deserve better than government by U-turn. They deserve government by delivery, whether that is in the NHS, where 900,000 people face massive waiting times, or in my constituency, where young people are massively impacted by the lack of access to CAMHS services and by the failure to deliver on educational attainment that was cited by Pam Duncan-Glancy.

Mark Griffin’s response to today’s statement on housing was spot on. Although we welcome more investment, it is too little, too late. We are still in a housing emergency and there is a lack of affordable, accessible housing. It is unacceptable that more than 9,000 children will still be in unsuitable accommodation. I thought that it was really significant that the cabinet secretary did not directly answer Ben Macpherson’s question about Edinburgh’s housing emergency. Our constituents desperately need to see more support for our councils, housing associations and housing co-operatives so that they can build the affordable, accessible housing that we desperately need.

Màiri McAllan, the cabinet secretary, is not in the chamber, but it is important to put on the record that she did actually respond by saying that there would be targeted spending in areas of high pressure, such as Edinburgh.

Yes, but we did not get the targets or the accountability.

For years, there has been a lack of building, which means that people are leaving the city and going to East Lothian, Midlothian or West Lothian because they simply cannot afford housing in the city. That lack of affordable housing means that rents have been rocketing and are simply unaffordable. We need urgent action, but we did not get the detailed financial commitments that we needed to hear today, and that is deeply disappointing.

I want to focus on the climate emergency. The climate targets were dumped because the SNP had not done the heavy lifting to meet them. The climate emergency is not abstract. It is impacting on people’s lives now. Flooding is disrupting rail services and damaging people’s homes and communities. Last week, a damning report from Audit Scotland warned that the Scottish Government is failing to allocate the investment that is needed to make our communities safe from flooding. Over the past decade, costs have trebled. Local authorities now need clarity and certainty on funding, because the risk of flooding is increasing due to extreme weather. Coastal communities are vulnerable, as are homes on flood plains and beside rivers. There are 280,000 homes in Scotland that are currently at risk.

There is also the growing risk of wildfires. It is horrific to see what is happening across Europe—in Greece, Spain and Portugal—but we are also seeing wildfires here in Scotland. This summer, a fire burned for several days in Uphall in West Lothian. Last month, we had a serious fire in Holyrood park that lasted for days. It is thought that the fire was the result of human activity, and we need to raise awareness of risk, but awareness alone is not enough. People also need to know that their emergency services will be there for them when disaster strikes.

That is why we need the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to be properly resourced to deal with the new risks of fires and flooding. Rural and urban communities need more community capacity, not cuts, because the time that it takes for firefighters to arrive can make the difference between life and death. It makes no sense to close Marionville fire station, which is just over a mile from this Parliament and is in an area where there are 3,500 new homes. There are also major developments at Leith port, and Marionville is the station that is responsible for tackling fires in Holyrood park. Closing Marionville would leave families and businesses more exposed to risk. It makes no sense to close that station. It is another example of SNP Government cuts not delivering the services that our constituents urgently need.

We need a Government that is focused on delivery, not one that wastes its money through bad decision making. The failed national care service wasted millions but did not create a single job, and there has been a lack of jobs being created on ferries and buses and in renewables. If we are to see a fair transition, we need good-quality jobs in Scotland now. There was such an irony in John Swinney saying that his Government does not have the powers that it needs, given the massive missed opportunities for our renewables with ScotWind—the opportunities to create more jobs in our communities and the opportunities for community, co-operative or municipally owned heat and power companies.

We need to see the recommendations of the Just Transition Commission being acted on. We need action in the north-east and action on our ports and harbours. The SNP promised to create 130,000 green jobs, but that has not happened. It has not created a publicly owned energy system, but we can see GB Energy getting on with the job. We need investment in community energy projects. We cannot afford another SNP Government of excuses and U-turns. We need a Government of delivery, which will come only with a Scottish Labour Government.

The final speaker in the open debate will be Ben Macpherson.

