Official Report 133KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S7M-00105, in the name of John Swinney, on being ambitious for Scotland. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button, and I call John Swinney to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Parliament welcomes the emphatic democratic mandate for bold and ambitious reform backed by the people of Scotland at the Scottish General Election; further welcomes the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to eradicate child poverty, deliver a stronger NHS and public services, build a more prosperous economy and help people in the cost of living crisis and tackle climate change; recognises that the people of Scotland have returned the largest pro-independence majority ever elected to the Scottish Parliament; believes this majority affirms a clear mandate that decisions about Scotland’s future are best taken in Scotland and that mandate must be respected; calls on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998 to devolve the powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum on Scottish independence, and agrees that the Parliament is at its best when it works together in pursuit of a country that can be confident in its future.—[John Swinney]
14:19
I say first that although I welcome much of the content of the First Minister’s opening statement, the reality is that the contrast between that statement and the motion for debate is stark. The majority of the statement focused on issues that I think people would want the Scottish National Party Government to concentrate on, but the balance of the motion that we are being asked to vote on is overwhelmingly about one issue alone, which is the Scottish National Party First Minister’s only ambition and obsession: the issue of independence. That is a missed opportunity for the first debate of a new Parliament.
I will make a broader point. One of the big challenges for our politics in Scotland is that, far too often, the instinct of the SNP Government and of the SNP as a party is to talk about Scotland as if it is one homogeneous unit with one mind and one view and not to talk as if there is a mix of views across the country. In reality, Scotland does not have one voice or one view on a referendum or on independence and there are differing views right across the country. If Mr Swinney truly wants to be a First Minister for all of Scotland, he cannot deny those varying views.
I will say more about ambition in a moment, but to hear someone who has been in Government for 20 years pleading for some sort of fresh start is to hear something that people will not believe in. This Government and First Minister have spent more time in the past 20 years telling Scotland what they cannot do than what they can do. Ultimately, the First Minister’s party plays on the very same fears and blame that I spoke about last week. There are those who want to create fear in our communities in order to divide us and there are those who want to pass the buck by pointing the finger of blame somewhere else instead of taking responsibility for their own actions in Government.
Much of what John Swinney said in his opening statement is an attempt to correct a record that he has helped to build over the past 20 years. In those 20 years, the SNP has created layer after layer of bureaucracy and public sector bodies that he now says he wants to strip away. Yet, year after year, for the past 20 years, the SNP Government has taken power away from Scotland’s regions—it has centralised the power that he now says he wants to push back out to those regions.
We have had a test of some of Mr Sarwar’s theories in recent weeks because we have had an election and the people have decided. Would it not be better if Mr Sarwar were to allow power to be in the people’s hands and to allow them to decide on their own future by supporting the motion?
Mr Gray will argue his view and I am going to argue mine—that is democracy. The reality is that there is a mix of views across the country, as was clear during the election. That was clear from the First Minister’s own statement. He did not say that we had had an independence election; he said that it was a cost of living election. People voted in the election based on what was happening in their pockets and in their public services.
He also mentioned energy, but the reality is that the SNP Government sold our energy wealth on the cheap. This Parliament must redefine community benefit and community ownership across the country. We also need a different kind of Government—not one with more gimmicks and grievances, but one that actually gets things done.
There is another area where I agree with John Swinney: there is global insecurity and instability. At the time of such insecurity and instability, people across the country need a relentless focus on the issues that matter to them right now. Those issues include access to vital public services, seeing their bills brought down and ensuring that they do not keep paying more and more while getting less and less in return.
That is the ambition that I will speak about today. There is no shortage of ambition in our country. Families are ambitious about what happens to them and are ambitious for their children and their communities.
Where is the ambition to return the national health service to its founding principles of being free and available at the point of need? That principle has been broken by the SNP Government. The record shows that people are paying £12,000 for a hip replacement, £8,000 for a knee replacement and £5,000 for cataract surgery under the SNP Government. That is how it returns that ambition.
