Meeting of the Parliament 26 May 2026 [Draft]
I give my biggest thanks to all the Reform voters in the south of Scotland who have given me the opportunity to stand here today. I am a mother of four and a small business owner from Dumfries. I am here in the chamber today not because I have a political ambition but because I grew sick of watching my beloved country be failed by a procession of incompetent SNP Governments and equally incompetent Opposition parties.
It was the country’s declining education system that really opened my eyes. My own children range in age from 32 to 13, so I have seen such failures first hand. Spelling no longer matters, we do not bother to mark pupils before they sit their first exams at 15, and we have taken away any element of competitiveness. Because of that, my two youngest children travel across the border on a daily basis to a school that offers a better education. I wonder whether the First Minister would have them show their passports on that trip.
At a time when people across Scotland are worried about their failing public services, I find it astonishing that the Government has once again chosen to drag a Parliament that is meant to be focused on delivering for the people into this divisive constitutional debate. People did not send us here to endlessly rehash the arguments of the past; they sent us here to deal with the problems of the present.
Our NHS is under enormous strain. Expectant mothers in Stranraer, which is in my region, have needed to travel 75 miles to reach the nearest maternity unit since the Galloway community hospital maternity wing was shut down. A constituent even told me that his mother was sent to Liverpool for an operation, because our services are so backlogged this side of the border. It seems that the SNP wants to throw stones at the UK, but it is all too happy to accept Westminster’s help when its failings become too extreme.
Small businesses are being crushed and, in the hospitality sector, restaurants and pubs are closing daily. Those are not just Opposition talking points; they are the lived realities of people across Scotland—the people the Government is tasked to protect. Yet, instead of focusing on fixing the problems that it created, the SNP wants to spend parliamentary time debating independence. Why? Because constitutional grievance is easier than Government responsibility. The Government wants to distract and subvert, so that it does not need to answer for its abysmal record.
Let us remember what the SNP told the Scottish people: if it secured a majority, it would claim a mandate for another independence referendum. The Scottish people gave their verdict, and they did not give the Government a majority. Not only did the SNP fail to secure that mandate; more than 60 per cent of voters voted against it. That matters. In a democracy, mandates cannot simply be invented after the fact because a Government dislikes the outcome. If the Scottish Government respected the will of the people, it would recognise that voters are exhausted by constitutional obsession and want the Parliament to focus on the day job.
Frankly, after two decades in office, the Government should have enough confidence in its own domestic record to defend it. Instead, every time that pressure builds and standards fall, we see the same playbook being rolled out once again: the Government will change the subject, reignite division and whine about the constitution.
Scotland deserves better than permanent campaigning. People want competent government and they want outcomes, not distractions. Leadership is about priorities, and the Scottish people made their priorities clear, with the majority voting against separation, against division and against expensive referendums during a cost of living crisis.
I say to the Government: stop focusing on the politics of division and start focusing on the responsibilities of government. On behalf of the 62 per cent of people who voted against you, I say: just do your job and stop wasting everybody’s time.