Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Official Report 1189KB pdf

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Independence Referendum

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-07429, in the name of Angus Robertson, on the people’s right to choose: respecting Scotland’s democratic mandate. Members who wish to speak in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons. I call the cabinet secretary.

16:42  

Every member in this chamber is here today because of the trust placed in us by the people of Scotland, through their votes. Those votes have consequences and, thanks to our system of proportional representation, they matter and allow people to express their choices. That is what democracy is about—making people’s choices matter.

There is, of course, more to modern European democracy than just counting votes, but when that fundamental is undermined and people are denied what they have voted for, there is a risk that democracy itself will be undermined.

That places obligations on those of us who win elections. We must do our best to deliver on the mandates that we are given. It also obliges us when we do not win elections—and very few of us are elected at the first time of asking—to respect the decision of the people, acknowledge the result and accept the right of the winner to deliver the commitments that they were elected on. Not to do that, but instead to deny democracy, is a dangerous thing, but it is something that people in Scotland are becoming increasingly accustomed to.

I will focus on the outcome of three votes and on the question of how we who are privileged enough to be elected to Scotland’s national Parliament can best deliver what people in Scotland voted for.

The first of those was Scotland’s overwhelming vote, in June 2016, to stay in the European Union. By a majority in every single council area, 62 per cent of people in Scotland voted to remain part of the European Union. No part of Scotland voted to leave, yet, two years ago, we in Scotland were removed from the European Union against our will. This week, instead of celebrating 50 years of EU membership, of co-operation, multilateralism and solidarity between nations and of economic development and peace, we are stuck counting the cost of the Tories’ reckless Brexit.

The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that, in the long run, Brexit will reduce productivity by 4 per cent compared to what it was during our EU membership. That equates to a cut in Scotland’s public revenues of around £3 billion every year, heaping further massive pressure on our national health service and other public services.

Those statistics are stark and they mask the human reality of the impact of Brexit: the small businesses that are going under because of the price of importing; the restaurants and hotels that are closing rooms and services because they cannot get staff; the firms that are passing on to customers their increased costs, which is helping to fuel record levels of inflation; the academics and scientists who are no longer involved in world-leading research because they are unable to get funding to collaborate with peers in the EU, which is diminishing our ability to innovate and be at the forefront of discoveries and is threatening our world-class standing; the loss of tax revenues that could have been used to fund public services; and the health and social care sectors that are dealing with a staffing crisis while trying to rebuild from a pandemic.

Brexit is harming everyone in Scotland and there are few reasons to be optimistic. Yes, times are tough globally, and every country is suffering from the effects of the pandemic and the global energy crisis. However, decades of mismanagement, compounded by the folly of Brexit, have left the United Kingdom economy utterly unprepared to weather this storm.

European countries that are comparable to Scotland are wealthier—

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will in a moment.

European countries that are comparable to Scotland are wealthier and have lower income inequality, less poverty, higher social mobility, higher—often significantly higher—productivity, greater research and development spending and higher business investment than the UK has. Perhaps the member from the Conservative benches can explain why.

On other small independent European nations, perhaps the minister will tell the Parliament how much it costs to see a general practitioner in Ireland and what the prevailing rate of corporation tax is in Ireland.

I note that the member from the Conservative benches could not explain why countries that are comparable to Scotland are so much better off. The Conservatives have flimsy arguments for the retention of the United Kingdom.

It gives me no pleasure—none at all—to point out that the decision of people in Scotland to remain in the EU has been vindicated. Since the Brexit referendum, of course, people in Scotland have voted in every single election for people and parties that are committed to reversing Brexit. In the 2017 and 2019 elections to the Westminster Parliament and in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, a majority of MPs and MSPs were elected on mandates to hold an independence referendum so that Scotland could apply to rejoin the EU as an independent member state.

That takes me to the second of the three votes that I want to discuss. An independence referendum was on the ballot paper in May 2021, when this Parliament was elected. Members should not take my word for it; they should believe the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who said, in the run-up to that election:

“People have to be really clear that a vote for the SNP is a vote for another independence referendum”.

Members should believe the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, who said in 2016:

“Mandates come from the electorate in an election ... it should be the people of Scotland that decide when the next referendum is.”

Members should believe the Scottish National Party and Green manifestos, both of which committed to holding a referendum, in the clearest possible terms, and 72 out of 129 of us here in the Scottish Parliament—a clear majority—were elected to deliver that. The parties that said, “Vote for me and there will be no referendum,” lost, and the parties that said, “Vote for me and we will give you the choice of independence,” won.

That simple act of placing one’s vote next to a candidate or party that pledged in their manifesto an independence referendum is itself an exercise by people in Scotland of their right to choose their constitutional future. That is a right that used to be accepted across the political spectrum. It is a right that the Labour Government in Wales accepts. The Welsh Government said:

“the UK is conceived of as a voluntary association of nations”,

and

“it must be open to any of its parts democratically to choose to withdraw from the Union. If this were not so, a nation could conceivably be bound into the UK against its will, a situation both undemocratic and inconsistent with the idea of a Union based on shared values and interests.”

That right should matter as much to those who oppose independence as those who support it, because what is Scotland within the United Kingdom if we do not have the right to decide to leave? Trapped, stuck—however we vote. Is that the voluntary union that unionists claim?

That brings me to the third vote that I would like to discuss. In 2014, people in Scotland were offered the choice of independence, and they voted against it. We accepted that result, but here is the question that requires an answer. After the referendum, did Scotland get what the majority voted for? People in Scotland were promised that within the United Kingdom, we would benefit from the economic strength of the UK. Instead, we have suffered from years of economic mismanagement, culminating in the disastrous experiment of a failed Tory budget that cost this country billions and put the final nail in the coffin containing the UK’s reputation for economic competence.

The OECD predicts that the UK will be the slowest-growing G20 nation over the next two years apart from the sanctioned Russia.

Will the member take an intervention?

Perhaps the member on the Conservative benches will explain why the UK is doing so badly on international comparisons.

On funding choices, does the cabinet secretary think that it is better to fund the Men’s Sheds movement to the tune of £75,000 a year, or fund £1.5 million annually for the work of 25 civil servants to work on an independence prospectus?

Given the opportunity to rise to the challenge and explain why the UK is the worst-performing country in the G20 on international comparisons, the member was unable to do so. It is an embarrassment, and the Conservatives should take responsibility for it.

The latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and International Monetary Fund forecasts show that the UK is set to have one of the highest inflation rates among G7 nations in 2023.

People in Scotland were promised that a no vote would secure Scotland’s place in the European Union. Just before the referendum, the then leader of the Scottish Conservatives said in the STV referendum debate:

“It is disingenuous … to say that no means out and yes means in, when actually the opposite is true. No means we stay in, we are members of the European Union.”

Oh really?

The then Secretary of State for Scotland said in November 2013:

“The only guaranteed way of leaving the European Union is to leave the United Kingdom.”

The better together campaign itself asked the question:

“What is the process for removing our EU citizenship?”

Its answer:

“Voting Yes.”

People in Scotland were promised a new era of respect for devolution, and that the United Kingdom would offer us a partnership of equals. Instead, we have seen the Westminster Government use its House of Commons majority to repeatedly overrule the Scottish Parliament, in breach of the Sewel convention. We have seen a series of power grabs through Westminster legislation changing and limiting this Parliament’s powers again and again without our consent, and now we have the UK Secretary of State for Scotland threatening, with a stroke of his pen, to overrule a bill that was overwhelmingly passed in this Parliament.

Cabinet secretary, I must ask you to bring your remarks to a conclusion.

Indeed.

When the will of a huge majority of elected MSPs in Scotland’s Parliament can be reversed by a single figure from the Westminster Government, that shows clearly where sovereignty under the devolution settlement lies. Far from enhancing devolution, giving Scotland more powers and more control, the Westminster Tory Government is undermining and systematically dismantling devolution.

The motion before us says that the decisions of people in Scotland matter; that their votes count and that their future should be in their hands. This is about who decides Scotland’s future. Is it the 59 MPs from Scotland or the 591 from the rest of the UK?

You must conclude and move the motion.

Is it the Scottish Parliament or the Secretary of State for Scotland? Is it a Prime Minister from a party that has not won an election in Scotland since 1955? There is only one answer: the people decide. Democracy demands it.

I move,

That the Parliament acknowledges the decision of the UK Supreme Court in the reference by the Lord Advocate of devolution issues under paragraph 34 of schedule 6 to the Scotland Act 1998; reaffirms its belief that people in Scotland have the sovereign right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs; believes that the United Kingdom should be a voluntary association of nations and that it should be open to any of its parts to choose by democratic means to withdraw from the union, and calls on the UK Government to respect the right of people in Scotland to choose their constitutional future.

