The next item of business is a statement by the First Minister, Alex Salmond. The First Minister’s statement will be followed by a debate so, of course, there should be no interventions or interruptions.
14:06
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am glad that you decided to do time for reflection today, because the burden of your remarks, which I very much support and agree with, chimes exactly with the first point that I want to make. You rightly identify that last week’s referendum was the most extraordinary, empowering and exhilarating experience. Huge credit is due to both sides in the campaign.
It is worth comparing that with our previous experience of constitutional referendums. The vote of 1979 was a botched job, where the side that gained the most votes was unable to have its wishes put into effect. The 1997 referendum was an altogether different experience. It was a great experience, but we should remember that, however successful the referendum was, the turnout was 60 per cent. Last week, as you correctly identified, Presiding Officer, turnout was 85 per cent—the highest for any vote of this scale that has ever been held on these islands.
In my estimation, with the exception of a handful of miscreants, both sides of the debate conducted themselves in an extraordinarily democratic, civilised and engaged manner. Therefore, to every single campaigner and voter, whatever their view and whatever their vote, I want to say thank you. This has been the greatest democratic experience in Scotland’s history. It has brought us great credit both nationally and internationally. [Applause.]
That overwhelmingly positive side to the referendum is now generally recognised. It is a shame that a few—largely metropolitan—journalists concentrated on negative and minor elements, because the true story to emerge from the referendum is that Scotland has the most politically engaged population in western Europe. For both sides, that is a significant and positive fact to be reckoned with. We need to retain and encourage the people’s engagement, vitality and spirit. Nothing is more important for the future than that.
I will add a couple of caveats to that point towards the end of my speech but, right now, I want to focus on the positive. Therefore, I will concentrate on two points in particular that arise from the referendum. The first is that there is not a shred of evidence now for arguing that 16 and 17-year-olds should not be allowed to vote. Their engagement in this great constitutional debate was second to none. They proved themselves to be the serious, passionate, committed citizens we always believed they would be.
Everyone in this chamber should be proud of the chamber’s decision to widen the franchise. There is an overwhelming, indeed unanswerable, case for giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote in all future elections in Scotland and across the United Kingdom. All parties in this Parliament should make a vow to urge Westminster to make that happen in time for next year’s general election.
The second point—the second question—has already been asked by many people: where do we move forward from here? From the moment the result of the referendum became clear, section 30 of the Edinburgh agreement came into effect. That means that both the UK Government and the Scottish Government are committed to accepting the outcome of the referendum and working together in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK.
I believe strongly in section 30. I put it into the Edinburgh agreement. It was the red-line issue for the Scottish Government in the same way that the red-line issue for the UK Government was not to have devo max on the ballot paper. Therefore, the Scottish Government will stick to section 30, which it insisted on having in the agreement. That means that the Scottish Government will contribute fully to a process to empower the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people. We will bring forward constructive proposals for doing exactly that. I relayed that intention to the Prime Minister within minutes of the result being confirmed, and that is how the Scottish Government intends to proceed.
I welcome the appointment of Lord Smith. He is a trusted person who, in recent months and, indeed, in recent years has given great service to Scotland and whose oversight of the Commonwealth games organising committee was outstanding, indeed exemplary.
David Cameron surprised me—and, I suspect, others in this chamber—with his statement on Friday morning, less than an hour after the outcome of the referendum was confirmed. He said in that statement that change in Scotland should be
“in tandem with and”—
in case we did not understand what that meant—
“at the same pace as”
change in England and the rest of the UK. As all of us know and recognise, that condition would risk throwing the entire process into delay and confusion. It would also directly contradict the clear commitments that were made during the campaign.
The briefing from Downing Street yesterday afternoon was very different from the Friday morning statement. That suggests that the UK Government has started to understand the importance of meeting the commitments that it made during the campaign, and it is crucial that it has that understanding. This Parliament—all of us—now has a responsibility to hold Westminster’s feet to the fire to ensure that the pledges are met. That is a job not just for the Scottish Government but for all parties in the Parliament. Indeed, we might well argue that there is a special obligation on the unionist parties. They promised further devolution; it is essential that they deliver.
Nevertheless, all parties should understand well that the true guardians of progress are not the political parties at Westminster, nor the political parties here at Holyrood, nor Lord Smith; they are the energised electorate of this nation—the community of Scotland, who will not brook or tolerate any equivocation or delay.
I was struck by the statement yesterday by Grahame Smith of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. I suspect that, in that statement, he captured the feelings of many people in Scotland. He said:
“The vast civic movement for meaningful and progressive change that has built up in the last two years is impatient for change and will not accept minimalist proposals developed in a pre-referendum context handed down on a take them or leave them basis ... They are not going to be passive participants in the process or tolerate political obfuscation or compromise. The sooner the politicians recognise this and get down to working with civil society and the communities and people of Scotland to deliver a comprehensive new devolution settlement the better.”
What Grahame Smith said is absolutely correct. The referendum debate engaged people in every community of our country; its final outcome cannot be a last-minute deal between a small group of Westminster politicians.
Lord Smith has already recognised the need to capture the energy of the referendum debate. All of us should support his commitment to genuine consultation. After all, one thing we now know is that proper consultation and debate energise people, rather than distracting them.