16:38  

Coming into Parliament today after a long recess, it was even more striking to me—as I am sure it was to colleagues—just what a privilege it is to come and be able to speak and express ourselves in this place on behalf of those we serve. They expect us to bring solutions and positive vision, especially at a time when, as the First Minister said, we are 25 years into this Parliament’s history, a quarter of the way into the 21st century and in a period of multiple challenges at home and across the world.

I am therefore—honestly—dismayed and shocked at the absolute lack of depth of solutions from Opposition members. When I listened to both Opposition leaders speaking, I did not hear one idea, one worked-out policy or one thing that was constructive. We all know that the people we represent are experiencing tough times, and they expect us to do what we were sent here to do, which is to come up with ways that will make a difference for them. That is exactly what the First Minister set out to Parliament and what the Scottish Government is focused on. There are challenges, but there are multiple successes to be welcomed, too.

I did not hear any Opposition MSP mention the really good results that our school pupils achieved across the country, or the fact that more people from less privileged backgrounds are going to university. I did not hear them say that we had a remarkable summer of culture and festivities—in particular, here in the capital, where people poured in from around the world and spoke positively about our country thereafter. I did not hear any praise for our remarkable police force and the fact that it managed all those events—and a presidential visit and a vice-presidential visit—extremely well.

I did not hear any comment about the fact that the standard for waiting times has been met for the third time in a row, as was announced today. I did not hear about NHS Scotland’s five-year high for operations, with a record number of hip and knee replacements being performed by our NHS.

As the First Minister said, there is more to do, but much has been achieved. Given all the challenge in our country, we need to get to a position in which people can look to this place and see people speaking with passion about ideas to make things better and being constructive about what has been done well.

Those who are just trying to talk our country down and to chip away at our society will be absolutely delighted by what the Opposition parties have put to the Parliament today, because it is empty—there are no ideas.

Anas Sarwar, you may shake your head—

You must speak through the chair.

Pardon me, Presiding Officer. If Anas Sarwar gets to his feet later this week, he should come out with some constructive solutions.

When members of the Opposition parties speak, they talk as if Scotland already had all the powers of an independent nation. They talk as if a Conservative Government had not made disastrous decisions for many years. They talk as if a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives had not put this country into the worst austerity in Europe in the 21st century. They talk as if the Labour Government had done everything perfectly over the years, when we all know that that is not the case. There is so much more that we can do, but we need to do it together and to be honest.

For example, on the NHS, the Opposition makes criticism, but we should think about what we could do if we had a migration policy in Scotland, or about how things would be better if we had not been taken out of the EU against our will. When it comes to the economy, imagine if we could reverse or had not had the national insurance increase, or could do more with VAT to support the hospitality sector, or more with other aspects of the taxation system. That would help us to make a difference. That is why the constitution matters.

Another example is energy. Members talked about redirecting wealth from renewables into communities, but energy policy is reserved. That is why the constitution and more powers matter.

Members talked about poverty alleviation. Imagine if we did not have to spend money on mitigating the two-child cap and the bedroom tax. Imagine if we could make all the welfare policy in Scotland in a more sensible and thoughtful way, to reduce poverty even further. Of course, we are making good progress compared with elsewhere in the UK, as has already been said.

So much more could be said about why the constitution matters. As much as the Opposition and others want to chip away and tear things down, I can feel that a resistant optimism is developing in Scotland. I am proud that the SNP Government is part of the pushback against negativity. Yes, we will talk about hope; yes, we will talk about how we can make things better; and yes, we will talk about the constitution being relevant in that space. More and more people are seeing independence as the space in which Scotland would be able to achieve its full potential. More and more, it is becoming the settled will. Those who dismiss it as an aspiration—those who dismiss statehood—need to remember that they are talking about 50 per cent of the people we represent. Their opinions matter and, very soon, the question will be what the Opposition and Westminster are going to do to facilitate their will.

We come to the closing speeches.

16:44  

I welcome Ruth Maguire’s presence back in the chamber after her absence. It is good to see her. [Applause.]