I will allow a wee bit of latitude for members on the other front benches, should they take interventions—although it is entirely a matter for them whether they do, which is why I allowed a bit of latitude for the cabinet secretary.

I call Donald Cameron to speak to and move amendment S6M-07429.1.

16:54  

At the beginning of a new year, there might have been an opportunity for a new approach from the Government, but no. Entirely predictably, the Government has chosen the constitution as the subject of its first debate of 2023.

We have an on-going global cost of living crisis, a bitter and violent war in Europe and total turmoil in our public services in Scotland. The NHS is on its knees, primary schools are closed today and many secondary schools are closed tomorrow, and at the top of the Government’s list of priorities is another independence referendum. What on earth is it thinking? This debate is nothing short of shameful.

If the passion and energy expended today was concentrated instead on health and education, we would be in a much, much better place, not least because, as a matter of law, it is now unequivocally clear that this Parliament does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence. The Supreme Court’s judgment in November was unambiguous. With that in mind, it begs the question why we are here, once again, debating the issue.

It may be that the Scottish National Party needs to give its hard-core supporters some red meat to keep them happy. It may be that the Government has completely run out of new ideas on how to deliver for the people of Scotland. It may be that the only thing that the SNP wants to talk about is the constitution, because it has failed so monumentally elsewhere.

Let us take the NHS as one obvious example. Parliament heard earlier today from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, but only after he received pressure from these benches and others to address the state of the NHS. A statement by a cabinet secretary falls woefully short of the proper and rigorous debate of the issues here in this chamber.

Let me dwell on those failures for a moment, because this is what we should be debating. On Sunday, the deputy chair of the BMA said that patient safety was now “at risk every day” in accident and emergency departments in Scotland, and that the NHS faces an “unprecedented crisis”. On BBC Scotland this morning, Dr Iain Kennedy, the BMA chair, said that

“the NHS in Scotland is broken. Members are telling me that they are exhausted ... burnt out ... considering their futures”.

He went on to say that

“many parts of the NHS”

are

“collapsing, so we have no doubt that the NHS in Scotland in its current form is unsustainable.”

I am delighted to talk about health. Would Donald Cameron concede that Brexit has been a real problem for the NHS in Scotland, if not the UK? It is one of the reasons why we need the democratic right to decide to go back into the EU as an independent state.

As Ms Martin knows, the problems in our NHS in Scotland began long before the vote for Brexit in 2016.

“The NHS in Scotland is broken.”

Those are stark words from one of our most senior doctors. That situation has come about despite repeated warnings that a winter crisis was looming.

Doctors and nursing leaders were not impressed by the measures announced yesterday. This is what we should be debating. Let me give one concrete example. We know that, last week, bed occupancy rates in hospitals were more than 95 per cent. That is 10 per cent over the 85 per cent rate that is seen as the maximum figure before patients are put at risk. That kind of occupancy rate is not sustainable for providing the

“safe and effective care that patients need on a daily basis”.

That is what the BMA said, and it is right. If the SNP focused on supporting the NHS and fixing the long-standing problems that exist there, instead of obsessing over independence, perhaps some of those issues could have been addressed.

I make no apology for focusing on these matters, because it is not just the NHS where SNP ministers have lost focus. In education, we know that there are 900 fewer teachers than when the SNP came to power, and that the attainment gap between the least and most deprived is wider than it was five years ago. We know that police numbers in Scotland are at their lowest level since 2008 and that violent crime has risen to its highest level since Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister. We know that, in transport, this SNP Government has presided over the botched nationalisation of Ferguson Marine. The delay of two ferries could result in the cost running to £200 million over budget, with island communities suffering as a result. Failure after failure after failure, and all because this Government has only one real priority.

A Survation poll published on Monday stated that only 8 per cent of people feel that the Scottish Government should prioritise an independence referendum—just 8 per cent.

I turn to the cabinet secretary’s motion. If the SNP were being honest about listening to, and respecting the wishes of the people of Scotland, then it would appreciate that Scotland expressed its view barely eight years ago in the referendum in 2014 that the UK Government agreed to—a referendum that countless SNP members called a “once in a lifetime” referendum. Even the cabinet secretary once called it the “opportunity of a lifetime”. Given that opportunity, the people of Scotland voted decisively to keep Scotland in our United Kingdom and rejected independence. Although Scottish Conservatives and others in the chamber have always respected that outcome, the SNP and the Greens have never done so, which is why the way in which the debate is being framed by the Scottish Government is utterly ludicrous and indeed hypocritical.

The SNP’s and Greens’ obsession with agitating for a referendum that nobody wants is harming our public services. The Government has taken its eye off the ball for too long, and people across Scotland are noticing it. They are seeing the crisis that is unfolding in our NHS; standards falling in education and the attainment gap widening; increasingly poor performances in public transport; and a Government that has its head in the sand when it should be addressing the real and pressing needs of the people of Scotland. It is an abject disgrace.

I move amendment S6M-07429.1, to leave out from “reaffirms its belief” to end and insert:

“recognises that the people of Scotland voted decisively to remain within the United Kingdom in 2014; agrees that another divisive referendum should not be a priority during the ongoing cost of living crisis, and believes that it should focus its time on addressing the pressing issues that the country faces, including the current issues facing the NHS.”

I call Sarah Boyack to speak to and move amendment S6M-07429.3. You have up to six minutes, Ms Boyack.

17:01  

The fact that we are debating this subject is a disappointment, but it is not a surprise, given the priorities of the SNP and Green Government. Let us look at what has happened over the past few weeks. Over the festive period, we had severe weather that caused significant disruption in many parts of Scotland and put massive pressures on our resilience services. In the run-up—[Interruption.] If you respect my right to respond to your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, please give me a couple of seconds.

The point that I am making, which is absolutely clear in the Labour amendment, is that this subject is the wrong choice for our first debate this year. We should be focusing on the NHS. In the run-up to new year, doctors in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde pleaded with the health board to declare a major incident, while NHS Grampian issued an appeal for all staff to come in. When the cabinet secretary referred to NHS Lothian earlier this afternoon, he did not acknowledge the long-standing deep issues of underfunding, the lack of capacity that NHS Lothian now has in an area that is increasing its population and, crucially, the lack of social care. Those were not issues that started during Covid. In fact, they were not even issues that began as a result of our leaving the EU—they were in place long before then. From repeated comments made by representatives of the BMA, we know that they are seriously worried about patient safety being put at risk every single day. I will not be the only member who has received repeated references of constituents who cannot get through to the NHS and end up going to accident and emergency.

SNP and Green members voted against Labour’s proposal to debate those issues today, and they opted for their number 1 priority, which is to debate the constitution rather than tackle the health and cost of living crises, which are getting worse.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will, briefly.

The member asks why we are talking about independence. We have already—[Interruption.]

Mr Allan, please ensure that your card is in and your microphone is on.

It is in.

Is your microphone on? It does not sound like it.

My card is in.

Your microphone is not coming on, so perhaps you could try using another seat. I apologise to Ms Boyack; I will reflect that interruption in the time allowed to her.

I appreciate that, Presiding Officer.

I mentioned that issue because it is up to members to decide what we want to debate. My view is that the choice of this subject is more about internal SNP strategic discussions than it is about the country‘s interest. Newspapers published before the debate told us that we would be offered a detailed blueprint for independence, yet what did the cabinet secretary do today? He gave us repeated interpretations of history from his perspective; he did not talk about the future. Once again, he offered us a false choice: the status quo or another divisive independence referendum.

Scottish Labour is not against constitutional change. Over our history we have advocated for and delivered constitutional change. We delivered the Scottish Parliament, which has been strengthened since its establishment. We have done that on a cross-party basis. We have been prepared to speak to people.

Will the member take an intervention?

No. I have already tried to take one intervention.

I want to focus on the constitutional change that we would like to see—one that is different. We do not support the status quo. We want to empower people and communities. Co-operation is key: nations and regions working together as part of the UK’s redistributive union does not need a divisive referendum.

Sarah Boyack says that she respects democracy. The policy put forward by her leader in August 2022 said that the role of the Scottish Parliament is to be the expression of the democratic will of the people of Scotland, yet Labour’s amendment today seeks to remove the part of the Government motion that says that the UK should be

“a voluntary association of nations”.