Where is the ambition to make Scotland’s schools the best in the world again? They are falling down the international league tables under this Government. Where is the ambition to make people feel safe and secure in their communities?
The reality is that, when the SNP talks about ambition, what it really means is its own party’s ambition or its own individuals’ ambition. We got a really stark example of that this week. People who are its most vociferous supporters were asked to put their hard-earned cash into a movement that they believed in and that they support—which is their democratic right—and what did the people who were charged with the responsibility do? They robbed them of that opportunity. They embezzled that opportunity. The reality is that countless opportunities for people across this country have been embezzled by this SNP Government for 20 years.
We need ambition and we need to deliver for people across this country, but that requires a different kind of Government. It requires honesty and transparency and it requires actually putting into words what the First Minister said in much of his opening statement, rather than using those issues to divide us and set Scot against Scot. We need real ambition to bring down waiting lists, real ambition to end the 8 am rush for a general practitioner appointment, real ambition to make life more affordable for families, real ambition to bring down bills, real ambition to return police to our streets, real ambition to build the homes that this country needs, real ambition to make sure that we have economic growth for every part of our country, real ambition so that every child gets the opportunities that they need to succeed, and real ambition to end homelessness and eradicate poverty in this country.
We need a Parliament and a Government that have ambition to match that of the people of this great country. That can be achieved only if John Swinney focuses on the issues at hand and the issues that matter every day, rather than looking for reasons to divide us.
I move amendment S7M-00105.4, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:
“recognises the need for bold and ambitious reform in Scotland following the Scottish General Election; acknowledges that the majority of people in Scotland want the Scottish Government to focus on the issues that impact their day-to-day lives; considers that the priority of the Scottish Government should therefore be to improve the NHS and public services, make life more affordable, support communities and high streets, grow a fair and prosperous economy, which tackles inequality, and ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed; believes that this ambitious future can and should be achieved through the devolved powers of the Parliament and rejects any attempt by the Scottish Government to delay this work by dedicating resources towards returning to divisive arguments of the past.”
Members who take interventions do not have the time taken from them, but it is still up to members to decide whether they take interventions.
14:27
I see that Mr Sarwar’s constructive and collaborative tone lasted about a week in this place. Clearly, no lessons have been learned from the election.
Every Green MSP who was elected to this Parliament was elected on a mandate to support the cause of independence. Our gains have made the biggest-ever majority for independence in this Parliament, and we are here to assert that mandate. It is, of course, normal in a democracy that a parliamentary majority can pursue the issues on which it has won a mandate from the voters. However, we saw throughout the campaign—as we are seeing in Parliament this afternoon—increasingly desperate mental gymnastics from unionist parties that claim that we somehow do not have that mandate. During the campaign, we heard from the Labour Party that its win in the 2024 general election in Scotland was a mandate against another independence referendum. However, that only has any credibility if we ignore the fact that it rejected the SNP’s equivalent mandates in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
We have also heard the “once in a generation” line—that it has not yet been a generation since the referendum.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not quite yet.
I ask those who use that particular line to reflect on the fact that 800,000 people who were old enough to vote at the election just a few weeks ago were not old enough to vote in the referendum in 2014. Is it really credible to continue with the line that it has not yet been a generation since the referendum?
I absolutely respect the cause of unionism and I respect those who disagree with me and my party on independence. It is important that unionists are well represented in this Parliament. However, whether we are for or against independence, surely everyone who sits in this place should be a democrat, and democracy is not a one-off event. The public are no more bound by the vote in 2014 today than this Parliament is bound by its predecessors. Democracy is a system that we live in every day of our lives.