I also take the opportunity to thank the constituent who wrote to me congratulating me on taking over the Scottish Green Party. I am very grateful for their email, but I think that I have done enough bench moving this year.

Listening to the First Minister today, I was really struck by a sense of déjà vu, because I have listened to this debate some nine years in a row. However, the big difference in the First Minister’s speech this year was that it took him 14 minutes to utter the word “independence”—and, even then, it was just once. That, in itself, is quite telling as to the direction of travel of the SNP.

Here is what we did not hear, but should have heard, from the speakers from the governing party. Although we heard it from Opposition members, we did not hear it from them that, for the seventh year in a row, Scotland has the highest number of drug deaths in Europe. We did not hear that 25 of them were in Inverclyde alone. Those people are my neighbours; those people are my friends of friends.

We also did not hear from members on the Government benches about the 8,000 cancellations on the Gourock to Dunoon ferry in the past two years, or about the fact that Ferguson Marine was overlooked for ferry contracts, which went to yards in Poland and Turkey, and which we are now seeing delays to. We did not hear about the 2,000 people—that is more than the entire population of Howwood in my region—who are stuck in a hospital bed due to delayed discharge. They are in hospital, but they should be at home, and we all know it. Of course, none of that comes as any surprise, because we all know that care homes are closing across Scotland, left, right and centre. In Scotland right now, 10,000 people are waiting for a social care assessment.

We did not hear from members on the Government benches about the nearly 1 million people who are stuck on an out-patient, in-patient or diagnostic appointment waiting list, some of whom have been on one for years—years of worry, pain and distress. Some people will die waiting.

We did not hear about the psychiatric patients who were discharged from hospital, often at the most vulnerable point in their lives, who waited a year for critical follow-up care. One person in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area waited 330 days to be seen after leaving hospital.

Yes, all that might sound a bit parochial and overly negative, but all politics is local, and that is the reality of too many people and too many of our constituents. Believe it or not, very few people in my region lie awake at night wondering about the many constitutional arguments that occupy so much airtime in this chamber. They lie awake at night because they are in pain. They lie awake at night because they are waiting on a new knee or hip. They lie awake at night because they are stuck in temporary accommodation, wondering why on earth they cannot find a permanent home for them and their children. They lie awake at night in the back streets of our Glasgow city, addicted to drugs and desperate for help, and many of them will not wake the next day. That is our national shame, which is a shame not just on the Government but on the entire Parliament.

People in my region lie awake at night staring at their spreadsheets, wondering why footfall to their island is down this year, whether their business will survive another winter and which member of staff they might have to lay off to balance the books.

Ben Macpherson said that he wants solutions, and I agree. I, too, want to hear constructive solutions from all parties, which all have good ideas. However, people are fed up, and I do not blame them. Here is my biggest fear, and why I find genuine consensus in some of the comments that have been made this afternoon. My biggest fear is that voters will respond to their overall loss of faith in politics and politicians by finding solace in the fringes of populist politics: in politicians who will promise them the earth, but who will deliver nothing but grievance, division and community discontent. Divide and conquer, as their strategy seems to be, will deliver temporary electoral results, but it also risks fracturing the good nature of Scots—and we, as a Parliament, cannot let that happen.

Will Jamie Greene give way?

I do not have much time; my apologies.

Let me say that refugees are not the reason that people cannot get a GP appointment by waiting in that 8 am queue. Let me say that the LGBT community is not the reason that domestic violence is on the up in Scotland. There are other reasons, and it is about time that we stop scapegoating people who have already faced so much adversity in life to get to where they are. I make no apologies for saying that.

I understand that governing is difficult, and that it is about priorities. I understand that there has never been an endless pot of cash, and I understand the economic difficulties of being in government and having to make those decisions.

However, taxpayers want and deserve value for money. They expect good public services. They expect their Parliament to debate these issues with gravity and sensitivity. They expect their politicians to work constructively when required and to disagree respectfully when necessary. Of course they want alternatives. Of course they are sick of people bemoaning failures, but something that is sorely lacking in this place is the Government taking and accepting responsibility when it has to.

