Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2020
I am not obsessed with independence. [Interruption.] I do not spend every day of the week thinking about how we get another independence referendum. If people vote Liberal Democrat, I guarantee that we will use every opportunity to vote against independence, because it is dividing our country and damaging our economy—[Interruption.] Presiding Officer, I do not know whether members are following your encouragement to be quieter in this debate but I suspect that they are not.
We need to recognise that the SNP does not have that mandate. As far as I am concerned, if people vote Liberal Democrat, the SNP will never have that mandate. We need to move on. We need to unite the country. We need to tackle the challenges that we all face. If we do that, we will have a better Scotland and a better United Kingdom.
I move amendment S5M-20615.2, to leave out from “; agrees” to end and insert:
“, and believes that the people of Scotland want the Scottish Government to focus on tackling the slipping education standards in Scotland’s schools, reduce long waiting times in the health service, take mental health more seriously, address the crisis in social care, repair the damage to police services caused by centralisation, reverse the rise in fuel poverty, and take consistent and determined action on the climate emergency, all of which are currently being given secondary status to the issue of independence.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.