Official Report 133KB pdf
The next item of business is a statement by John Swinney on being ambitious for Scotland. The statement will be followed by a debate, and there should be no interventions or interruptions to the First Minister.
14:03
During the election, I promised a Scottish Government that works for Scotland, and that is what I will deliver. I will be a First Minister for all Scotland, leading a Government that is always on Scotland’s side. It will be a Government that is ambitious for Scotland with a stronger national health service, building on the progress that has already been made in order to make it even easier for our fellow citizens to access NHS services when they need them. It will be ambitious for Scotland with the best cost of living support in the United Kingdom protected and expanded and with new ways to help our fellow Scots with their weekly costs.
This was a cost of living election—that was the number 1 issue for voters across Scotland—so I give this guarantee: I will be a First Minister focused on the cost of living, leading a Government that is on the side of fairness—a Government that will work to deliver a fair deal for all in our land who struggle to make ends meet.
The Government is ambitious for Scotland because we have a vision that can truly transform our nation and its prospects—the one real change that can take us from more than a decade of political chaos and economic stagnation within the United Kingdom to greater security and prosperity as an independent member state of the European Union. That is the fresh start that Scotland so badly needs, and it is the future that this Parliament can endorse today.
Prosperity, fairness and security—as we begin the new journey of this new session of our nation’s Parliament, those will be my watchwords. I want greater prosperity for our nation, with a relentless focus on supporting innovation, on enterprise and on doing all that we can to maximise Scotland’s productivity and increase our levels of sustainable economic growth. That will mean rethinking the structures of the state, with more strategic regions empowered to make the most of the many economic opportunities and advantages that they enjoy—and there are many: diverse and vibrant cities, the breathtaking beauty of our landscape, fertile farmland, iconic industries and resource-rich seas.
I want to reimagine the state as an enabler, with overly complex and cumbersome bureaucracy removed and unnecessary regulation that gets in the way of investment and job creation simplified. Regulation serves a vital purpose but, to work, it must be regulation that protects and permits—regulation that provides pathways, not obstacles, to investment, opportunity and growth.
At the outset of this parliamentary session, I want to emphasise the centrality to the Government that I lead of achieving higher levels of sustainable economic growth. To do so, we will invest in our young people, who are the source and foundation of future success, and we will empower our educators. We will put in place 150,000 apprenticeships, teacher-pupil ratios will be kept the best in the UK, and more schools and colleges will be rebuilt or upgraded.
We will invest in essential infrastructure: necessary road improvements, including the dualling of the A9 and the A96, which we have committed to complete; new stations; and the ongoing electrification of our rail network. There will also be investment of £4.9 billion to build thousands more homes—homes that people can afford.
We will expand our successful Techscaler programme to new sectors—such as the creative industries, food and drink, climate and agricultural technologies, advanced manufacturing and space technology—and we will introduce a new national network of pre-start centres to support our brightest and best to test and refine their ideas before progressing to the Techscaler programme. We will also establish a high-growth unit to identify and support businesses with the potential to grow—and to grow significantly.
Have no doubt that Scotland knows what it means to lead the world. We were at the forefront of the industrial revolution thanks to our wealth of natural resources, thanks to a spirit of enterprise and an openness to the world, and thanks to a skilled and determined workforce with a pride in the many wonders of engineering that those workers produced.
As we stand at the beginning of a new age of economic transformation, Scotland has the necessary resources, with an abundance of clean, green energy; we have the innovators, thanks to world-class research universities; and we have a workforce with practical and technical skills, and young people who are among the very best educated in Europe. This new technological revolution is made for Scotland to succeed in sectors such as biotech, space, precision engineering, fintech and more.
Scotland has what it takes to prosper in the decades to come, and Scotland has a Government that is determined to make that happen. Our programme is for a more prosperous Scotland, but it is not about wealth generation for its own sake. Under my leadership, this is and will always be a social democratic Government. That means that wealth creation will be for a purpose—to make our nation fairer, with those with the least given a helping hand by those with the most.
Greater prosperity will be felt in people’s pockets, including through driving our commitment to cap bus fares at £2 nationwide to help people to get to work or get into town more affordably. We will legislate to help people with the cost of the weekly shop, so that hard-pressed households can have the peace of mind that a basket of healthy essentials for their kids and their family will be available at a fair, affordable and reliable price.
Greater national prosperity will be felt directly by the people we serve, and it will be underpinned by our pledge to deliver more, and more flexible, childcare and the provision of additional, more targeted support through an increase in the Scottish child payment to £40 a week for babies under one. Raising children takes not only love but time and money. I give this clear promise to Scotland’s young families: you have a Government that is determined to help ease the burden and give you that bit more breathing space.
Because we know the challenges that many renters experience in our society and the struggles that they face as they seek to take the first step on the housing ladder, we will be there to offer a helping hand, with support for first-time buyers of up to £10,000 towards their deposit.
Those are policies with the real-world needs of our citizens at their heart—policies that will make life easier for many and our nation fairer for all—with fairness through a progressive taxation system and a compassionate social security system, both of which are possible because of new powers gained by the Parliament in recent years. The more powers that we have—and there will be more—the more we can achieve. I include fairness because we will not rest until every child in Scotland has the opportunity to succeed, regardless of the circumstances into which they were born. That is a big ambition, but child poverty has been a scourge in Scotland for far too long. It has been a weight around our necks, holding us back as a society, because too many people are unable to reach their full potential. Let us be absolutely clear: to have such deep, intergenerational poverty in a land of such plenty is morally wrong.