This debate is about Scotland’s future. We all want a better future for Scotland—I do not doubt that. However, speeches will not deliver a better Scotland; a Government that does what it promises will, and whatever the next Government of Scotland looks like, it should never forget that.

16:50  

I will pick up from where Ben Macpherson finished because I was disappointed by this debate. It was an opportunity for all parties to set out our priorities and our visions for Scotland. In too many cases, the Scottish Government lacks ambition and bravery, but there is clearly a vision there and it is one that I can broadly agree with. However, what we heard from Labour and the Conservatives this afternoon was a relentlessly negative vision for this country—if “vision” is even a word that can be used to describe it. If I was not convinced beforehand, I am absolutely convinced now that it is the strategy of both of those parties to simply make people miserable because they think that that is the best way to achieve the results that they want next May. There is no sense that they would improve the lives of the people of this country. More importantly, there was no record for them to speak of. This is a minority Scottish Government. A minority Government gives every member of this Parliament the opportunity to exercise influence and to deliver on what they believe in, but there was no mention of a record of delivery and achievement from the members on the Labour or Conservative benches, because they have a strategy of preventing progress—even more so in this session of Parliament than in the previous one.

I can think of no better example of that than in relation to the Housing (Scotland) Bill, to which I lodged an amendment to end one particular scandal—the scandal of domestic abuse survivors being forced to pay off their abusers’ council tax debts. I thank Shirley-Anne Somerville and Paul McLennan for supporting me with that amendment and the SNP members who voted for it. However, Labour and Conservative MSPs voted against that amendment to end the scandal of abuse survivors paying their abusers’ debts. Why?

In June, Labour and the Conservatives came up with contrived reasons to oppose the Education (Scotland) Bill and to keep the Scottish Qualifications Authority in place—an organisation that they, like me, have quite rightly railed against for years.

I tried to find something that I could agree with. At one point, Russell Findlay complained about an unreformed public sector. Although we probably have very different visions of reform, I agree that there is need for reform. I am sure that, on that basis, if the report into the pilots of the four-day working week shows a boost in worker productivity at no additional cost, we will see that in the Conservative manifesto for next year—I do not really believe that, of course, because that would be a policy that would make some people happier, which is something that the Conservatives absolutely cannot see in Scotland. I ask my Conservative colleagues whether they are not exhausted by that negativity. Are they not exhausted by coming here every day to talk down the country that they live in and represent?

I spoke in my opening speech about the need for us to redistribute wealth to deliver the fairer, greener society that I believe that the vast majority of people want. That involves having some difficult conversations, such as the one that I had with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government this morning about the small business bonus scheme. I accept the need for us to support small businesses—the lifeblood of Scotland’s economy—but the Government’s own independent review found that there was no evidence that the £0.25 billion scheme had positive economic outcomes. If we are to spend £0.25 billion supporting small businesses every year, we need to have a difficult conversation about whether the SBBS, in its current form, is the way to do that.

That is not the only area of tax where we need to see reform. We also need to see reform in property taxes. There are too many young people who want to start a family and need a home to do that but are locked out of the broken housing market, while the king—one of the richest people in this country—is personally exempt from paying land and buildings transaction tax.

I know that there are many on the Government benches who agree with the policies that the Greens have put forward and, under the leadership of me and Gillian Mackay, the Greens want to work constructively with the Government where there is common ground and the opportunity to take this country forward together.

People want and need politicians on their side, fighting for them. Free bus travel for young people and removing peak rail fares were policies that put money in people’s pockets, took action to tackle the climate crisis and made life easier for normal people. That kind of progress is key to securing independence.

We need to strain the existing powers of this place and show people the good of self-government. It undermines the argument for independence when our existing—limited, but existing—-powers sit unused or underused. Yes, we are doing things with one hand tied behind our back, but we need to play the hand that we have been dealt. We need to act to fix the everyday problems that people face, because happy people make for an optimistic society, and that is the only way that we will achieve our goal of independence.

