Hansard

Presiding Officer, as this is my first opportunity to do so since my announcement on Monday, I begin by putting on record my thanks to you for the job that you have done in overseeing proceedings in the chamber throughout my tenure. That said, I am afraid that, with this First Minister shortly leaving Government, you might have one more raucous back bencher to manage.

I also thank Anas Sarwar for his kind remarks at the beginning of his speech. I thank everybody across the chamber, many of whom have sent me kind messages over the past 24 and 48 hours. I have to say that getting so many kind messages from the Opposition has unnerved me ever so slightly.

However, let me concentrate on Anas Sarwar’s remarks. He started his speech by saying that, for him, this is not personal, but he then launched an attack on John Swinney and Kate Forbes. Even by Anas Sarwar’s standards, that is the fastest Labour U-turn that I have ever seen.

Throughout his speech, Anas Sarwar spoke about members of this Parliament being “unelected”. Let us be absolutely clear: every single member of this Scottish Parliament—SNP, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative, Green or Alba—is elected. Let us not cast any doubt on that. When it comes to attacking my colleagues John Swinney and Kate Forbes, I remind Anas Sarwar that, when they put themselves up for the vote—when they put themselves up for the people’s verdict in the constituencies that they stood in—they won, unlike Anas Sarwar. Let us not talk about unelected versus elected: everybody here is elected.

We know that the motion of no confidence today will be defeated. That gives me the opportunity to talk up our record and this Government’s considerable achievements, and to point out Labour’s lack of substance and its hypocrisy.

As I have found out only too well in the past few days, politics is definitely about the choices that we make. As for the Government, I am exceptionally proud of our choices. Where the Westminster consensus—Labour and the Tories—has chosen Brexit, Scotland chose to remain in the European Union.

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer chose to retain the two-child limit and the rape clause. The SNP Government opposes those. Labour chooses to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses but not the cap on child benefits. The SNP chooses differently.

Sir Keir Starmer—who, of course, Anas Sarwar answers to—chooses to commit to Tory spending and tax plans. Those plans mean that the wealthy will benefit from a tax cut, while the NHS and other public services are slashed to the bone.

We choose progressive taxation to increase investment in the NHS and public services. We choose to launch a 10-year just transition fund to support Scotland’s drive to net zero, when Labour chooses to ditch its £28 billion green energy pledge. Whereas Keir Starmer refused for months to call for an immediate ceasefire, even failing to condemn the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, I and the Government that I lead chose to be a voice for peace and humanity in the world.

Yes—those are just some of the choices that I and members in the seats behind me are so proud of. What about the results of those choices? Attainment in Scotland is at a record high and record numbers of students from deprived areas are entering our universities. This Government’s actions are lifting an estimated 100,000 children out of poverty this year. We continue to be the top destination for foreign investment outside London, and more people are coming to Scotland from the rest of the UK than are leaving—yet no one, but no one, in the Opposition thinks about pausing for a second to ask why.

Could it have something to do with the very choices that this SNP Government has made? Could it have something to do with choices such as the baby box, expanded childcare, free university education, free prescriptions; free nursing and personal care; free school meals, no bridge tolls, no hospital car-parking charges, free bus travel for under 22s, those with a disability and those over 60, the game-changing Scottish child payment and so much more? All those were delivered because of the choices that we have made—all because of our record. All those were done in the face of 14 years of Tory austerity, a Brexit that we did not vote for and a Westminster cost of living crisis that we did not create but as a result of which our people are suffering.

Yes, I am proud of the record of the Government that I have the honour of leading, at least for a little while longer.

As I reflect on my time as First Minister, as it comes to an end, I remind the chamber what I said when I first became First Minister. I promised that my door would always be open. I promised that I would listen to good ideas that came from across the parliamentary chamber. I have to say that, in that whole time—the 13 months for which I have been blessed and lucky to be First Minister—I have not heard a single positive idea from Anas Sarwar or the Labour Party. That is clear from this afternoon’s debate.

However, what I have heard is the deafening sound of principle after principle being thrown out of Anas Sarwar’s window: U-turning on the two-child cap, U-turning on devolution of employment law, U-turning on devolution of drug law and U-turning on his support for the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—women.

We on the SNP benches will leave Labour to justify all that, if it can. We will never do anything other than stand by our values—by Scotland’s values. The true vote of no-confidence that the people of Scotland really need and deserve is a vote of no confidence in this failing miserable union that is holding Scotland back and inflicting damage on the people and the economy of this country. The cosy Westminster alliance that is represented here today is terrified of such a vote. Why? It is because it knows what the result will be. So, I urge the chamber to reject the motion and to let us start focusing on the real priorities of the people of Scotland.