This debate requires some honesty. Is this a voluntary union? Was it a voluntary union only until 2014, and is it not one any more? We have to wonder why people are so angry and cynical. Is it because of the anti-democratic games that are being played? I do not expect the Labour Party, in particular, to have some kind of Damascene conversion to the cause of independence, but I would expect respect for Scottish democracy and Scottish voters. I credit Paul Sweeney for making suggestions and being open to a conversation about how we can move forward on the constitutional question. I would say that the best time to have that particular debate was a decade ago, but I welcome that there are some in the Labour Party who are open to having it now.
If Ross Greer believes in democracy and giving voters a choice, why did the Scottish Green Party stand in so few constituencies?
Mr Hoy may have missed the fact that the Scottish Greens gave every voter in Scotland the opportunity to vote for us, and far more of them chose to do so than chose to vote for the Scottish Conservative Party.
As I said, I respect the arguments for the union and against independence, but I cannot respect the increasingly desperate means that are being used to justify denying the people of Scotland a choice over our future.
The Scottish Greens have always believed that independence is the best choice for Scotland, not as an end but as a means to a greater end. It is our route back into the European Union to undo the incredible damage that Brexit has done and to regain our European citizenships. It would give us the power to tackle poverty through things such as minimum wage laws. It would give us the full fiscal powers that we need to invest in the infrastructure for thriving communities and a successful economy. It would give us power over our energy systems, whereby we could make the switch from an energy regulation system that maximises the profits of a handful of companies to a system that provides affordable energy for everyone.
The independence movement of 2014 grew support for our cause by focusing on that vision and on what we can achieve with the powers of a normal nation. In the 12 years since then—I have to be honest—I think that far too much of our focus as a movement has been on process rather than on the cause and on that vision. We know that much of it is in Westminster’s hands. We believe that that is wrong, but it is the reality. We should focus on what we can change, which is public opinion. There is currently a marginal lead for independence in the polls, but we can concede that the issue is basically 50:50.
Will Ross Greer give way on that point?
No.
The best way to grow support for Scottish self-government is to do self-government well—to maximise the use of the powers that we have. That is the focus of today’s Green amendment. The powers of this Parliament are limited, but we have not yet exhausted them.
In 2014, we grew support for independence by tying it to a sense of hope and optimism. I do not feel that there is a lot of hope and optimism in Scottish politics right now. There is a deep sense of frustration with our public services.
We have a lot to be proud of from the era of devolution. For example, Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom in which child poverty is falling. However, too many reforms have been delayed and deferred—most obviously, council tax reform.
On housing, if we had the borrowing powers of a normal nation, we could build far more. However, what we can do right now is set standards to cut bills through energy efficiency—for new builds in particular. We can use the rent control powers that this Parliament passed just a few months ago to help people to save and keep a roof over their heads.
Our health service is crying out for reforms, some major and structural but others very simple. People just want the services on which they rely every day to work. They just want someone to pick up the phone at their GP surgery when they call.
When it comes to our environment, there is no need to wait for independence to clean up our rivers and our lochs.
We can do all those things to demonstrate that, when decisions are made here, they benefit people and the planet. We can grow support for full self-government through independence by maximising the use of the self-governing powers that we have right now, but we should also do it because it is the right thing to do, here and now, regardless of constitutional objectives.
I will close on that note. There is a majority for independence in this Parliament, but not a single-party majority. Every progressive party in the Parliament has the opportunity to work with others—to co-operate, collaborate and move Scotland forward on the areas on which we agree. The vast majority of members of the Parliament agree on the need to eradicate child poverty, and a vast majority agree on the need to take action to tackle the climate emergency.
As Gillian Mackay noted last week, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats—the two Opposition parties that co-operated with the Government to secure progress on the areas that we cared about—gained at the last election. There is something for every party to learn from that.
The Greens will be proud to support the motion, although we will also push for our amendment, because we believe in the cause of independence—putting Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands—and we also believe that the Parliament has a duty to act here and now to give our children the best possible future that they can have, to help people to save money on their bills, to lift families out of poverty and to tackle the climate emergency. The Parliament is more than capable of pursuing Scotland’s constitutional future and taking action on the issues that affect people in their lives here and now.