That is something that her colleagues in Welsh Labour understand. Why remove that from the motion if Labour supports democracy? [Applause.]

Cue applause.

I think that the member will note that our amendment retains the first half of the motion because we agree with the proposals. We acknowledge that there was a decision by the Lord Advocate and we want to reaffirm our belief that people in Scotland have the sovereign right to determine the form of government that is best suited to their needs. We took a decision on that in 2014. That is uncomfortable. Since then, as I said in my opening comments, we have seen a change in the devolution settlement.

My disappointment with Donald Cameron today is his not acknowledging that the status quo is not perfect. We need to change the status quo. We need change in Scotland. The best way to do that is not to have an independence referendum—[Interruption.]

SNP members are making comments about what the voters think. Opinion poll after opinion poll show that even SNP voters do not want an independence referendum this autumn. That is a critical point. There are interpretations of exactly what the voters think. We are here to represent our constituents, and I am determined to do that.

Scottish Labour is working to look at how we change the UK to make it a more radical, redistributive UK. We want to build on devolution—[Interruption.] With respect, Presiding Officer, I did not heckle other people when they were speaking although I disagreed with them.

Indeed. Members, please listen to the speaker who has the floor.

Gordon Brown’s constitutional commission, which Keir Starmer established, formed the basis of the choice that voters will have at the next election. It is not a choice between the status quo or the SNP-Green independence offer. At the next general election, we will have a choice in Scotland: to boot out the Tories, to get rid of the undemocratic House of Lords, to have a directly elected second chamber and to put in place the co-operation that the cabinet secretary who gave the previous statement said was needed in relation to energy and to tackle the cost of living crisis. We would reform inter-governmental working with joint governance councils, secretariats that are not appointed by both Governments—

Ooh, secretariats!

They do not sound exciting to the SNP, but they are crucial.

I will finish on this point. The SNP Government has been a centralising Government, taking power away from our local authorities and communities. We are now seeing services being cut in our local communities. It is time to reverse that trend. It is not just about giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament; it is about stopping the hoarding of power by the Scottish Parliament and devolving powers to our councils, whether those powers relate to education or how they invest in critical services such as healthcare, support for our health system—

Ms Boyack, I have given you an extra minute. Please wind up your speech and move the amendment.

I will do.

There is a better future than the divisive binary choice that is already being highlighted by the SNP today. We want radical change. We want to give people powers to tackle the cost of living crisis.

Ms Boyack, please conclude.

We want change now. That is the choice that we would offer at the next election.

I move amendment S6M-07429.3, to leave out from “United Kingdom” to end and insert:

“people of Scotland are frustrated with two governments that are more focused on division and their own priorities, rather than the people’s priorities; considers that they should be focusing their time, energy and resources on addressing the cost of living crisis, and the NHS crisis, which is costing lives, and calls on the Scottish Government to focus on delivering the recovery that the NHS urgently needs, as committed to in the Scottish National Party’s 2021 manifesto.”

17:09  

What a sorry and divisive start this is to the new year. I sometimes wonder what we are doing here, but here we are again, on a day when our schools are closed, our teachers are on strike and we are in the first period of such industrial action in nearly half a century; when 40 patients—I hear SNP members laughing at this—are dying unnecessarily each week as part of the crisis in emergency care; and when people face the worst cost of living emergency in living memory.

The eyes of the nation are fixed on this chamber, but far from seeing us deal with the priorities that they sent us here to deal with, they see another skirmish in a make-believe battle that SNP and Green parliamentarians are fighting entirely on their own. It is make believe, because there will not be a referendum in October, and the general election will not take its place.

Indeed, it is an act of breathtaking arrogance for the First Minister to state that she can dictate the terms of that election. We go to the country to receive the instructions of the people who send us to chambers such as this one. It is not for a single politician to tell them that their concerns about the cost of living emergency, the climate emergency or the new cold war in which we find ourselves mean absolutely nothing, and Nicola Sturgeon will find that out the hard way.

For the Green Party to join the SNP in such an enterprise is astonishing. It must be the only Green Party in the world to so willingly exchange environmentalism for nationalism. It is a far cry from the party that was first represented in the Parliament by the respected Robin Harper, who, before the turn of the year, said of Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater’s support for the idea of a de facto referendum:

“I can’t believe this has happened. Air quality ... knows no boundaries”.

We will hear a lot about mandates in the debate; more than that, we will hear about the 2021 Scottish general election. I remember that election. I remember when the First Minister told people who liked her leadership but did not want another referendum that they could still vote for her with confidence. I remember when she pivoted back to being the continuity candidate to see us through the pandemic when the polls shifted against independence, and I remember the 25,500 Edinburgh Western residents who sent me to this Parliament to oppose another referendum. Theirs is the only mandate that I recognise.

All that this debate does is allow SNP and Green ministers to distract attention from their singular failure to get to grips with the issues that really matter to people in their day-to-day lives. Knock on anybody’s door on any given day, ask them what they care about and they will tell you: they care about whether their sister can access life-saving cancer care, whether their elderly parents are getting the social care that they need, whether their children are receiving an education and whether they can afford to turn on their heating.

Mr Cole-Hamilton, please resume your seat.

I appreciate that emotions run high in this debate and will continue to run high, but I expect members to listen to whoever is speaking, and I certainly expect that of the cabinet secretary, who has been giving a running commentary throughout Mr Cole-Hamilton’s speech.

The fact is that this Government is completely out of touch with reality. It should be using every waking hour in the chamber to clear NHS waiting times and reduce the crippling cost of living emergency.

Will the member take an intervention?

I do not have time.

The Government could have chosen any topic at all to debate this afternoon, but it chose this one. At a time when the country is looking for unified determination on the many problems that it faces, the Government is desperate to reheat this dying argument—and it is a dying argument. That can be seen in the language that it uses and the way that ministers conduct themselves in the chamber. The cabinet secretary refers to those of us who do not agree with a second referendum as democracy deniers—that is a page straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. Such things are said by populist identity nationalists the world over. I hope and expect that the Government’s movement will suffer the same fate as Donald Trump’s.

The cabinet secretary spoke extensively about winners; well, I was elected to oppose a referendum with more votes than any other candidate has received in the history of the Scottish Parliament. The people of Edinburgh Western had the right to choose, and they chose me. They put their trust in me to do my job, and I will not let them down—and it is time that the Scottish Government did its job.

17:14  

Over the decades, successive UK Governments have used every trick in the book to block the Scottish people’s right to determine democratically their future. The current examples are that the vote in 2014 was a once-in-a-generation vote, that there is no demand and that the Scottish Government should focus on the NHS and pressing domestic issues. I will touch on those as I progress.

I will begin in 1979, with a referendum for an Assembly. Better together was in its infancy, but it managed an extraordinary pairing involving Labour’s George Cunningham, who introduced the rule that 40 per cent of the electorate had to vote for the result to count. The dead and those who abstained were counted as noes. In fact, 51 per cent voted for an Assembly, but that failed the Cunningham rule. There was an intervention by the Tory peer Sir Alec Douglas-Home two weeks before the referendum, promising more for Scotland if it voted no. I know because I was there. We were also too small, too poor and—this is contradictory—because of oil, too greedy. All that and a yes vote still prevailed against the background of a winter of discontent.

Fast forward some years, and Tory-Labour—otherwise known as better together—formalised its partnership and project fear was revisited. One of the main planks of the no campaign was that a yes vote would throw us out of the EU. There was, of course, the vow from Labour’s Gordon Brown: vote no and Labour would enhance devolution. Does that ring any bells? Despite all that, 45 per cent voted for independence.

Twenty-four years have passed since the Parliament came into being in 1999, when SNP MSPs were in a minority. We now have 64 MSPs and eight Green MSPs, all standing openly for independence. That is a majority. The unionists have 57 MSPs. At Westminster, there are six Scottish Tory MPs, four Liberal Democrats, one Labour MP and 45 SNP MPs. However, Westminster blocks a referendum because, according to it, there is no democratic mandate. If ballot box results do not count, what does?

I turn to Brexit. What a democratic affront. Although 62 per cent in Scotland—from Shetland to the Borders—voted remain, we are out. There was no 40 per cent rule then.

The argument that the Scottish Government should focus on current pressing domestic issues—which it is doing—is the very reason why the need for independence is pressing. There has been economic mismanagement by successive UK Governments, which have squandered the oil and gas revenues. Norway saved trillions, but in the bank of UK plc, there is just a huge international overdraft. We have seen Brown’s bank collapse and Trussonomics. The result is that the UK has the highest inflation in the G7, which has led to the right pay demands that we see today. As in the dark days of 1979, now is the very time when Scotland needs independence.