I want us to strain the limits of devolution. One area in which I hope that the Scottish Government will stretch the limits of devolution tomorrow is in opposing apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestine. I wrote to the First Minister with a package of measures that the Government could bring forward with its existing powers to deliver the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign—a campaign that worked against apartheid South Africa and can work against apartheid Israel—because the Scottish Government’s actions with regard to the genocide in Gaza simply do not match its welcome words. In fact, it has taken no action against the state of Israel. One can compare that with its approach to Russia: as soon as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Scottish Government quite rightly urged every business in the country to axe all ties and business links with Russia.

Palestinian Scots want to see action from the Government, because words will not save their family members’ lives. If the Scottish Government is willing to be bold, Green MSPs will work with it, because a bold, brave Government is exactly what this era of crisis requires.

16:56  

The Government’s motion invites us to consider Scotland’s priorities. If the SNP ever cared about the priorities of ordinary people, it is clear that it has long since lost touch with them.

Instead of running a functioning NHS, it has brought the health service to its knees. We have more patients waiting longer than two years for treatment in NHS Tayside than we do in the whole of England.

Instead of delivering a school system in which young people can reach their potential, the SNP has presided over a decline in school standards. In Dundee, it cannot even build the primary school that it promised 10 years ago.

Instead of a thriving economy, it has left us lagging behind other parts of the UK and wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. If the SNP and John Swinney had real ideas about how to fix the mess that they have made we would have seen them by now.

Of course, John Swinney and the SNP want to talk about none of that. They know that their legislative achievements are meagre and that their record in government is one of demonstrable failure. Instead, John Swinney is reaching for the independence panic button—that is not about building out, but about narrowing in. Those are not the priorities of the ordinary people across Scotland, who are working ever harder and getting ever less from their Government in return. John Swinney knows that, and in the next eight months, unfortunately, he will put the SNP’s election strategy before the good of the country.

The First Minister began this debate by talking about, and throwing around, blame. A preferable term might be responsibility, and the opportunity to finally take some.

The First Minister says that

“a corner ... is being turned”.

I ask him who the corner is being turned on, because the person who set us on this path, and set this direction for 20 years—two decades—was him. Our NHS will not survive another decade of this knackered SNP Government.

Mr Marra misconstrues my comments, and he does so in a very dangerous way, for which I want to hold him to account. I willingly accept my responsibility—I am in the chamber every Thursday when Parliament sits, answering questions as First Minister, in order to accept my responsibility. I was making the point that blame has been foisted on migrants in this country, and half of it has been landed on them by the Labour Government in London.

That is a risible statement, and it is below the First Minister—

No, it is not.

The First Minister is absolutely right—[Interruption.]

He is absolutely right that there is a climate of fear being nurtured in this country by people on the extreme right. However, when he talks about his legislative agenda, he has to take responsibility for his record, which has produced the result that people are being disenfranchised and scared in their own communities when they do not see a Government that is delivering for them. That is part of the responsibility of Government: to build the compact between the politicians and the people.

Will the member give way?

No, thank you, sir.

It is absolutely right that the First Minister takes responsibility for that record, because he is completely out of touch on the NHS. There are 900,000 people on waiting lists in Scotland, cancer deaths are on the rise and private healthcare is opening up in streets across Scotland. People are having to empty their bank accounts and go into debt to obtain the care that they badly need. That is the record that he is desperate to walk away from, because that record has very real consequences, as various members have pointed out today.

Today saw the publication of annual drug deaths figures for Scotland. In 2024, 1,017 people in Scotland lost their lives to addiction and drugs—the worst record in the whole of Europe. One thousand and seventeen lives were destroyed, 1,017 families were ripped apart and 1,017 people left behind their grieving loved ones. For years, this scandal has torn through my home city of Dundee and, yet again, Dundee is in the top three areas in Scotland for drug deaths. In 2010, 22 Dundonians were lost to suspected drug deaths, but, by 2021, that figure was 52, at which point Nicola Sturgeon admitted that she had taken her eye off the ball. That showed at least some semblance of responsibility, but, unfortunately, it deserves just three paragraphs in her latest tax-avoiding novel. Tragically, lives are being lost that could well have been saved if Scotland had had a Government with its eyes on the ball and its people’s interests at its heart.