I move amendment S7M-00105.3, to insert at end:
“; believes that the most effective way in which to grow public support for Scottish independence and to meet the scale of the challenges currently facing Scotland is through more effective use of existing devolved powers; recognises that meeting the Scottish Government’s stated ambitions will require a significant escalation in action and ambition; notes that no one party holds a majority in the current parliamentary session, but that there is a clear majority for progressive values, and agrees that, if all progressive parties work constructively and collaboratively, Scotland can be a fairer, greener and kinder country where household costs are reduced, where wealth is distributed more equally and where climate and natural environment are protected.”
Before I call the next speaker, I remind members who wish to speak to press their request-to-speak buttons—not everyone has done that so far.
14:34
Here we go again. This is the first debate of the new parliamentary session, but it is not about the NHS, in which patients are stuck waiting for years in misery and agony; it is not about education, where pupils are told to accept mediocrity and classroom violence; it is not about Scots being forced to pay more and more tax to bankroll the Scottish National Party’s out-of-control benefits bill; and nor is it about the betrayal of Scotland’s oil and gas workers by two Governments—SNP and Labour.
The debate is not about any of those important issues because, of course, John Swinney believes in only one thing: breaking up the United Kingdom. He is holding Scotland back, stuck in the grip of constitutional paralysis. His party is not actually interested in improving people’s lives or fixing the public services that it broke. For his party, that is too much like hard work. Of course, the SNP will never be honest about the financial cost of independence. If the SNP ever got its way, Scotland would face a funding gap of £26 billion. Scots would face extreme tax rises while public services would be cut to the bone.
The timing of today’s debate is comical. Today of all days, John Swinney is banging the independence drum when the news agenda is dominated by his party stealing money from its own members and supporters—money that the SNP promised to ring fence for independence. Here we are just 24 hours after Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, admitted using more than £400,000 of stolen money to fund their lavish lifestyle. In 2021, John Swinney went on the BBC and publicly dismissed valid concerns about the SNP’s finances. Nicola Sturgeon also told those with concerns to stay quiet. When questioned by police, she repeatedly said, “No comment”—the tactics of organised crime.
Today of all days, John Swinney reckons that the SNP can be trusted to take full control of an independent Scotland and our nation’s finances. This is the same John Swinney who did not have a clue that his childhood friend, whom he appointed SNP chief executive, was plundering their own party. You would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the painful lack of self-awareness on the SNP benches. Does John Swinney not see how this sounds to people who despair at what the Parliament has become?
The sad truth is that John Swinney is never, ever going to change—we should not hope for any change at all. However, the Scottish Conservatives will always stand up to and call out this nonsense. In 2014, the people of Scotland said no, and John Swinney has never respected their vote. He should know that the law is clear that the Parliament does not have the power to hold a referendum. Nicola Sturgeon went to court on that. She spent hundreds of thousands of pounds—taxpayers’ money this time—and she lost. In the most recent Scottish election, more voters backed unionist parties than parties supporting separation. However, none of those facts matters to John Swinney and the SNP.
I recently spent time in Aberdeen along with our UK party leader, Kemi Badenoch, and we see the damage that is being inflicted on Scotland’s oil and gas sector, with thousands of jobs being lost. Labour does not care, and it remains against new drilling. Here is my challenge to John Swinney today. His party still has a presumption against new oil and gas licences, so let us send a message of support to the oil and gas workers and give a call to action. Let us end the SNP’s opposition, get Britain drilling again and drop the damaging independence obsession.
I move amendment S7M-00105.2, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:
“believes that its seventh session should be focused exclusively on resolving the issues that matter to most people in Scotland, such as dealing with NHS waiting times, reversing Scotland’s falling educational standards, tackling the growing benefits bill and delivering value-for-money for Scotland’s taxpayers; urges the Scottish Government to drop its demands to hold a second independence referendum, and calls for the Scottish Government to drop its position of a presumption against new oil and gas licences, as outlined in its Draft Energy Strategy published in the last session of the Parliament.”