I turn to the Supreme Court ruling that ruled only on the limitations of the Scotland Act 1998. I ask members to read MacCormick v Lord Advocate. Lord President Cooper said, obiter—I hope that I have time for this:

“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law ... I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done.”

In Scotland, the people are sovereign. Charles is King of Scots, not Scotland. Ask the people therefore whether they want Scotland to be independent. Give them that referendum. The reason why it is being blocked is that they would say “Yes, we want to be independent.”

17:18  

Today, the SNP has, once again, chosen to put independence above all the urgent matters that the Parliament should focus on. I receive emails from constituents who are worried about their children’s education and safety in the streets, and they are extremely worried about the current state of the NHS. There are much more pressing issues to be debated, such as Scotland’s health service, which is at breaking point.

Thousands of people cannot get to see a GP. They cannot get screened for major illnesses. They cannot get an ambulance. They wait for hours at A and E departments. They cannot get cancer treatment on time. The crisis is overwhelming our NHS. It is risking people’s lives every day.

I was contacted by a constituent whose 80-year-old uncle fell on new year’s eve. She suspected that he had broken his shoulder. She called 999 at 9 pm, 9.55 pm, 11.21 pm, 2.30 am, 4.34 am, 6.30 am and 8.14 am. Seven times she had to phone 999 while her 80-year-old uncle lay in agony, stuck on a cold conservatory floor. That certainly was not a happy new year. Twelve and a half hours after the first call, an ambulance finally arrived. My constituent said:

“The ambulance crews were brilliant, but we are disgusted at what our uncle has been put through.”

On reaching the hospital, her uncle was found to have broken his neck and a shoulder in two places.

Such situations are happening all over Scotland. Front-line workers are doing their best and are making huge efforts to keep people safe. They are focused on doing their jobs for our benefit. If you are a nurse, you do not get to ignore a patient and do what you want. If you are a firefighter, you do not get to ignore a burning building and do something else. And, if you are a police officer, you do not get to ignore a crime because you have other priorities. However, if you are an SNP politician, there is—apparently—no need to focus on the day job.

Today, SNP members are ignoring their duty to the public. They are ignoring the people’s priorities. They are talking about another referendum instead of focusing on what really matters.

Today, SNP members are showing how out of touch they are with the real world. They have become detached from reality. They have crisis after crisis to tackle and umpteen problems that need sorting. [Interruption.] I will take an intervention if somebody wants to explain to my constituent why we are focusing on independence and why we are not focusing on the NHS. Will someone answer that question?

I thank the member—[Interruption.] Is she giving way? I thank the member for giving way. She asks why we are talking about independence. I merely put it to her that her party’s former leader, Ruth Davidson, said:

“If the Greens and the SNP, and ... any of the other parties who have declared an interest in independence, get over the line and can make a coalition”

or

“make a majority, get the votes in the Parliament, then they’ll vote through a referendum.

That’s what democracy is all about.”

Does the member agree?

The member could not tell my constituent why we are standing here, talking about independence instead of talking about the NHS. [Interruption.] I was taking my lead from what the cabinet secretary did in relation to interventions.

Fiona Hyslop has a point of order.

There are umpteen problems that need sorted, from the ferries scandal to the drug—

Ms Dowey, I ask you to resume your seat.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am having great difficulty in hearing Sharon Dowey because of the member who is sitting to my left. I wonder whether you could remind members that some people are using an inappropriate volume.

I thank Ms Hyslop for her point of order. I have given members a reminder, although I appreciate that emotions are running high. I would not single out the particular member, although I am aware that he was shouting, as were Government back benchers. I encourage everybody, please, to treat with respect those who are speaking. I also encourage Sharon Dowey to move the microphone slightly closer to her, which will help. I can give her a little more time, but she should start to wind up now.

There are umpteen problems that need sorting, from the ferries scandal to the drug deaths crisis and the life-threatening issues in our NHS, but today—yet again—the SNP has focused parliamentary time on another divisive referendum. Normal, hard-working people will be appalled by the SNP Government’s priorities. While our constituents go to work every day and put in a shift, SNP ministers keep wasting time in talking about their obsession.

It is a new year. For their resolutions, I urge Nicola Sturgeon and her allies to focus on what really matters. They should make their top priority the crisis in our NHS, not another divisive referendum, and get back to the day job, as everybody else in Scotland is doing.

17:24  

In 2014, I got to vote for the first time, somewhat unexpectedly. In a panic, I read every book, blog and briefing that I could find to figure out where my “X” should go. The more I read, the more baffled I was that Scotland has let us go this long being stuck in an archaic system that is designed not to let us make the changes and the progress that we want to make.

Since then, I, along with thousands of others, have voted SNP eight times—in two Holyrood, one EU, two Westminster and two council elections and one by-election—expressing each time my support for independence. Whether or not people agree with my position, it is a matter of democracy and a matter of fact that the SNP has a mandate to bring back the question of independence. If Scotland cannot test the people’s will to take decisions into our own hands, this is not a voluntary union. Refusing to allow a vote on something that you disagree with is not the behaviour of an equal partner, nor is it the behaviour of an institution that has any faith in its own arguments.

After a shambolic Brexit, five Tory Prime Ministers and multitude of welfare cuts, none of which Scotland voted for, the situation has changed, and people have a right to change their minds as well. That we are here with yet another clear electoral mandate to hold a referendum but are unable to because Whitehall says no is an outrage, no matter what our constitutional stance is or how we would vote in that referendum. If there is any morality left in Whitehall, MPs must know that their anti-democratic, nonsensical and unsustainable stance is immoral—and, honestly, it is making our case for us. Our voices cannot be heard in this union.

We often refer to the union being broken, but this is its design—the union was not made to give Scotland its say. Whitehall’s stance on a referendum is just the most visible example of how Scotland is treated as standard. This is what happens with employment rights, energy policy, trade, immigration, equality, universal credit, Brexit—I could go on. Scotland can vote en masse for SNP MPs who then vote en masse in the Commons only to be shot down by the Government of the day.

It is worth pointing out, in response to criticism so far, that I do not want independence for the sake of it. It is not an end in itself. I do not want to move from one bad system to another. I do not want an independent Scotland that treats disabled people in the way that successive Governments down south have done. I want democracy here to be improved so that there is greater community empowerment, more devolution to councils and clearer representation, so that people know and understand who is making the decisions that affect them. I believe that independence would pave the way for progressive politics to happen. Independence, to me, is a means to an end.

In the Highlands and Islands, Whitehall has utterly failed to even begin to replace the EU funding for rural affairs and economic development that we previously enjoyed, leaving us worse off to the tune of almost £20 million. We are also struggling to replace the health and social care, hospitality and agricultural workers who no longer feel welcome, thanks to a Brexit that we did not ask for and did not vote for.

Social Security Scotland provides a massive demonstration of how we can do better and be more progressive than Westminster in redistributing wealth and supporting people, rather than judging, stigmatising and gatekeeping. With universal credit still being reserved, the contrast is stark to anyone who so much as glances at the two systems.

We do not just have a mandate to deliver an independence referendum; frankly, at this point, we have a moral duty to do so, for the sake of democracy and for the sake of the Scottish people.

17:28  

We debate the nationalists’ motion today with schools closed across Scotland in the first national teachers strike in 40 years. The last offer that was sanctioned by this Government was seven weeks ago. Our NHS, by the First Minister’s account, is in “an unprecedented crisis”. Today’s debate is not the priority of people across the north-east or the whole of Scotland.

Of course, favouring independence is a perfectly honourable thing to do. I understand why many Scots, in the face of the chaotic incompetence of both of their Governments, think that any change might be worth it. Therefore, let us be clear: there is change coming to Scotland if we choose to vote for it. We can have a more just country without losing our currency, our defence, our markets and a significant share of our budget. We should and can have common cause beyond borders and see our neighbours’ child as our own, so that all our ends are bettered together.

It is abundantly clear to me, as only an observer, that those honourable folk who favour independence have been sorely failed by their leadership. However, despite the cabinet secretary’s rhetoric, there is a route to the destination that they seek. Build a case through honest deliberation and careful compromise to allow the prosecution of the argument. Build a coalition of those seeking change. Build a consensus—a settled will of the Scottish people—and make it overwhelming. That is how the case for devolution was made and won. No one can seriously suggest that, since 2014, that work has been done by those in the positions to do it.

