Chamber and committees

I will leave that with you as something to think about. Whether you routinely disaggregate all data that is collected by gender is a valid question. It flows through into procurement, for example. Do you know whether you have equitability in your procurement with regard to women-led businesses? That is an issue for many facets of the Parliament, as I am coming across.

Good morning, Deputy First Minister. I will pick up on a couple of points that the convener posited. On capital expenditure, you have given a clear rationale around the global economic considerations, and said that you might therefore seek to delay rather than stop projects. That makes me think that every capital project will be impacted by what you describe and therefore that every capital project could be delayed. Could you give any more flavour as to the type of project that you have in mind?

Thank you for that clarification. You mentioned construction, and we know that we still have a chronic undersupply of affordable housing and a massive pent-up demand that goes back years. Are you able to give any more flavour at this point of the type of project or sector on which you might seek to impose a delay for the circumstances that you have outlined?

It was mentioned earlier that the capex figure is set to fall by 2.9 per cent in real terms. I know that consideration of terms of reference for the fiscal framework review is under way, but do you sense any increasing urgency for that, given the probably fairly common calls for an increase in capex borrowing powers for the Scottish Government? Do you sense any increased urgency from the UK Government?

Net zero is a particular concern in the context of capex. We know that it will involve difficult decisions; indeed, you have commented that there will be genuinely difficult decisions for Scotland that will require significant long-term private investment and behaviour change. I wondered what you meant by “behaviour change” in that context.

Finally, I mention a matter that has been alluded to and which I am sure other members will want to ask about. There are huge demands for public sector pay deals, which must be a massive challenge at the moment. I know that the Government is working extremely hard to reach agreement on various pay demands, but what contingencies do you have in place if a deal cannot be reached with a sector by the end of the fiscal year?

It is said that it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. That is probably what we are seeing with the fixed budget model. The committee knows that the extent to which the public understand how the financial framework for the Scottish Parliament operates is always a concern. I know that you and all the ministers have been at pains to help people to understand what a fixed budget actually means, but I still hear—whether it is about politics or otherwise—even media representatives blithely ignoring the fact that there is a fixed budget and the implications flowing from that. I know that you work very hard to try to get that message out there, but is there anything more that you and, indeed, we can do to support that?

Good morning, and thank you for attending today. I echo Jackson Carlaw’s comments about the staff. The operation of the Parliament is a huge undertaking: many people do not appreciate that. I will happily take up the offer of a tour of the basement and promise not to press any red buttons.

Slightly unusually, I start by going back to Brexit and taking issue with the convener. If I were in a similar position to you, I would need to give careful consideration to the number of full-time equivalent posts required for forthcoming work on Brexit. I know from anecdotal conversations with the clerks that the number of legislative consent memorandums, and the complexity and scrutiny of that work, has been quite considerable in the past year. When I talk about retained European Union law and the back-end scrutiny of that in the coming year, that is usually greeted by horror from the clerks whom I speak to, because so much is unknown.

I am not certain about the specific additional head count provision that you have made for Brexit, given that retained EU law might lead to circa 4,000 pieces of legislation folding. I am sure that it will not come to that, but the number is certainly considerable. What is the specific head count and how confident are you in the provision of that head count?

Where you collect data, do you routinely disaggregate it for every data item? The issue flows into your procurement policy and so on. Only by collecting data can we start to move that forward.

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.