14:40
Members will be delighted to hear that I do not plan to take all of my time this afternoon. I intend to cede some of it to Duncan Dunlop, who will be making his first speech later.
In the time that I have, I remind members that debates such as this used to be marquee occasions. There were times when the galleries would be full, the press gallery would be absolutely stuffed and we even had the cameras of the world trained on this Parliament, because the question of Scotland’s future in the union was so unpredictable. However, there is a muscle memory now—a performative element—to debates such as this, because a section 30 order will be requested this afternoon and it will be declined. Why? Because John Swinney has manifestly failed the test that he set himself just a month ago. I will quote from The Scotsman what John Swinney said—he could not have been clearer—on 28 April:
“I’m … saying that we need to make sure we get an SNP majority to make sure we can take forward an independence referendum”.
Presiding Officer, 59 per cent of the public—the voting public—disagreed with that assertion and voted for parties that did not back a second referendum. It is only because of the vagaries of our voting system and the gaming of the system by the parties of independence that we are now in this situation.
I remember that, in the last session of this Parliament, we pointed out that the pro-independence parties had won not just a majority of seats but a majority of votes, and Mr Cole-Hamilton had to come up with a whole new reason against a mandate for a referendum at that point, so why do the goalposts keep shifting?
Ross Greer is celebrated as one of the brightest members of this Parliament, yet basic arithmetic seems to be escaping him; 59 per cent of the public is bigger than 41 per cent. I think that he should consult his maths teacher.
Because the SNP failed in that effort, the covenant that the First Minister tried to establish with the people must be set aside, because a section 30 order is not going to build a new hospital in Shetland; 18 months of campaigning around the constitution is not going to dual the lethal A9 any faster; identifying offices for embassies and high commissions overseas for a future independent Scotland is going to do nothing to reduce child poverty; and the interminable debates about what currency an independent Scotland would or would not adopt are going to do nothing to instruct an independent review that is so vitally needed for maternity services in the far north of Scotland.
In all truth, as a chamber, since the SNP came to power, we have never fully flexed the muscles of devolution—as one of the most empowered devolved nations in this world—to address the things that all our constituents have decidedly sent us to Parliament to discuss.
I will give him credit—the First Minister touched on the cost of living emergency. This was a cost of living election, but nothing about 18 months of debate around the constitution is going to make people’s homes warmer by instructing the emergency programme of home insulation that we need. It is not going to address the crisis in our social care system, which is keeping 2,000 Scots in hospital who neither need nor want to be there but who cannot get home for want of a social care package. It is not going to lift up education, and it is not going to—
Will the member give way?
Will the member give way?
I do not have time—
You do have time.
Okay—I will take an intervention from Tom Arthur.
One of the fundamental challenges that we face in social care is the recruitment and retention of workforce, and that challenge is particularly conspicuous in our Highlands and rural communities. Is that not a convincing argument for powers over immigration to be devolved to this Parliament?
I do not disagree with Mr Arthur that Brexit has been a disaster for social care, but it would be a lot easier to fix social care if his Government paid people more to work in social care or gave them key worker housing to address the shortage of housing in the Highlands and Islands that he discussed, so he has got a nerve to raise that with me.
We need to get Scotland moving again. Just last week, the nation was embarrassed when the technology of the 19th century came to the aid of passengers of the 21st century—the Clyde paddle steamer, the Waverley, had to rescue passengers because a Caledonian MacBrayne vessel had broken down. That is a microcosm of the inadequacies of the SNP Government, and taking time for parliamentary debates such as this one does nothing to serve our constituents. It is no wonder that they do not pay the attention to, or have the trust in, the Parliament that they used to, because they just do not believe that it can deliver for them.
