Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government how many journeys in Glasgow have been taken by under-22s using a free bus pass in the last year. (S6O-03868)

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect; I would have voted yes.

I welcome the discussions that are taking place between both Governments. Labelling is a wholly devolved matter and policy decisions in that space should rest with Scotland’s democratically elected Government. GB-wide labelling proposals are merely another assault on Scotland’s devolved political settlement, although I obviously welcome the abandonment of the scheme. Scrapping Tory schemes aside, does the minister have any further indications that the Labour Government intends to act differently from its predecessor and respect this Parliament and Scotland’s Government?

To ask the Scottish Government what communication it has had with the United Kingdom Government, since the general election, regarding the potential impact on Scotland’s food and drink sector of the reported proposal for “not for EU” labelling on food and drink products in the UK. (S6O-03785)

Before I go on to my supplementary question, with members’ indulgence, I would like to mention the passing of Councillor Kenny McLean, who was a councillor when I was the leader of Glasgow City Council. He was a hard worker for his constituents in his ward of Partick East. He was tireless in working for Glasgow, and he was a huge supporter of making Scotland a better place through independence. More importantly, he was a great man, and he will be sadly missed by his family and everybody who knew him. [Applause.]

With devolved finances tighter than ever as a result of the United Kingdom Government’s decision, how does the cabinet secretary anticipate that fairer futures partnerships will help to laser-focus Scotland’s constrained resources and public services on the mission to eradicate child poverty?

To ask the Scottish Government how its investment in fairer futures partnerships will help to tackle child poverty. (S6O-03774)

It is always a pleasure to speak in the chamber, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the 10th anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum. In that referendum, the people of Scotland had the opportunity to remind the world of what a diverse and dynamic country Scotland is. However, for various reasons—a fear of the unknown, the false promises of a better future, the continual lies and scaremongering from the no camp and many sections of the media and, in some cases, a truly held belief in the benefits of being part of the UK—Scotland narrowly voted no.

No matter how you voted, nobody can argue that it has not been a tumultuous decade since that day. I doubt that anyone can honestly say that Scotland has benefited from the no vote in the referendum, despite the vehement protestations to the opposite that we have heard from members on other parties’ benches. How could we seriously believe otherwise? In those 10 years, Scotland has suffered from a Brexit that we voted against; a cost of living crisis that harms the most vulnerable in our society, deliberately inflicted through the policies of austerity; and an acceleration of the plundering of Scotland’s natural resources to keep Britain afloat. Any of those factors, taken in isolation, would have been cause for putting the question to the people of Scotland again, but all of them combine to make the case for a second referendum unanswerable.

It is my continual hope but, based on what I have heard in the debate, sadly not my expectation, that UK politicians will soon embrace the concept of fairness and decency and realise that democracy is not an event but a process. All people have the right to self-determination. Opinions can change markedly in 10 years. If people do not think so, I ask them why Northern Ireland defines a political generation as seven years. If the polls in Northern Ireland showed the support for a referendum that recent Scottish polls have shown, they would have triggered a border poll. In a recent Scottish poll, 56 per cent said that they would vote in favour of independence, compared with just 32 per cent who would still vote no, if an independent Scotland were to join the EU. The real reason why unionists oppose another independence referendum is that they are terrified that they will lose, which they will, convincingly.

Despite on-going misleading claims by our opponents, the Scottish Government has done much in the 10 years since the first independence referendum to help to protect the people of Scotland from the worst of the Tory cuts from Westminster. The money that has been spent to mitigate the effect of Westminster’s harsh and unfair policies, from the bedroom tax onwards, has already been well highlighted. We have spent about £1.2 billion on mitigating the impacts of 14 years of harmful UK Government policies. The Scottish Government could have spent that money on health, education or transport priorities, but it has been spent to simply stop the UK Government harming Scotland’s people. Imagine how much better we could do as a country and a society if that were no longer the case.

The UK Government’s decision to restrict winter fuel payments means that there has been a drop in the Scottish budget of about £160 million, while the Secretary of State for Scotland has, coincidentally, been given a budget of £150 million to spend on anti-poverty measures. In effect, the UK Government is stripping pensioners of their winter heating money to attempt to provide Ian Murray with a degree of relevance in Scottish public discourse. As has been shown by the most recent decisions by the quaintly named Labour Party, that is a drop in the ocean compared with the cuts that are to come down the line.

As has been shown already, we do things differently here in Scotland—primarily, we value our public services and our NHS. However, we are still hampered by successive UK Governments, which often act contrary to the best interests of the people of Scotland. For example, is it possible to believe for a second that, in an independent Scotland, the only oil refinery in the part of Great Britain that is by far the most oil rich would be closed? Further, while Ireland—which was once part of this benevolent union, remember—has given every pensioner €1,000 to help with their winter fuel, Labour in Westminster has scrapped the winter payment for pensioners, as prices rise here in the coldest part of the UK. In an independent Scotland, we would treat our pensioners more like Ireland does than like the UK does.