The SNP is content to take Scotland further down the path of managed decline and failure. Scottish Labour knows that that is not good enough. Scots deserve a health service that is there when they need it, a place to call home, good jobs and a world-class education system. We used to have those things, but nearly two decades of the SNP have hollowed out those services and hobbled our economy. Scotland cannot afford a third decade of the SNP.

Scottish Labour is ambitious for this country’s future. We will build a country where Government delivers the basics but everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. We will fix the NHS, clear the backlogs and end the 8 am rush for a GP appointment. We will improve our schools, support our high streets and grow our economy. We will end the addiction to waste and respect taxpayers’ money. A Scottish Labour Government will focus on ordinary people’s priorities and deliver the real new direction that Scotland desperately needs.

17:02  

Normally, at this stage in the parliamentary timetable, we debate the programme for government. Of course, we did that back in May, but this afternoon there is a good opportunity to look at the proposals from the Scottish Government and consider what we hear from the First Minister and what that tells us about this Government’s priorities for the period ahead.

An illustration of what is wrong with the priorities of this Government is the fact that, when we look at the parliamentary timetable for this week, we see the entirety of tomorrow’s business being spent on international affairs—business that has nothing to do with this Parliament. I am sure that it is a great opportunity for people on the SNP benches and elsewhere to grandstand, but it is a literal waste of parliamentary time. George Adam said that Scotland should have a voice on those issues. He is right. Scotland does have a voice on them—we send 56 MPs to Westminster to speak for Scotland on them. I am sure that Mr Adam knows that some of them are SNP MPs and are utterly useless and incapable of doing their job properly. We should be spending our time here productively on the things that we can change, not wasting our time on the things that we cannot.

As we would expect, we heard from Mr Swinney about independence. I was a little surprised that, in his comments on independence, he did not address the latest revelations from the Scottish Government’s “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland” figures, which came out just a few weeks ago in recess. The net fiscal deficit for Scotland is now up to £26.5 billion, which is 11.7 per cent of gross domestic product and is double the UK level. That means that an independent Scotland would have to find £13 billion-worth of either cuts or tax rises. The Government never tells us how it would fill that gap. That figure means that the union dividend is now worth £2,600 extra for every man, woman and child in Scotland in fiscal transfers from other parts of the United Kingdom.

People might think that, with all that extra money to spend on the health service, education, infrastructure and justice, our public services would be much better than they are in every other part of the United Kingdom. Patently, that is not the case, as we have heard in this afternoon’s debate.

The other thing that we now know from the GERS figures is that public sector spend in Scotland is equivalent to 52 per cent of gross domestic product, which is among the highest levels of any country in the developed world. When SNP members talk about austerity, are they trying to tell us that more than half of our GDP being spent in the public sector is austerity? If that is austerity, what figure would they have us spend? Would it be 62 per cent or 72 per cent? They never tell us. They have huge sums of money at their disposal and they need to stop wasting it.

I welcome the First Minister saying that there needs to be a focus on economic growth, and we agree. We have just had the growth figures for the second quarter of this year. GDP growth in Scotland was 0.2 per cent, while in the UK, under a dismal Labour chancellor who is holding back economic growth, the equivalent figure was 0.3 per cent. Scotland is growing at just two thirds the rate of even the dismal performance of the United Kingdom.