I move amendment S7M-00105.1, to leave out from first “welcomes” to end and insert:
“notes that the Scottish National Party’s stated objective prior to 7 May 2026 was to secure an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament elections in order to pursue independence, but that the party achieved fewer votes and seats than in the previous elections, whereas the Scottish Liberal Democrats achieved gains across Scotland from the Borders to the Highlands, and believes that the Scottish Government must now focus on fixing the NHS and care, helping people with the cost of living crisis, fixing the roads and the ferries and getting Scottish education back to its best, in order to deliver the change that Scotland deserves.”
I call Malcolm Offord.
14:45
So, here we go again—welcome back to groundhog day. Doesn’t the SNP just love debating matters that are reserved to Westminster instead of doing the day job? Is it any wonder that 2 million Scots did not vote—
Members: We cannot hear—turn the microphone round.
I will start again.
Is it any wonder that 2 million Scots did not vote in the election on 7 May?
Holyrood controls 60 per cent of the spending in Scotland. Moreover, with control over devolved matters in this chamber, it controls 80 per cent of daily life in Scotland: our schools, hospitals, roads, policing and communities. That is what hard-working Scots want this Parliament to focus on—how to build prosperity for families and communities, not endless debates on the neverendum question.
So, why does the SNP indulge itself by continually debating matters that are reserved to Westminster? We all know why. It is a deflection strategy, because the SNP does not want to focus on the track record of what it has done in the day job: the fact that our economy is anaemic and promotes welfare over work; the fact that our taxes are too high and provide a disincentive to productivity; the fact that our planning is so bad that small and medium-sized enterprises are shutting down; the fact that 93 per cent of Scots say that healthcare needs reform; and the fact that, in education, our schools have gone from outstanding to average, and the attainment gap is widening; the fact that in jobs and skills, we have three quarters of a million adult Scots not working, yet we bring in 300 welders from the Philippines to work in our shipyards; and the fact that community cohesion is breaking down in our most vulnerable communities.
That is why 2 million Scots did not vote. There is no point, because nothing changes. All we get is managed decline and mid-table mediocrity—they are scunnered by the SNP. Things are never its fault—it is always the victim.
Let us turn to the motion on indyref 2. The First Minister asked a question: is the UK a voluntary union? There has never been any doubt that it is a voluntary union. Margaret Thatcher made it very clear to Alex Salmond that the UK was a voluntary union; she said to him that she did not want the UK to break up, but that if he delivered a democratic mandate from the Scottish people to leave the UK, they could leave the UK. The Tories have got themselves in a mess on this, because all they ever say is no—it is always no—to another referendum.
What is the democratic mandate?
I will address that in my next point—I will give the exact numbers on that, because it is a key point that we will come to in the discussion.
Even in 2016, after the EU Brexit vote, the leader of the Tories, Ruth Davidson, said that it was unconstitutional to say that there will never, ever be another referendum. We cannot sit in this chamber and say that there will never ever be another referendum, but we can say that, right now, there is no appetite from the Scottish people to have such a thing. We should be saying to ourselves that, for at least 10 years, we should not be talking about this, because this Parliament should focus right now on devolved matters in order to make Scotland the most successful part of the UK.
I thank Lord Offord for giving way. In this chamber, he promised the smack of firm opposition, so why is there no Reform amendment to the woeful SNP motion?
The answer to that is that we do not believe that we should be debating this matter.
You are!
We do not believe—
Vote Reform to sit it out.
Can I continue?
The constitution is a matter reserved to Westminster. We should not even be discussing it today, hence there is no Reform amendment—[Interruption.]
Okay—members have made their point.
The Tories like to call me some sort of closet nationalist—I accept that—and they say that Reform UK has members in it who previously supported independence.
To clarify, I would align myself with John Buchan, who was a Conservative MP. A hundred years ago, speaking in the House of Commons in 1932, John Buchan said that every Scot
“should be a Scottish Nationalist.”
He went on to say:
“If it could be proved that a separate Scottish Parliament were desirable, that is to say that the merits were greater than the disadvantages and dangers”,
Scots
“should support it.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 24 November 1932; Vol 272, c 261.]