Of course, if we really want to think about creating a modern, diverse and dynamic Scotland, independence is the only long-term answer. Members do not need to just take my word for how successful we would be; they can read the words of the chief executive of the Confederation of British Industry, who described Scotland’s resources as

“the golden ticket for UK growth”,

which highlights that Scotland has the tools at its fingertips to be a global clean energy superpower. That is undoubtedly true, but we will not be that under the new UK Government, which is led by a Prime Minister who has clearly shown already that his focus is on style over substance. He is happy to take money off weans and pensioners while accepting huge donations from all sorts of people for all sorts of things—it really did not take him long to become prime ministerial in the fashion of his recent predecessors.

With independence, we would have a real opportunity to do things differently. We are an educated, industrious, modern nation that benefits hugely from its national resources. However, until we unlock the UK’s shackles, we will never be able to show the world that Scotland is again the diverse, dynamic and driving force for good that it once was.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I tried to connect, but the app would not work. I would have voted no.

The new Labour Government at Westminster has the levers to end austerity but is choosing not to. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the case could not be clearer for full fiscal powers to be devolved to Scotland so that we can deliver the investment in public services in our communities that people deserve?

We could spend our allotted time listing the countless cases of the deliberate slaughter of men, women and children during and since the events of 7 October and could easily pretend that all the acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing that have occurred since then are a result of that day.

However, to do that would be to live in a world that denies facts and denies the history of both that region and of the United Kingdom. Without the betrayal of the indigenous population of Palestine, primarily by the British, we would not be here, so recognising the state of Palestine is the very least that the UK owes its people.

I well remember hearing about the horrors of 7 October last year and imagining the fear that those poor young people who were out enjoying themselves at a music festival must have felt when terror arrived. I suspect that I am not alone in having seen my sympathies lie with the people of Israel on that and the following days.

However, I would also bet that I was not alone in fearing what would happen next. We are told that Mossad is the greatest intelligence agency in the world and that the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army yet, strangely, those two organisations were completely unable to find the culprits who carried out the 7 October terrorist acts. Instead, Netanyahu, a man who hangs on to power solely to stay out of prison, decided that it was time to clear out the people of Gaza once and for all. He set the dogs on the innocents in a pretendy attempt to root out the guilty, and he okayed the slaughter of children, women and the elderly because he saw them as being less important than his own future. Do you know what is worse than that? He got international backing to do so. While he was bombing safe havens, hospitals and refugee camps, the UK and the USA happily continued supporting him, including by selling him weapons, all for domestic political purposes.

It is fitting that today’s debate has been brought to the chamber by my friend and colleague Humza Yousaf. When the events of 7 October happened, he was the first to show support to the Jewish community of Scotland and was joined in that by all the other political leaders. When the genocide began, Humza stood up for the people of Gaza but, that time, he was alone. While other leaders awaited instructions from elsewhere, Humza stood up and stood strong. We should never forget the humanity that he showed and the courage that it took to make himself visible like that. Of course, he did all that while he had family under the threat of the ethnic cleansing that was taking place. That is the mark of a good man.

The conflict in Palestine has been a long one, although last year’s events saw it escalate to new levels of violence. I am sure that those whose memories go back that bit further than the latest news cycle will know that Palestine has been slowly and methodically annexed by illegal settlers, backed by the Israeli army, for decades. According to the UN, between 2008 and 2021, 23 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli, of which 22 per cent were children and 10 per cent were women.

No killing is a good thing, but those figures are a sharp reminder of the military imbalance in the area. The Palestinians now face the might of a US and UK backed Israeli army that seems to be intent on committing war crime after war crime, and ultimately genocide, in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the region. It is to the eternal shame of the UK Government that it continues backing the Netanyahu regime that has carried out such atrocities in Palestine and is still doing so daily. Given Keir Starmer’s comments, I do not hold out much hope of an incoming Labour Government being any different.

The SNP has a long and honourable tradition of believing in the right of all nations to self-determination and the right to govern themselves in their own interests. We believe that Palestine is a nation and that the United Kingdom should immediately recognise it as a state. That is undoubtedly what we would do if Scotland were independent and it is what our neighbours in Ireland, Spain and Norway have done.

The situation in Gaza has been a humanitarian disaster, with food convoys being shot at and aid workers murdered by Israeli forces. The first step on the way out of that barbarity is to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state in its own right. A two-state solution must be brokered and either the UK is part of the solution, along with our friends and neighbours in Europe and beyond, or it will once again, as we have seen so often in its dark imperial history, be a large part of the problem. We know that 146 UN countries recognise Palestine. Will the UK make it 147?