It is worth remembering that since the Edinburgh agreement was signed in 2012, the number of people who are unemployed in Scotland has reduced by 40,000. We now have record employment in Scotland—the highest in Scottish history. We have record female employment in Scotland—we have the fastest rising female employment ever in Scotland. The economy has come out of the great recession ahead of the economy in the rest of the UK. Scotland has outperformed every part of the UK outside London and the south-east for foreign investment; visitor spending in Scotland has increased; exports have grown; the Scottish Government has introduced 30 new bills in Parliament; and we have delivered the most successful Commonwealth games in the history of the Commonwealth games. I mention those in passing because in the last parliamentary debate before the referendum, Johann Lamont expressed concern about
“the way in which Scotland has been on pause on the big decisions facing our country.”—[Official Report, 21 August 2014; c 33815.]
Scotland was not on pause for the referendum; it was on fast-forward on the economy, as every statistic indicates.
Of course, this Parliament has also rightly focused its attention on introducing measures to alleviate the effects of Westminster legislation—measures such as the council tax reduction scheme to help 500,000 of our fellow citizens, or the bedroom tax alleviation to mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax.
Asking ourselves as a country what sort of nation we want to be is not something that is separate from good government; it is part of good government. Political confidence and economic confidence gang together. All of us have a responsibility to maintain that political confidence and self-belief to enable our empowered and engaged electorate in delivering meaningful changes to devolution.
Any improvement of the devolution settlement will require a legislative consent motion here in this Parliament, so there is a clear role for this Parliament in considering what new powers should be delivered. There will doubtless be a range of views and proposals. The Scottish Government’s view is that an enhanced devolution settlement should pass three key tests.
It should enable us to make Scotland a more prosperous country—the jobs test. In particular, genuine job-creating powers are important. It should allow us to build a fairer society—we need to address the deep-lying causes of inequality in Scottish society. It should also enable Scotland to have a stronger and more clearly articulated voice on the international stage.
The Labour Party, less than two weeks before the referendum, promised home rule for Scotland inside the United Kingdom. We need to ensure that the powers delivered to this Parliament match not just that rhetoric, but the ambitions of the people of Scotland.
It is also vital that new economic powers do not in any way disadvantage Scotland. The vow made by unionist party leaders was absolutely clear that
“Because of the continuation of the Barnett allocation for resources and the powers of the Scottish parliament to raise revenue, we can state categorically that the final say on how much is spent on the NHS will be a matter for the Scottish parliament.”
However, the delayed Westminster parliamentary motion on further devolution that was released over the weekend failed to repeat that promise on Barnett. The Barnett formula is essential, as the unionists’ vow acknowledged, until or unless Scotland has control of all our own resources. We need clarity that the UK parties will stay true to their promises and vow about Barnett.
We also need to ensure that the Scottish Parliament is entrenched in legislation so that it can never be abolished or diminished by Westminster. That was clearly promised before the referendum, but again is missing from the parliamentary motion at Westminster. Also, while making that important change, the UK Government should finally give a statutory basis to the Sewel convention on legislative consent motions.
Overall, there is a great opportunity for this Parliament. We can work together to help the UK Government deliver its promise of significant extra powers for this chamber, and we can do so in a way that deserves, sustains and encourages the interest and engagement of the Scottish people.
I said earlier that there were two caveats that I wanted to add to the hugely positive nature of the referendum process. Both involve the criminal law, and therefore they are worth including in this statement.
First, there is the outstanding matter of the Treasury briefing of the evening of 10 September, 45 minutes before a Royal Bank of Scotland board meeting finished. We need to establish the full circumstances of and justification for that briefing and how it can be anything other than contrary to section 52 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993.
Secondly, the scenes that we saw in Glasgow around George Square on Friday night cannot be tolerated. We expect and know that Police Scotland will take proper and necessary action against those who indulged in pre-arranged thuggery against a peaceful demonstration. The full force of the law will be enabled and expected to make sure that we eradicate such behaviour from Scottish life. [Applause.]
When the late Donald Dewar, in what I believe to be the finest speech of his life, spoke at the opening of this Parliament in 1999, he reflected at one point on the discourse of the Scottish enlightenment as an echo from the past that has helped to shape modern Scotland. What we have seen in these last two years is a new discourse of democratic enlightenment. Scotland now has the most politically engaged population in western Europe and one of the most engaged of any country anywhere in the democratic world. This land has been a hub of peaceful, passionate discussion, in the workplace, at home, in cafes and pubs and on the streets of Scotland. Across Scotland people have been energised and enthused by politics in a way that has never happened before, certainly not in my experience and, I suspect, not in the experience of anyone in this chamber.
We have seen a generational change in attitudes towards independence and greater self-government and how politics should be carried forward. We have a totally new body politic, a new spirit abroad in the land, and one that is speaking loud and clear. All of us must realise that things will never be the same again.
Wherever we are travelling together, we are a better nation today than we were at the start of this process. We are more informed, more enabled and more empowered. As a result of that, our great national debate, in my estimation, will help us make a fairer, more prosperous and more democratic country. In all of that, all of Scotland will emerge as the winner. [Applause.]
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