Looking at the long-term trend since 2011, we see that, if the Scottish economy had grown at the same rate as the UK economy, it would be £10 billion bigger than it is today. That is the SNP’s record in government. When SNP members look at the figures, they say, “Go back to 2007.” Yes, it is right that, when we look at the figures from 2007 to 2011, we see that there was rapid growth in the Scottish economy. Why? It is because of growth in the oil and gas sector—the very oil and gas sector that the SNP wants to close down. Kemi Badenoch is absolutely right in what she said today in Aberdeen, where she talked about the need to take the brakes off extraction from the North Sea.

That economic underperformance comes at a cost. The Scottish Fiscal Commission talked about the economic performance gap, which is estimated to cost £1.058 billion to the public sector in 2025-26—that is £1 billion less in revenue than we should have thanks to SNP mismanagement.

However, as Craig Hoy reminded us, Ivan McKee is riding to the rescue. We all hope that Mr McKee is successful in his battle with his Cabinet colleagues, who are apparently very resistant to his plans. According to information released under a freedom of information request, they have “raised considerable concerns” about Mr McKee’s plans. Keep fighting, Mr McKee—we are all behind you as you find these savings in the public sector.

Ben Macpherson challenged us to come up with some positive ideas, so I will do just that for Mr Macpherson’s benefit. We make no apology for demanding a focus on growth, because growth provides wealth, growth provides more secure, better-paid jobs, growth provides less poverty, growth provides more disposable income, and growth provides higher tax revenues. What we should be doing is tackling the barriers to growth: the higher taxes imposed by the SNP in income tax and LBTT, the business rates that are hammering hospitality, and the visitor levy—throughout the summer, I heard so many businesses expressing their concern about a visitor levy coming in on top of all the other bills that they have to pay. We should tackle the excessive regulation, such as the overbureaucratic short-term let rules, or the creaking planning system that needs to be fixed.

There are other priorities that we have to tackle. The NHS has too many people waiting too long. Anas Sarwar was right to talk about the number of people in Scotland who are having to pay for private operations because they are simply waiting too long. I met a constituent at the weekend who is in exactly that position, waiting more than a year for a vital hip replacement and eventually having to dip into savings to go private. That is happening too often.

Standards in schools are dropping below those of our competitor nations. There are growing issues of violence in classrooms and a failure to deliver vital infrastructure. Remember that this is all with £2,600 more per head of population to spend than in the rest of the UK. With all that money, we should have public services that are so much better than everywhere else, and that we do not is an SNP failure.

Our approach is simply this: let us put growth first, let us take the brakes off oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, let us get reformed, effective public services, let us invest in infrastructure and let us speak up for the victims of crime. Those are the people’s priorities and they are our priorities, too.

17:09  

Murdo Fraser is out of touch with the Scottish people. They care deeply about the plight of people in Gaza and they expect their nation’s Parliament to care, too. Their compassion is in stark contrast to the lack of compassion of those Tory members from whom we have heard today.

I welcome everyone back to Parliament—it is a more plural Parliament than the one that we had in June. I, too, welcome Ruth Maguire back to the chamber; it is good to see her here. [Applause.]

I will start with Russell Findlay’s miserable contribution, which I suspect reflects the rather miserable summer that he and his colleagues have had. Russell Findlay’s narrative is really not working for him or for his party. It is entirely negative, as others have pointed out, and is based on the simple objective of talking down Scotland. That is all that the Tories have, and their approach will continue to be roundly rejected by the population of our nation.

Anas Sarwar, despite the hubris, cannot escape the simple truth that he failed to support more funding for the NHS, more funding to tackle child poverty and more funding to tackle the housing emergency. It is all talk and no action from him, as usual. If he wants to talk about what is “knackered”, he has only to look at his knackered Prime Minister and his knackered UK Labour Government, which, after one year in power, is plummeting in the polls and running scared of Reform UK. If he wants to use the word “knackered” from his focus groups, we are very happy to talk about what is knackered: his Government and his Prime Minister.