How about proving the case through the successful use of the powers of devolution? That is not my idea; once upon a time, it was the SNP’s strategy under he whose name shall not be spoken—what a sorrowful disaster that has been. Our precious NHS is in chaos; our schools are closed; our universities are steadily losing their lead; we have the worst drug deaths record in the developed world, with a rate five times as bad as that in the rest of the UK, despite having the same drug laws; we have had long-term sclerotic growth and now recession; we have crumbling infrastructure; our ferries do not sail, with islands locked off from the economy; and our national language is under imminent threat. There is the overwhelming feeling, everywhere we go, that nothing is working as it should.

I accept that, if the Labour Party wins the next UK general election, it will have a mandate for its constitutional reforms. Why does Mr Marra think that, if our side of the constitutional debate repeatedly wins elections, we somehow lack a mandate to implement our constitutional reforms?

I have already set out the means by which that case can be prosecuted and won. It has been done before and it can be done again if people have the will and the ability to do it. Build a case, persuade people and win the politics. That is how devolution was won, and it is the way in which the issue can be pursued.

Instead, the Parliament has been invited to participate in the grand pretence that the ruling from the Supreme Court was somehow shocking and unexpected, and that the First Minister, having marched her faithful troops up the hill for the umpteenth time, is doing anything other than playing to the faithful by keeping the kettle billing—another wheeze and another tune on the fiddle while Scotland burns. SNP members claim to be opposed to austerity, but they produced a growth commission that promised to cut further and deeper, year on year. They write social justice reports that back progressive taxation, but then, in election after election, they run on the promise of tax freezes for the middle and upper classes. They always protect power for the party instead of exercising that power for the people.

Will the member give way?

No, thank you, sir.

There is a majority for change in this country who want the further devolution of power out of Westminster and into all parts of the UK; the direct empowering of 300 economic clusters so that they can be turbocharged for growth; the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an assembly of the nations and regions; and a Government that will clean up politics and bring an end to the years of Tory sleaze and corruption.

That is the choice that is now in front of us. The job of this Government should be to make Scotland work again.

17:33  

It gives me great pleasure to speak in the debate and to add my voice to the just and democratic cause of Scottish independence. It is a belief that I have held all my life. Independence is normal. I can taste how close it is, which is precisely why the unionists in the Parliament get so incoherently angry.

The UK is a failing state. Historically, no other state has been so dependent on imperialism. It has created a culture and a contemporary state that are characterised by what Tom Nairn called

“a tribal state of ... formidable complacency”.

We can see and hear that tribal complacency daily. We are told that, however bad things are, they could only be worse by doing something different—the UK’s very own version of insanity.

The entire post-colonial history of the UK is one of consistent decline and democratic failure, with Brexit being the most recent example, as the cabinet secretary eloquently highlighted in his remarks. As Oliver Bullough put it in his recent book, the UK has become a mere butler to the world, with the facilitation of corruption replacing the exploitation of empire.

The indignation that is shown when example upon example of successful smaller independent states is mentioned is not only symptomatic of UK complacency but betrays a failure of belief in the Scottish people regarding what is possible. For me, that is the great divide. I choose to believe in what is possible, I choose to believe in the Scottish people, and I choose to believe in accepting the responsibility and the agency that will come with independence—as many other small and medium-sized countries have done—which will be both liberating and enabling.

We are left in the ludicrous position in which those who are devoted to the declining UK state, no matter the cost to Scotland, cannot state what the democratic route to independence is for the Scottish people. At the same time as we rightly support the independence of other nations, we are expected to believe that a gathering of mainly English MPs in Westminster should have a permanent veto on Scottish democracy. That is absurd and it is fundamentally anti-democratic.

The enduring characteristic of the Scottish independence movement is its commitment to using democratic means. However, there are multiple democratic pathways to independence, as the history of the United Nations testifies. There is no statute in international law or in any UN charter that gives any state the untrammelled right to deny a nation a democratic route to independence. A referendum may seem the simplest route, but it has not been the most typical route to achieving independence. The will of a people can be exercised in many ways.

For example, the historically significant UN resolution 435 paved the way for Namibian independence and included defining a democratic process leading to an election and not a referendum. Part of that process involved the use of a UN transition assistance group. The cabinet secretary might wish to consider the Scottish Government taking the initiative to appoint its own transition assistance group, drawing on appropriate expertise from beyond Scotland.

Independence is coming and the democratic voice of the people of Scotland will not be denied.

17:37  

Five parties were elected to the Parliament at the most recent election. By any normal measure, those of us who believe that Scotland’s future should be in Scotland’s hands won that election. The Scottish Greens and the SNP increased our combined majority of seats and won more votes—16,000 more—than the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems. When people vote for political parties, they reasonably expect them to fulfil the commitments in their manifestos. Therefore, when anti-independence politicians take offence at our claim that they are opposing not just independence but Scottish democracy itself, the question for them to answer is, “What else do you call it when those who have lost an election prevent the winners from fulfilling their democratic mandate?”

Do not take our word for it. Ahead of last year’s election, Douglas Ross said:

“People have to be really clear that a vote for the SNP is a vote for another independence referendum.”

His Conservative colleague for the Lothians Jeremy Balfour helpfully stated:

“Just remember a vote for the Green Party is a vote for Independence.”

Former Tory leader Ruth Davidson was even clearer. She said:

“if the Greens and the SNP and the SSP, or any of the other parties who have declared an interest in independence, get it over the line and can make a coalition, make a majority, get the votes in the Parliament, then they’ll vote through a referendum. That’s what democracy is all about.”

Back in 2016, Labour leader Anas Sarwar observed that

“Mandates come from the electorate in an election”.

If those people do not believe any of that any more, it is for them to explain how they reconcile whatever their new belief is with their claim to still respect Scottish democracy.

All of us on the pro-independence side of the debate accept the judgment of the Supreme Court. This Parliament cannot legislate for a referendum without a section 30 order from Westminster. However, the UK’s constitutional settlement is based heavily on precedent, and the precedent here is clear. In 2011, for the first time, a clear majority of pro-independence MSPs was elected. The UK Government accepted that as a mandate for a referendum, and a section 30 order was granted. Therefore, why, a decade later, when the Green and SNP manifestos were even clearer and independence was a much more widely understood issue, have not just the UK’s Tory Government but its Labour Opposition rejected that precedent?

Precedent can be rejected but, if the Tories and Labour want to claim that they still respect Scottish democracy and the views of the Scottish public, the onus is on them to explain their alternative method for the people of Scotland to exercise their right to choose their own future.

Would Ross Greer agree that it is totally undemocratic and, quite frankly, a disgrace that, in 2023, we have folk 25 years old and under who have never been able to have a say on whether their country should be independent, and that they are their own generation?

That is a really important point. There are half a million people on the electoral register in Scotland who have not had the opportunity to cast their vote on Scotland’s constitutional future. That, to me, is the definition of the generation that our colleagues in the Opposition like to speak about so much.

Winning an election used to be the uncontroversial gold-standard mandate for delivering your manifesto. The Tories and Labour have trashed that democratic norm for no better reason than that they lost the election and they do not like who and what the public chose instead. They need to be prepared to accept the accusation of being anti-democratic, because that is exactly what they are being.

I believe that Scotland can be a fairer, greener country with the powers of a normal independent nation. We can rejoin the European Union and begin undoing the damage of a disastrous Tory Brexit, which is now also endorsed by the Labour Party. We can take basic steps to improve the quality of life for the vast majority of people who live here, such as raising the minimum wage beyond the poverty pay levels that are set at Westminster. We can undo not just the anti-trade union acts of the post-2012 Tory Governmentp but every bit of anti-union legislation that has been passed since Thatcher began her assault in the early 1980s. Scotland can be a beacon of workers’ rights and environmental rights. We could reduce emissions and fund the just transition with a carbon tax on big polluters, and end the licences of any new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

I believe in Scottish independence, but, first and foremost, I believe in democracy. If the anti-independence parties are offended by the independence movement’s claim to now be Scotland’s democracy movement, maybe they should stop thwarting what the public actually voted for and accept that it is time to put the question to the electorate once again.

17:41  

As I do not get out much any more, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this first, and extremely good-natured, debate of the new year.

I begin by saying that I do not think that it is enough to say “bad SNP”. I think, charitably, that at the heart of the Government motion is a question: what is the legitimate and democratic route to a second referendum? What I absolutely believe is that eight years of trading insults across the chamber, which is largely what we have done since 2014, has not advanced the argument one iota or one jot.

