Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2026 [Last updated 19:16]
I congratulate Ivan McKee—I will call him super Ivan, given the scale of his task, based on his speech and the vision that he has set out today.
From listening to colleagues from across the chamber, I am struck that there is a lot of common ground here, and I think that we need to explore that. I am also struck that talk of black holes and gaps and the SNP failing to do X for 300 years misses the point and misses the opportunity. The black hole is predicted, if nothing else changes, so things are going to change. We are all agreed on that. Equally, we have the opportunity to redesign the state. That is a significant opportunity for all parties individually, and I say to them that the SNP is going to do this, so come and be part of it.
There are things that we can work on. I have read the manifestos of the other parties, and all of us in this chamber stood on a platform of change of one sort or another. We all know that what we are doing needs to change. There is a huge opportunity to redesign the state: to take a fresh sheet of paper and decide what services we need and what structures will best deliver them, to empower citizens and, crucially, to empower staff to decide what those services should be, and to design the structures that will best deliver them. Everything is on the table—everything has to be on the table.
It is not about filling a gap or reducing the head count; that misses the opportunity. It is about doing things more effectively and efficiently and delivering better services for the people we all serve. It is about identifying the need and designing the service. I am personally deeply agnostic about how we deliver those services and what structure is necessitated. I am game for changing everything, be that state, third sector or private.
The point has been made that, “The SNP could have done that.” Yes, it could have done that. I will take that criticism and accept it. However, often things could not be changed because there was not support in this chamber to do it. We can talk about 19 years of failure, as some people would say, or we can accept that the elections happened, that the SNP was massively endorsed by the people of Scotland and that we all have a job to do and common ground to do it. So, how about we raise our game and think about the future? I will take that criticism, but there is a lot that we can do together.