Meeting of the Parliament 02 September 2025
In just over eight months’ time, this parliamentary session will come to an end. Over the past four years, Parliament’s achievements have been too few and its mistakes too many. Barely anything has been done to encourage the economic growth that powers our country and pays the bills. Little effort has been made to create jobs. There has been next to no consideration about how to make life easier for workers and businesses, or to give families a helping hand with ever-rising bills.
This Government has nurtured a culture of anti-aspiration, holding back those who want to get on. In this time, when people have looked at Holyrood, they have been dismayed at what they have seen. They watched as the Scottish National Party passed extreme gender legislation. They watched the disastrous attempt at a deposit return scheme, which harmed business and hammered taxpayers. They watched the SNP target free speech, criminalising what can be said in one’s own home. They watched it fail to build two ferries and to stem the desperate death toll from drugs, as today’s figures show.
Why does almost everything that Holyrood touches go so badly wrong? Why does it waste so much time debating things that are either outwith its remit or really not that important? All the while, it neglects the issues—the real issues—that it has the power to change. Whatever John Swinney claimed today, the blunt reality is that this Parliament has not focused on what people truly care about. It has not made it any easier to get a GP appointment. It has not fixed dangerous roads. It has not raised school standards. In short, Holyrood has not focused on Scotland’s priorities.