We have made progress, and we should be proud of that progress, but we must now redouble our efforts so that child poverty can be eradicated from our land—eradicated because our public services are working together effectively to support those in greatest need, because our economy is growing and new resources are becoming available to invest, and because of targeted interventions to increase income, reduce cost and create new opportunities for work and learning.
There is fairness also because we are resolute in our determination to pass on to the next generation a land that is more resilient in the face of climate change. Climate change and its effects remain the greatest challenge that our planet faces. Scotland has a part to play here, in our own actions to reduce emissions, but also, and more so, through our expertise and innovation and through our ability to export carbon-free electricity. In those ways, we can help other nations to reduce their carbon emissions, too.
Scotland may be small by some standards, but our contribution has always been great and our ambition even greater. Let us be clear: given all the horrifying consequences of climate inaction, there is no fair future for our country or for our planet—there is no prosperous or secure future for either—if we do not take the necessary steps to make our nation carbon neutral once and for all. Fairness must be given effect in a just transition that, right now, is under threat as a result of dangerous and damaging Westminster policies on energy and industry—Westminster policies that, once again, treat Scotland as little more than an afterthought.
Westminster control over Scotland’s energy resources has been an unmitigated disaster for our nation. What is being done to the north-east today is just one example. There can be no doubt that the old ways of the Westminster Government have failed Scotland, so let us say loud and clear: for a just transition and for Scotland’s energy wealth to fully benefit Scotland’s people and communities, Scotland’s energy must be in Scotland’s hands. For Scotland, energy is a source of opportunity, prosperity and security. At a time when energy prices are rising and a time of energy scarcity, Scotland, as an exporter of energy, should have less to fear. We produce more oil, more gas and more electricity than we need, yet the prices that we pay, as households and businesses, are among the highest in Europe. It simply does not add up. We have the energy, and we have it in abundance, but we do not have the power, so I repeat—and Parliament will have the opportunity this week to agree—that Scotland’s energy must be in Scotland’s hands.
These are times of great global uncertainty. Wages have stagnated and costs have risen, with the threat of a new round of inflation, higher interest rates and lower growth. Technology is fuelling rapid, unpredictable change. Parents are worried about what the future holds for their children. I know that, for many, perhaps even for most, it can feel as though very little can be relied on any more. That is why we must give our citizens confidence that there is solid ground on which they can stand; more financial security, because they can see that help with costs is at the very top of this Government’s agenda; and a sense of security that comes from knowing that the right health and social care will be available when it is needed, from cradle to grave.
Our NHS has weathered a storm—a decade of unprecedented pressures, from Covid to austerity and from rampant inflation to Brexit. Dealing with the pandemic was a generational challenge and one that our NHS staff rose to. We have faced the very worst, and we have proved ourselves to be resilient. A corner is being turned: operations and general practitioner numbers are up, and in-patient, out-patient and day-case waits are all down. Progress has been made and progress will continue, with a renewed focus on driving down waiting times by increasing capacity.
We will invest an additional £90 million in elective capacity and increased investment in specialist recruitment and training places. Over the next 100 days, we will deliver at least 50,000 operations and procedures. By the end of this parliamentary session, we will ensure that no one waits longer than 26 weeks for treatment. We will reduce demand on acute services by investing more in prevention and early intervention, including one-stop shops in communities to provide lung and heart health MOTs.
There will be a clear shift in the balance of care, with more delivered in the community. Over the next three years, general practice will receive an additional £531 million, meaning that even more family doctors can be recruited as part of our plan to make it easier to access a GP and end the 8 am rush. That plan will be turbocharged with more GP walk-in clinics. In the next 100 days, we will open at least five more and confirm locations for another 14; they will be open in the evenings and at weekends, with no appointment needed.
There will be greater security for women and girls, with a misogyny bill to outline misogynistic harassment and abuse in Scotland; a ban on the use of technology to create and possess deepfake intimate images; a ban on the possession of online material containing sex offences against women and children; and a ban on mobile phones in our schools.
Fairness will be built into the very foundations of the new nation state that we aim and seek to build, with a Scottish constitution that protects our NHS and guarantees the fundamental human dignity of each and every person in our land—a Scottish constitution that is rooted in the values that speak to the very best of who we are.
Security will come from being in charge of our own destiny. This is the true security that we have all experienced and that we all strive for when we know that our future is in our own hands and when we know, no matter the challenge, that we are able to choose and chart the right course. It is the security that will come from a renewed partnership with our neighbours in the European Union—a true partnership of equals with 27 other nations, friends and peers. We share a continent and we share a future.
We will have greater prosperity because, with the opportunity of independence, we will have control over our own energy wealth and will be able to trade freely with the biggest single market in the world as a member, once again, of the European Union. Together, those offer a golden opportunity, which is one that I believe people will vote for resoundingly when our nation again has the ability to decide our own future in an independence referendum. Of course, that is why Westminster currently says no. However, to build on the words of one of the fathers of our self-government, we are the people, we are the people’s Parliament and we say yes.
Today is the start of a process that I believe will lead Westminster to say yes to a referendum and Scotland to say yes to independence. Today, I seek confirmation from this Parliament that it is a voluntary union and that the people of Scotland have the right to decide whether we remain in that union. That principle should be accepted by all those in the chamber who believe in independence, as well as by those who believe in the union.
What is at stake is the democratic wishes of the people of Scotland. The people have elected a new Parliament. This new Parliament has the opportunity today to make its position clear. I invite the Parliament to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.
Previous
Time for Reflection