In contrast, Ross Greer made a constructive contribution, and I agree with many of the things that he had to say. We disagree on some things, but it is about working collaboratively on the things that we agree on. I would also say that about Alex Cole-Hamilton. There are many areas on which he and his colleagues have taken a pragmatic approach to working with us in order to make progress—the budget is an example of that—and I welcome that. However, on his comment about the attainment gap, I point out that we have record levels of literacy and numeracy attainment for both primary and secondary pupils, and we have a record-low attainment gap in literacy for primary schools. Yes, there is more to do, but we have to recognise where progress has been made.

Clare Haughey set out well the UK Labour Government’s woeful record. It made a promise to cut energy bills only for us to see them rise, and that increase impacts on people’s household budgets.

Pam Duncan-Glancy spoke about reducing child poverty, but let me remind her of the facts. Scotland is the only part of the UK where the level of child poverty is falling. It is going up in the areas that the Labour Party controls, whether in Wales or in England. The reality is very different from her rhetoric.

This debate has been on the Scottish Government’s priorities, but not one SNP speaker has mentioned the serious challenges in the justice portfolio. Can the people of Scotland conclude that justice is still not a priority for this failing SNP Government?

We have prioritised justice and the front-line spend for Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, both of which have received a real-terms increase in their funding. Crime is at a record low in most areas, and we should be proud of that. People should feel safe in Scotland. That is not to say that there are not challenges with sexual offences and domestic violence, which are issues that I take very seriously indeed. However, let us not create the impression that Scotland is not a safe place. It is a safe place to live in, and we should all be telling the truth about that.

I cannot let this debate pass without challenging something that Craig Hoy said. I was going to say something a bit light-hearted about public sector reform and the explanation and detail that I gave him on that at the Finance and Public Administration Committee this morning, but I will turn instead to the fact that he said that “the character” of Dumfries “has changed” and is changing. I want to know what he meant by “character”. What characteristics was Craig Hoy referring to?

I will happily respond to the minister, because I spent the summer talking to real voters out in the real world, and they are very concerned about the community effects of long-term asylum hotels at the heart of their community. People should not be staying at those places for two to three years; that is not a long-term solution. It is for the Scottish Government and the UK Government to answer now how they intend to solve that problem.

If Craig Hoy is going to talk about changed characteristics, he needs to explain what characteristics he is talking about. That is dangerous rhetoric that we do not want brought to this place and it has to stop now. Craig Hoy should reflect on his statement today.

Sarah Boyack talked about action on climate change. I agree that we need action on climate change and the transition to net zero, but here again there is a lack of reality, because the UK Labour Government has the chance to act. Grangemouth is still without the cash that the UK Labour Government promised, yet that Government has managed to save a second steelworks in England. Unite the Union has called the Labour Government out for the lack of action and the lack of the cash that was promised. Let us get away from the rhetoric and let her Government stump up the cash that it promised the workers of Grangemouth.

Ben Macpherson spoke for us all today in exposing the lack of ideas from any of the Opposition benches. He made up for that by recognising the positive achievements of our public services across the summer months—hard work by our hard-working public servants. We should not talk down their efforts; it really demeans those who do.

Jamie Greene talked about some of the issues that we need to address—including, of course, drug deaths. I represent an area that has been very much impacted by drug deaths. I absolutely have the desire to work with others across the chamber on that issue and with the organisations that are working day in, day out in our communities. We have provided record levels of funding for drug and alcohol programmes, but without doubt there is more that we need to do—I absolutely accept that.

I want to make sure that Michael Marra is aware that the Western Gateway primary school is in the capital plan for Dundee City Council. I thought that he would have known that, but there we are. Every day is a learning day, even for Michael Marra.

In his opening speech, the First Minister laid out in detail the impact of the resources that we are putting in and the improvements that are being made in our public services. At no point did he say that there was not more to do—of course, there is. The actions that we have mentioned cover only a few of the important areas. We will continue to invest in budgets that were not supported by the Opposition parties and to deliver positive impacts.

We recognise that there is more to do. We will continue to listen in order to understand the issues that people are facing, and we will continue to deliver on the people’s priorities for the future of Scotland. That is what we will focus on.

That concludes the debate on the Scottish Government’s priorities for Scotland.