I agree in part with Michael Marra that there are democratic routes towards another expression of Scotland’s opinion; they just do not happen to be ones on which we agree. First, since the Supreme Court has determined that responsibility for the constitution rests at Westminster, it is for MPs elected from Scotland, as Mr Gray and Mr Robertson were, to argue in the House of Commons in favour of a second independence referendum and to seek, as Mr Marra did, to persuade and to construct a consensus around the argument that that second referendum should take place. They say, inevitably, that that is not a prospect that can succeed; I do not fundamentally agree.

Will the member take an intervention?

Time is short, but I may come back to Mr Gray.

The second thing is to respect the view of the First Minister and others at the time, which was that it was a once-in-a-generation vote. Never in the eight years since has there been a discussion as to what a generation is—a negotiation as to what, in this chamber, we could agree that a generation might be.

It is typically argued in print that a generation is between 20 and 30 years—25 years, typically. It is said that there are three or four generations in any 100 years. Arguably, that might say that this Parliament could legitimately, on the words of the First Minister, look to another referendum in 2039, but it is a subject about which the Government has never sought to engage other parties in the Parliament in any discussion whatsoever.

What Mr Robertson did in the debate was to keep returning to the concept of mandate. He said again that the Conservatives have not had a mandate in Scotland since 1955. I think that he said that votes matter—“votes count”—without a shred of irony, but sitting in his Government are members of the Scottish Green Party, which is participating with the lowest share of the vote of any governing party in the history of the United Kingdom: 91.9 per cent of the people of Scotland rejected the Scottish Greens and all they stand for at the 2021 election.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will—in a second.

It was even worse in my west of Scotland region, where my Eastwood seat is, because, there, Mr Greer—who disports himself quite obviously as the self-ordained minister in waiting—was rejected by 92.9 per cent of the people of Scotland. What mandate does that man have to stand up and boast that he is imposing Green policy on the people of Scotland?

I am grateful to Jackson Carlaw for giving way. I point out the irony of his attack on the Bute house agreement between the SNP and the Greens, given that it comes from a Conservative who was prepared to usher austerity into the United Kingdom with the accompaniment of only the Liberal Democrats, who are roundly rejected across the United Kingdom. I point out the absurdity of the argument that characterises what Jackson Carlaw has put to us this afternoon.

If the Deputy First Minister checks the voting record, I think that he will find that the Liberal Democrats had something like 25 per cent of the vote when that coalition was formed.

However, as we saw from the Supreme Court, there is a route for negotiation with the House of Commons or, in the meantime, to accept the responsibility of this Parliament.

Between 2011 and 2016, when I was Conservative spokesperson for health, I agreed to an offer to take the national health service off the football pitch, in an effort to work together to find a consensus around how we might proceed. As Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Alex Neil even convened meetings between all the parties, but all of that was set aside when the 2015 election came about.

If the health service is struggling in England under the Conservatives, in Wales under the Labour Party and in Scotland under the SNP, by what conceit does any one party think that it can say, “We and we alone can now offer a solution to the crisis that is evolving on health.”? Would it not be far better to listen to people such as Wes Streeting, on whom I read with interest an article at the weekend? He talked about having a working partnership with the private sector and a new model for GP primary care.

Would it not be far better to listen to those people who have talked about reopening the Nightingale wards as places where early discharge patients could go in order to free up space in our NHS, or to GPs such as our own Sandesh Gulhane? Would it not be far better for us to work in concert to seek a solution, rather than individually firing forward ideas that everyone else shoots down? The NHS carries on and workers do so in despair, but there is no political solution whatsoever.

Mr Carlaw, you need to conclude.

Finally, does this Parliament have a future that is based on the model that its creators and pioneers envisaged for it? That model was for this Parliament to evolve the greatest possible consensus on issues.

Mr Carlaw, you need to resume your seat.

Bludgeoning ourselves on the divisive issue of independence is setting aside all the work that we could do on those priorities for Scotland.

17:47  

Presiding Officer,

“The Scots, being an historic nation with a proud past ... As a nation, they have an undoubted right to national self-determination ... Should they determine on independence, no English party or politician would stand in their way, however much we might regret their departure.”

Those are the words of Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps Rishi Sunak might reflect on that principle from one of his heroes. After all, he believes in mandates, and I know that he does because, on 15 December 2019, Reuters reported that, during his Andrew Marr interview as deputy finance minister, he said:

“The overriding mandate that we have from this election result is to get Brexit done ... We will leave the EU in a matter of weeks”.

That irony surely cannot be lost on the Conservative benches.

Let us turn to our colleagues on the Labour benches. The most powerful Scottish party for decades was so dominant that it used to weigh its votes rather than count them, but here it is, scrapping for every vote that it can muster, as a result of its utter betrayal of the traditional vote, which has left it languishing in the lowly third place of Scottish politics. However, Labour has still learned nothing, as Sarah Boyack has just mentioned.

Keir Starmer helped launch the party’s latest incarnation of a federal solution to the problems of the UK. On 5 December last year, he was asked by Glenn Campbell whether he had the courage in Scotland to test those ideas against independence. He answered:

“We are being absolutely transparent and clear about this. Those are the recommendations ... We will put those missions before the electorate and if we are elected into power we will have a mandate then to carry it out.”

That is why Labour is finished in Scotland. Over generations, its leaders believe that only mandates that are delivered by an English majority carry any value or weight. For Labour, the Scottish vote is nothing more than a means to bolster its position without the need to deliver what the people demand, which is the right to choose our constitutional future.

On 3 July last year, Alex Cole-Hamilton was asked by Martin Geissler whether, if the SNP won a general election, that would constitute a mandate? He replied, “No, not at all”. In the same interview, however, he was reminded of his own party’s manifesto commitment in the 2019 general election that it would simply reverse the Brexit decision. His response to that point was that his party did not win the election, but we did. By the rationale of Mr Cole-Hamilton’s argument, therefore, we in the SNP should simply declare independence, but we will not. It is not this party’s policy not to allow the people to have their say, unlike the other three unionist parties in the debate.

It is for that reason that the lady who deserves the final words of my contribution is Winnie Ewing. As the opening speaker for the SNP in the Queen’s speech debate in 1977, she said:

“the national movement of Scotland will not go away. If the people of Scotland are satisfied with a mini-Parliament, that is what they will have. Although we shall go on protesting that they want more, if the Scottish people do not want more we shall not win elections after that. It is a simple matter of democracy.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 8 November 1977; Vol 938, c 572.]

It is a simple matter of democracy and, if other parties believe in democracy, their denial of it should worry them far more than the outcome of a referendum.

17:51  

As always, this has been a fascinating debate at the start of the year, but we are being presented with a false choice. We have the SNP’s costly obsession with independence and we have the Tories’ status quo. There is a third way. At the next general election, Labour is offering the choice of a stronger Scotland in a transformed UK.

Why should that be important? When we look at what leads the news tonight, it will not be this debate. It will be the stories of the children who could not go to school today because of a strike. It will be the stories of the NHS in crisis—our beloved NHS, which every party in the Parliament has said, at various times, is so important. We have already heard stories of people waiting for hours and hours for ambulances or in accident and emergency. We will hear about the crisis of heating, living and feeding, and the pressures that families are under as parents have to take a day off work to look after their children, who should go to school today but cannot. We hear about people working from home in the post-Covid way because they can, and the stresses that are being put on our communities—the very communities that so many members have said today voted for them or voted for the other party. Those communities are not concerned about an argument about independence. They are concerned about how they are going to put food on the table for their families, what is going to happen at the weekend, and what will happen in the future should one of their children fall ill and they have to try to get to a hospital.

That is the reality not just for people in Scotland but for those in England, Wales, and Ireland, and indeed across Europe to many different levels. We are facing crisis upon crisis, and today we are spending time arguing, discussing and debating the differentials over an independence vote.

Does the member accept that there are 129 of us and we can deal with a lot of issues at the same time, including the short-term crisis and the long-term future?

Really? The crisis that we had in the chamber when we sat until the early hours of the morning before Christmas, and the fact that we have today faced business motions requesting debates on the NHS mean that, with the greatest respect, I struggle to see the Parliament’s ability to deal with more than one thing at a time. That comes from the attitude of the Government towards this Parliament and the attitude of some members of the Parliament to how Government business should be conducted.

Do committees not sit at the same time?

Do you want to intervene on that point?

As a committee convener, you must see when you look at the Parliament’s daily timetable that committees deal with different matters all the time in parallel with one another. That was a ridiculous thing for Martin Whitfield to say.

Please speak through the chair.

I encourage members not to make interventions from a sedentary position, and those who are speaking not to take interventions that are made from a sedentary position.

