The Scottish Government is liaising with the royal household, the Lord Lyon King of Arms and the United Kingdom Government on planning for the coronation of His Majesty the King. The First Minister has already announced that an extra bank holiday will be provided for on Monday 8 May to allow for celebrations to take place across the coronation weekend.

As with previous royal occasions, it is expected that any local events held around Scotland to celebrate the coronation will be community inspired and led.

Of course, there would have been no reason to raise a legal challenge if the UK Government had agreed to a section 30 order, as it did after the 2011 election. That would have been the optimal way forward and the preferred option. It is now for the UK Government to respect the views of this Parliament and the result of the most recent Scottish Parliament election and agree to a section 30 order with the Scottish Government. That would not have cost a penny.

Neil Gray, the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and Minister with special responsibility for Refugees from Ukraine, met with Sistema Scotland representatives on 12 July 2022, when he visited the organisation’s big noise programme in the Raploch centre in Stirling. In addition, I was pleased that Nicola Killean, Sistema’s chief executive officer, was able to attend a round-table discussion that I chaired in December. My officials are also in regular contact with Sistema Scotland representatives.

I am proud to support Sistema Scotland, which is a brilliant example of a cultural programme that contributes to many policy outcomes and, in particular, our ambition to tackle child poverty.

Celebrations of this nature are community led in Scotland. The Scottish Government will facilitate communications between the relevant organisations, including local authorities and Scotland’s lord lieutenants. Conversations will be continuing.

I am aware of the study, which is very encouraging. Do I agree with the member that Sistema Scotland is playing a vital role, including in Douglas in Dundee? Yes, I do.

The excellent work that Sistema Scotland does on targeting disadvantaged communities, tackling child poverty, and significantly enhancing participants’ lives, prospects and health and wellbeing—to name but a few—is uncontested. Sistema Scotland is highly valued and supported by the Scottish Government, and I am pleased that it commands so much support across parties in the chamber.

We have been clear that we accept and respect the Supreme Court’s judgment. However, the Supreme Court was not asked to decide, and cannot decide, whether the Scottish Parliament should have the power to hold an independence referendum.

The outcome of that case has demonstrated the weakness of the United Kingdom’s constitution. No matter how the people of Scotland vote or how often they elect Parliaments that support a referendum and support independence, they can be told “no” by the UK Prime Minister. A position that does not allow Scotland to choose its own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth the notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership. In a voluntary union, one part does not have to rely on the agreement of another before it is allowed to think about leaving.

The First Minister has made it clear that she is ready and willing to negotiate the terms of a section 30 order with the Prime Minister.

I am pleased that a majority of members elected to this Parliament by the people of Scotland backed yesterday’s motion calling on the UK Government to respect the right of people in Scotland to choose their constitutional future.

Every member of the Scottish Parliament is here because of the trust that has been placed in us by people in Scotland through their votes. That places obligations on those of us who win elections, and we must do our best to deliver on the mandates that we are given. Should the UK Government continue to deny the Scottish people their right to choose, people in Scotland will have their say on independence at the next UK election.

On 21 December, I received a response from Grant Shapps to my two letters. Although I am happy to have finally received his response, I am disappointed that our concerns continue not to be addressed and that our amendments—which were drafted to limit the damaging impact of the bill on Scotland—continue to be ignored.

Scottish Government officials continue to work with their UK Government counterparts as part of the programme to identify devolved retained European Union law, yet we are still operating largely in the dark in terms of what the UK Government proposes to do with retained EU law, and therefore in terms of what powers Scottish ministers might need to use to prevent deregulation and to uphold high standards for the people of Scotland.

I have been absolutely clear that our preference is for the bill to be withdrawn entirely, or for areas of devolved competence to be carved out from the sunset provisions. However, the amendments that we tabled were dismissed by the UK Government in a House of Commons committee.

I agree that the UK Government’s plans to disrespect the Sewel convention should be of grave concern to the Scottish Parliament. We are therefore putting plans in place to identify devolved retained EU law, but it is a significant undertaking that has the potential to impact on officials’ ability to dedicate time to urgent issues that affect the people of Scotland, such as the energy and cost of living crises.

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.