Meeting of the Parliament 11 September 2024
I find myself back on the back benches, freed from the shackles of Government, able to say what I really mean and what I really want to say. However, you are all gonnae be extremely disappointed, because sometimes I find Opposition business extremely tedious. Here we have the classic attempt by them to get that “gotcha” moment, talk down the Government and offer no ideas about delivery or what they would do.
The Presiding Officer will remember that we used to discuss the big ideas here, during all parts of this chamber’s business. We used to talk about them all the time—but no longer. It now seems to be about a very simple “gotcha” and trying to get the next headline from the Opposition parties.
Liam Kerr said that we should “put party politics aside”. I would quite gladly do that. If people genuinely want to work with me and others in the SNP to make a difference to young people’s lives, I would say, “Let’s go for it.” However, he made the most partisan political speech that I have heard for some time.
Free school meals are there to support many families who are struggling. I am happy to work with the Government and others to achieve all our ambitions on school meals. This is more than just an academic discussion for me, given my background. My family are from Feegie—which, for the Official Report, is Ferguslie Park, in Paisley. It is an area that has had its challenges with poverty over the years, and that is what this is all about. I am here to represent the people of Paisley and the people I grew up with.
Like other parts of Scotland, Ferguslie Park, in Paisley, has had to deal with those challenges with little support from successive UK Governments. The Scottish Government has invested to support those families as much as it can. A perfect example of that is the £400 million-worth of measures such as the Scottish child payment that have brought 100,000 children out of poverty.
The Scottish Government has had to focus on those things while dealing with the constraints of the Westminster settlement. The problem is that the Scottish Government cannot keep propping up continually failing UK Governments. As I have stated, our on-going challenge in Scotland is that we have been continually hampered by successive UK Governments. I am sure that, with the full powers of independence, we could change all of our children’s futures for the better and move away from 14 years of Westminster failure on top of decade after decade of Westminster failure.
Keir Starmer has been in office for two weeks and has chucked it already. He says that things can only get worse, but the Scottish National Party’s vision is greater than that. When Westminster says, “The game’s a bogey; we might as well chuck it,” we offer hope. We want to empower the people of Scotland to make their own decisions on the future. Even with the devolution settlement, the SNP has managed to bring 100,000 children out of poverty while the Tories, Labour and Westminster accelerate further austerity.
I am here to represent the great town of Paisley, as you may have guessed, and its many buddies. They are my people, and it is my town and my place in the world. When Westminster offers more of the same, I and my colleagues in the SNP offer hope. When they say that things can only get worse, we say that there is another way. I hope that we get further down the road to independence and make things better for the people of Scotland.
15:31