My view is that John Buchan was not advocating Scottish independence, as we are discussing today, but was a unionist nationalist. That is how I would align myself—strongly Scottish in identity and culture, but committed to the United Kingdom, which is the best place for us to build our prosperity. He argued for preserving Scotland’s national character within the union rather than dissolving the union. That is my position.
The question is, what is the SNP’s position? It has become increasingly clear that the SNP’s position on independence is that it does not actually want it. If it did, it would have spent the past 12 years actually preparing Scotland to become independent. It would have spent the past 12 years answering the questions that it could not answer in 2014, such as what our currency would be, how to borrow money without a credit card—that is pretty basic—and how to join the EU when its members are allowed only a 4 per cent deficit and Scotland has a 12 per cent deficit.
I certainly look forward to never hearing Reform MSPs speak in this Parliament about reserved matters, but I am very keen that the member answers the earlier question—if this is a voluntary union, how does Scotland leave?
It is very nice of the member to lead me exactly to that point.
There has been no answer on any of these matters: currency; the deficit—we have a 12 per cent deficit, but the EU needs a 3 per cent deficit; a hard border with England when 60 per cent of our exports from Scotland go to England; pensions, when Sottish pensioners are greatly protected by the umbrella of 65 million rather than 5 million contributors; and defence, when we have Russian submarines circling Scotland right now.
I say to the Scottish National Party that Alex Salmond did a pretty admirable job in moving support for the independence movement from 30 per cent to 45 per cent. I would argue that when he passed the baton to Nicola Sturgeon, he was entitled to think that she and John Swinney would move it from 45 per cent to 60 per cent, but what has actually happened? To answer the two interventions, polling in 2014 showed that 1.4 million Scots would vote for the separatist parties. In 2021, in the Holyrood election, that number was 1.3 million Scots. Three weeks ago, on 7 May, 1 million Scots voted for separatist parties. That is less than a quarter of the electorate voting for separation. How can that ever be considered a mandate to break up the UK? To quote the First Minister, how can that be presented as “compelling and demonstrable” evidence that Scots want to separate from the UK? I do not see it myself.
I will finish with this little anecdote. When I was a Scotland Office minister, I went to the Arctic Circle assembly in Iceland. My job was to shadow “air miles” Angus Robertson. At every meeting that he went into, I had to go in afterwards, as he ran around the world telling everyone how monstrous Westminster was and that it would not let Scotland go. The Icelandic Prime Minister said to me that Mr Robertson had just been in and complained about Westminster being nasty to him and not letting Scotland have independence. I said that, in my reckoning, Norway went independent in 1905 after a 96 per cent vote in favour. She agreed. I said that Iceland went independent in 1944 after a 98 per cent vote in favour, and that we had a vote in 2014 and only 45 per cent of people voted for independence. She said that it is difficult enough to launch an independent country with 96 per cent support and it cannot be done with 45 per cent.
The fact is that the majority of Scots do not favour separation. This debate is just a performative ritual that rolls around every five years. The SNP has only got itself to blame for this. I think that, in the future, it will look back on the previous 25 years of Government and wonder why on earth it did not advance the cause by making Scotland indy ready and why, instead, all it ever did was talk and blame Westminster. The same old SNP—always the victim.
We move to the open part of the debate. The first eight speakers are all making their maiden speeches and, therefore, there will be no interventions. Whoever is in the chair will remind members of that as we progress. The first person to speak in the open debate will be Kate Campbell, who has a generous seven minutes.
14:54
The first thing I will do is thank the voters of Edinburgh Eastern, Musselburgh and Tranent—a wonderful, diverse constituency that represents so much of modern Scotland, from our beaches to our castles and from our harbour to our university. The constituency stretches out from urban communities in the capital city to rural villages. There are large new-build estates, modern industrial estates, commuters, farmers, former mining and fishing communities, affluent communities and communities that are struggling with poverty. I thank all those communities, because every single one of them voted with optimism; they voted for positive policies to make life better. They did not vote for a negative, to stop something or to blame others; they voted with hope for Scotland’s future. I will carry the expectation of that hope with me for the next five years.