We can discuss that comment. It is true that committees cannot sit while the chamber is sitting. In essence, that is an example of doing just one thing at a time. We need to change and develop so that the Government can be held to account.

I humbly suggest that we also need members of the Parliament to show a level of respect if we want to conduct debates in the way that people indicate that they want debates to be conducted, rather than having shouting matches.

I am desperately conscious of time, which is a shame, because I wanted to talk about the opportunity that Europe offers through the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and through national delegations to the congress on which SNP, Labour and Conservative elected officials from across the UK and Scotland sit and where they can influence European debate.

I finish by asking the cabinet secretary a question. He opened with a powerful statement about how people should respect winners and what they do. The fact remains that, unfortunately for us, and perhaps in part due to the investment that certain parties here made in the Brexit campaign, the referendum was won by people who wanted to leave Europe. Should we respect those winners?

17:56  

I am delighted to stand here to debate a manifesto commitment that my constituents voted me in to deliver. The SNP won the Scottish election with a commitment to hold a referendum at front and centre.

I begin by addressing my colleague Jackson Carlaw, who spoke of the Tory, Labour and SNP Governments struggling with the crisis in the NHS. There is a stark difference between those Governments. The Tories can borrow more money and can change immigration policy, but they choose not to. That is the terrifying fact.

In 2021, I included an independence referendum in my campaign materials and social media posts, as did my opposition, who made a plea to reject an independence referendum. Talk about obsessive: their materials contained more talk of an independence referendum than mine. I won a majority, as my colleagues did, by advocating for Scotland’s inalienable right to independence. It was on that basis that we formed a Government.

There may be cries from the Opposition seats to halt or stall an independence referendum. They use myriad excuses, but we know from experience that many of those excuses for staying put in this toxic and declining union are actually the very reasons for leaving it. At the very least, they are reasons that highlight the need for the Scottish people to be presented with the question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Not only do people deserve what they vote for, they have a right to it, and certainly during the parliamentary session in which they vote for that. The choices that I am here to make come from the people, were decided on by the people and should be carried out, by us, on behalf of the people.

The unionist parties had the chance to convince the nation, but they failed. They have a right to present a case to oppose independence, but they have no mandate to remove the choice. It is undemocratic and is a shameful dismissal of the marks on ballot papers that brought us all here. What exactly would that be telling the people of Scotland? Does it say that, ultimately, it does not matter what they vote for, because politicians in Westminster can overrule that? The Supreme Court judgment laid bare for the world to see that this union is neither consensual nor democratic, which is something that should be of immense concern to us all.

How dare politicians who Scotland did not vote for tell us what we can and cannot do? I cannot bear the patronising remarks that I hear. It is condescending to tell the electorate that what they voted for might not be what they need. It is pompous, arrogant, rude and belittling. Do they really think that it is their place to tell the people what they want? We are here to give the people of Scotland what they want and what they elected us to do. We can listen to the cries about decisions made in past elections, but that Scotland and that UK are no longer recognisable. We have been through the wringer, much of it inflicted by ideological party politics. We gave the union a chance. Now, we are reaping what was sown and it is rotten: Brexit, a fishing sector that was sold out, labour shortages and red tape that could wrap the globe thrice.

I plead with the British nationalists who are in the chamber to have some integrity and be bold. I plead with them to stop standing in the way of democracy and be brave in their convictions. If they are that sure that their convictions are worthy of support, they should put them to the people and ask them. The people pay our wages. They gifted us the honour of representing them. Democracy is not just for those who agree with us; that is something else entirely.

I look forward to the people choosing a fairer, richer, cleaner, more equal and more outward-looking country, one that is not constrained and stripped of all its parts in some UK scrapheap. I fully support the motion and look forward with high hopes.

18:00  

We return to Parliament with our NHS in a humanitarian crisis. The deputy chair of the BMA Scotland has described hospitals across Scotland as “not safe” for patients. There are 4,977 patients waiting more than eight hours in our A and E departments. That is the worst figure on record. There are 2,506 patients waiting more than 12 hours in A and E departments. That is also the worst figure on record.

As we have heard from many members, it is a new year, but we begin with an old and tired argument. Instead of beginning 2023 with a relentless focus on the crisis facing health and social care in this country, the first debate in the Parliament is to discuss the constitution.

That is all to distract from the reality of an NHS in Scotland that has been pushed to the brink. The situation has been 15 years in the making with this Government, and a Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care who has failed to show leadership and intervene to avert the current crisis and who has lost all credibility. Front-line health and care workers, patients and the public have no confidence in Humza Yousaf’s ability to deal with the crisis that is engulfing our NHS, but that is not the debate that we are having. What does that say to our constituents who are waiting for hospital treatment, struggling to see their GP or lying on a hospital trolley in A and E?

I have found the debate unedifying because our NHS is on its knees and I do not know what our hard-working health and social care staff will think as they watch the debate. Throughout it, SNP and Green members have been keen to assert what Scotland needs and wants. They have spoken of their mandates, but I could paper the walls of Bute house and St Andrews house with all the Government’s broken promises. What of the mandate on which it was elected on ferries, free bikes, school meals, a nationalised energy company, student debt and the council tax? The list goes on and on—only one thing matters to the Government when it comes to delivery.

Let us think about the reality of what the people of Scotland want. Polling this week revealed that more than two thirds of Scots think that the Scottish Government could and should do more with its existing powers to address the cost of living crisis. The reality is that the priority issues for Scots are the cost of living crisis, jobs and our NHS. Indeed, 61 per cent of Scots believe that the Scottish Government is failing on the NHS. Today has given us another example of an inadequate response to that crisis by the Government.

When asked to list what the Scottish Government should prioritise, Scottish people have been clear. The top three issues are the NHS, the rising cost of living and exorbitant energy bills. Only 8 per cent of Scots said that independence should be a priority for the Government.

It is no surprise to anyone in the chamber that the Scottish National Party—or, indeed, the Scottish Green Party, which seems to have forsaken all else in its policy agenda—wants independence. However, it is telling that the Government continues to pursue that agenda with an evangelical zeal despite the vast majority of Scots, including a majority of people who would consider supporting independence, stating that that is the wrong priority at the wrong time.

It is clear that people in Scotland want to see change. Across Scotland, communities are being let down by both of their Governments. They are being let down by an arrogant and reckless Tory Government in Westminster and an incompetent SNP-Green coalition, which is more interested in pursuing this debate today than in talking about the failings in our NHS and doing something about them—two parties that are locked in a co-dependent relationship of grudge and grievance. Scotland deserves so much better than that—so much better than the divisive debate on the constitutional settlement that we see consistently played out. My colleague Michael Marra articulated that most powerfully in what was an excellent speech.

People want a better form of politics than we have seen here today in the chamber. People want a politics that serves the national interest, brings people together and seeks to solve our collective challenges together. It is only the Labour Party that has the energy, ambition, and ideas to radically reshape our democratic settlement and empower communities in Scotland and across the UK. [Interruption.] The howls of derision from SNP members show that they are afraid of a Labour Government being elected at the UK level.

In practice, a UK Labour Government will abolish the antiquated House of Lords and replace it with an elected assembly of the nations and—[Interruption.] They do not want to hear this!

Mr O’Kane, please resume your seat.

We have listened to most speakers in the latter half of the debate with respect. Members can disagree with what a speaker is saying without trying to drown them out.

Mr O’Kane, I encourage you to bring your remarks to a close.

They do not want to hear it, but I have a democratic mandate and as much right as anyone else in the chamber to stand here and make these points.

Let me be clear, in my final seconds, that changing our UK and changing Scotland within it is the change that this party chooses. It is a change that we will deliver at a UK general election.

18:07  

Let me begin by saying how disappointed I am that we are not discussing more pressing matters: families hit hard by the cost of living crisis, businesses struggling with energy bills or the emergency engulfing our health service. We should be discussing our NHS today, as my colleagues Donald Cameron, Sharon Dowey and Jackson Carlaw have highlighted. Iain Kennedy said:

“Many doctors remain to be convinced that the Scottish Government’s practical response matches up to the huge scale of the problems the NHS is facing.”

That is no wonder, given that the Scottish Government has lost focus. Instead, it is once again forcing us to discuss its grievance agenda—something that we have heard from every nationalist speaker to a greater or lesser extent today.

Sarah Boyack spoke about a new way forward and the work of Gordon Brown. Alex Cole-Hamilton, in a passionate speech, outlined how the Scottish Government is out of touch with reality and the Greens have traded environmentalism for nationalism.

