Meeting of the Parliament 26 May 2026 [Draft]
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—