This week, the Scottish Government is getting stuck in to delivering on the promises that were made during the election campaign: to expand childcare, improve the NHS and tackle the cost of living crisis. Today, we are calling for a section 30 order to be made to transfer the powers to hold the independence referendum that the people of Scotland voted for a couple of weeks ago. There is now the highest number of pro-independence MSPs that has ever been seen in the Parliament. Today, a majority of MSPs will call for that section 30 order to be made. If the unionist parties want to call this a voluntary union and say that we are a functioning democracy, they, too, must support the transfer of those powers so that the people of Scotland can choose their future—because that is what they voted for.
The people of Scotland voted for that because Westminster is not working. In my lifetime, Thatcher decimated public services, asset stripping the common good. Then Blair saddled us with private finance initiative debt, took us into illegal wars and, during a period of economic prosperity, squandered the opportunity to tackle structural inequality. Then the Tories and Lib Dems, hand in hand, ushered in an age of austerity, allowing our infrastructure to deteriorate and our people to suffer.
Then there was the Brexit that we did not vote for, which has stifled Scottish businesses, damaged trade and pushed up the cost of goods for us all. There was no serious plan to deal with Putin’s war in Ukraine or the aftermath of the pandemic, just bluster from Boris, the most deeply unserious Prime Minister the UK had ever seen—until Liz Truss, who took a wild gamble that led to skyrocketing Government borrowing costs and skyrocketing mortgage costs for ordinary people who were already suffering.
Now, there is a Labour Government that is too paralysed with fear to do anything, clinging to power for power’s sake. It is a technocratic regime with no vision, no ambition and no sense of mission to make life better for the people who need it the most. It is lacking in leadership as Trump derails the global economy; instead, it is descending into internal psychodrama when people need leadership the most.
Looming on the horizon is Farage, the best friend of the billionaires, who wants to privatise the NHS and blame migrants for the cost of living. Let us put on the record that it is not migrants who have created the cost of living crisis but the successive failure of UK Government after UK Government. Westminster has not worked for the people of Scotland for a long time. When other members talk about voters being scunnered, this is why: decade after decade of abject failure by Westminster to respond to the needs of the people.
It is for the members who have lodged amendments that are against having that section 30 order to defend that record, but they will not. Why is that? They cannot defend the record, because it is indefensible. Instead, they will talk about an amorphous concept of change and pretend that devolved powers are enough. However, the truth is that the people do not trust the parties of Westminster, and that is because they do not trust the institution of Westminster. People look around and they know that our society needs to fundamentally change.
The movers of the amendments by the unionist parties need to justify why they think that things should stay the same, because that is not what people voted for. People voted to have the opportunity to have their say on independence. The people know—even if the unionist parties do not—that we need our independence. We need it to be able to tax the wealth of the multibillionaires, rejoin Europe and fix our energy policy.
We need independence to make fiscal choices about investing in our infrastructure, our people and our communities—to foster economic prosperity, build wealth in those communities, tackle inequality and get rid of economically illiterate policies like the Labour UK Government’s hike in employer national insurance contributions, which is a tax on jobs when the economy is already under pressure. Those are things that we simply cannot do with devolved powers alone.
We hear time and time again that we need to get on with the day job. This is the day job for the SNP: delivering the best that we possibly can for the people of Scotland. The SNP is ambitious for Scotland—not to patch things up or tinker at the edges with devolved power, but to achieve the constitutional change that we fundamentally need to radically transform our country, delivering prosperity, equality and hope with the powers that can come only from being an independent nation. The majority of MSPs today are calling for those powers, and I hope that all parties will recognise that democratic mandate.
The rest of this Official Report will be published progressively as soon as the text is available.
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Ambitious for Scotland