Let me be clear: I believe in democracy and that Scotland has the right to decide its future, but the question of independence has been settled and the will of the people must be respected. Going forward, there is much that Jackson Carlaw can offer this Parliament—and, indeed, Scotland—with regard to the way forward.

The obvious question is, why does the SNP keep ignoring the referendum that we had in 2014?

The member reflected on the fact that Jackson Carlaw indicated the way forward. As I recall, Jackson Carlaw said that the way forward was through making these arguments at Westminster. Does the member acknowledge that for the last few elections, the overwhelming majority of people whom Scotland has sent to Westminster have been of my point of view and not his? Will he not come to acknowledge that at some point?

The point that the nationalists are struggling with is that, if a councillor at a local government election has it in his or her manifesto that they will increase income tax, they cannot do it, because the institution that they serve does not have the power to do so.

The referendum in 2014 was free and fair—[Interruption.] I would like to make some progress. That referendum saw Scotland vote decisively to remain part of the United Kingdom. According to the SNP at the time, that removed the question of independence for at least a generation. Why, then, will the SNP not respect—

Excuse me, Mr Golden. Could members give Mr Golden the respect of listening while he is speaking?

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Why will the SNP not respect the result of that referendum? Let me give members the answer. It is because it lost. It has never been able to accept that, so it wants to keep running referendums until it gets the answer it likes. It makes its talk of democracy, mandates and respecting the will of the people so horribly hollow. Such is the SNP’s intent to overturn the 2014 decision that it even took to the courts to try to force through another referendum, wasting more than £0.25 million of taxpayers’ money before the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against it.

Let us be clear. The Scottish people do not want another referendum any time soon. An Ipsos MORI poll last month found that just 35 per cent of people supported a referendum in 2023. Thwarted by the courts, and with public opinion against it, the SNP now wants to turn the next general election into a de facto referendum. The absurdity of the idea should be obvious to everyone. As the constitutional politics expert Professor James Mitchell explained, there is no such thing as a de facto referendum. It is not for a political party to dictate the terms of an election.

The case for independence has never been strong. The SNP has no credible answer for why Scotland should leave the most successful political union in history—a union that benefits Scotland enormously, from the £12 billion union dividend that allows Scotland to spend more on vital public services, to the hundreds of millions being directly invested in local communities, and from the shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde to the vast quantities of trade that flow freely between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Let us also remember that, during the pandemic, the UK Government protected almost a million Scottish workers and nearly 100,000 Scottish businesses. It was an enormous show of support for Scotland, demonstrating both the value of the union and that we are at our best when we are united. The people of Scotland understand that, which is why poll after poll has shown that the majority of Scots want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The member has mentioned democracy, mandates and the will of the people, and he has told us that the Scottish Government is out of touch. Does he really mean that the Scottish people are out of touch, because they are the ones who voted for a referendum?

Not according to the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who said that a vote for the SNP in 2021 was not a vote for independence—perfectly clear. Incidentally, that is the same First Minister who said that she detests hundreds of thousands of Scots, which is, in my view, a deplorable act from the First Minister of Scotland.

Please draw your comments to a conclusion, Mr Golden.

The First Minister takes the hardship facing families and tries to make it about independence, saying that the cost of living crisis highlights

“the pressing need for independence.”

With that obsession with independence above all else, is it any wonder that so much has gone wrong under this SNP-Green Government? Education has gone backwards in international rankings. We have the worst drugs death rate in Europe and the worst A and E waiting times on record. The Government’s approach to tackling climate change is embarrassing, and there have been so many other failures. This debate has been a wasted opportunity to tackle those issues. The Scottish Government must stop acting like a pressure group for independence and more like the Government that it is supposed to be.

I call Neil Gray to wind up the debate. You have up to nine minutes, minister.

18:14  

Part of the motion that we are debating invites us to reflect on the recent judgment of the UK Supreme Court, which noted that votes cast in an independence referendum

“would possess the authority, in a constitution and political culture founded upon democracy, of a democratic expression of the view of the Scottish electorate.”

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that, under our devolution settlement, a referendum to allow such a democratic expression of the views of people in Scotland would itself be incompatible with Westminster sovereignty and therefore outwith the powers of the Scottish Parliament. Without a change to this Parliament’s powers, we cannot ourselves legislate for an independence referendum.

However, that does not mean that a mandate to give people in Scotland a choice about their future cannot be delivered in a Scottish Parliament election. The precedent of the 2011 election is clear. When people elect a Parliament on a clear mandate to deliver a referendum, both of Scotland’s Governments should listen to that and facilitate such a referendum. At that time, the UK Government had no difficulty in accepting that a mandate could be delivered through an election to this Parliament. It was right to accept that, and it should be doing so again now. This is Scotland’s national Parliament. If a mandate cannot be delivered in a Scottish Parliament election, where can it be delivered?

Some members raised the subject of opinion polling. Incidentally, six of the past seven polls going back to November last year showed a majority in support of independence. However, no opinion poll can give a Parliament a mandate; only votes can do that. I invite those who would quibble about that, or try to speculate about what people in Scotland really want when they elect a Parliament, to reflect on the consequences of their position for democracy. After all, in 2011, the polls showed no overwhelming support for independence when the UK Government accepted the Scottish Parliament’s mandate to deliver a referendum. No; when it comes to exercising their constitutional right to choose their future, people in Scotland do it at the ballot box—in elections.

I am surprised that there is any doubt in the chamber that people in Scotland alone have the right to choose their constitutional future. It used to be accepted across the political spectrum. Margaret Thatcher said

“As a nation,”

the Scots

“have an undoubted right to national self-determination ... Should they determine on independence no English party or politician would stand in their way.”

John Major said, of Scotland, that

“no nation could be held irrevocably in a Union against its will”.

After the 2014 independence referendum, the report of the cross-party Smith commission said that

“nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”

The 1989 claim of right, which was endorsed by cross-party votes of both the Westminster and Scottish Parliaments, affirmed

“the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs”.

None of those quotes—not even those from Conservative and Unionist Prime Ministers—describes a right to choose as long as Westminster agrees. That is what disappoints me most about Labour’s amendment.

Labour sought to remove and delete the section of the Government’s motion that says:

“the United Kingdom should be a voluntary association of nations and that it should be open to any of its parts to choose by democratic means to withdraw”.

Those words were lifted almost entirely from a report from the Labour Welsh Government, which confirms the distance that the leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland has come—I say leadership, because I do not think that all of Labour’s members or voters will agree with that position; the Scottish Trades Union Congress certainly does not. The leadership of the Labour Party has reneged on what it signed up to in the agreement on the Smith commission. It has also reneged on the report that it published in August last year, which said:

“The role of the Scottish Parliament is to be the expression of the democratic will of the people of Scotland.”

It is therefore little surprise that Opposition parties have not much enjoyed the tag of being democracy deniers that has been levelled at them in the debate. To paraphrase Alister Jack’s duck analogy, if they try to block a debate about Scotland’s democratic choice, if they refuse to accept the result of the Brexit referendum or the outcome of the last Scottish Parliament election or if they refuse to allow the people of Scotland to have their say over their future that they have voted for, then they are democracy deniers.

It is not enough to say warm words about the right to choose—we need actions. It has to be made real. There is no meaningful right to choose if the people of Scotland can simply and perfunctorily be told by the UK Prime Minister, “No”. Respecting the right to choose and putting the words that I have quoted into action means coming to the table, entering discussions and accepting—as we accept—that while we may never agree about the ultimate destination of Scotland’s constitutional journey, we agree that the decision is one for the people of Scotland who live and work here.

The First Minister has made it clear that the Scottish Government is ready for those discussions. It is now up to the UK Government to come forward and respect the outcome of elections in this country.

Derek Bateman was a great journalist, a committed supporter of independence and a thoughtful commentator. In one article, he argued that

“Independence can’t be portrayed as a knee-jerk response to limited freedoms and imposed restrictions.”

He said:

“The point about independence is that it is the creation of the people, not the lawyers. The people decide, the lawyers draft and the politicians legislate. It is a national cri de coeur”.

He was absolutely right.

The merits of independence are not for today. Independence gives us the chance to plot a different path. It rejects austerity, utilises our undeniable natural resources and the talents of our people, and makes our economy work for our people by tackling poverty.

Will the member give way?

I am concluding.

The merits of independence are not for today because today is not the day for us to decide. Today is about allowing the people of Scotland to take their democratic right to choose their own future. That used to be something that united us all. It is for the people to decide their own future.

That concludes the debate.