Hansard

Mr Gray will argue his view and I am going to argue mine—that is democracy. The reality is that there is a mix of views across the country, as was clear during the election. That was clear from the First Minister’s own statement. He did not say that we had had an independence election; he said that it was a cost of living election. People voted in the election based on what was happening in their pockets and in their public services.

He also mentioned energy, but the reality is that the SNP Government sold our energy wealth on the cheap. This Parliament must redefine community benefit and community ownership across the country. We also need a different kind of Government—not one with more gimmicks and grievances, but one that actually gets things done.

There is another area where I agree with John Swinney: there is global insecurity and instability. At the time of such insecurity and instability, people across the country need a relentless focus on the issues that matter to them right now. Those issues include access to vital public services, seeing their bills brought down and ensuring that they do not keep paying more and more while getting less and less in return.

That is the ambition that I will speak about today. There is no shortage of ambition in our country. Families are ambitious about what happens to them and are ambitious for their children and their communities.

Where is the ambition to return the national health service to its founding principles of being free and available at the point of need? That principle has been broken by the SNP Government. The record shows that people are paying £12,000 for a hip replacement, £8,000 for a knee replacement and £5,000 for cataract surgery under the SNP Government. That is how it returns that ambition.

Where is the ambition to make Scotland’s schools the best in the world again? They are falling down the international league tables under this Government. Where is the ambition to make people feel safe and secure in their communities?

The reality is that, when the SNP talks about ambition, what it really means is its own party’s ambition or its own individuals’ ambition. We got a really stark example of that this week. People who are its most vociferous supporters were asked to put their hard-earned cash into a movement that they believed in and that they support—which is their democratic right—and what did the people who were charged with the responsibility do? They robbed them of that opportunity. They embezzled that opportunity. The reality is that countless opportunities for people across this country have been embezzled by this SNP Government for 20 years.

We need ambition and we need to deliver for people across this country, but that requires a different kind of Government. It requires honesty and transparency and it requires actually putting into words what the First Minister said in much of his opening statement, rather than using those issues to divide us and set Scot against Scot. We need real ambition to bring down waiting lists, real ambition to end the 8 am rush for a general practitioner appointment, real ambition to make life more affordable for families, real ambition to bring down bills, real ambition to return police to our streets, real ambition to build the homes that this country needs, real ambition to make sure that we have economic growth for every part of our country, real ambition so that every child gets the opportunities that they need to succeed, and real ambition to end homelessness and eradicate poverty in this country.

We need a Parliament and a Government that have ambition to match that of the people of this great country. That can be achieved only if John Swinney focuses on the issues at hand and the issues that matter every day, rather than looking for reasons to divide us.

I move amendment S7M-00105.4, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“recognises the need for bold and ambitious reform in Scotland following the Scottish General Election; acknowledges that the majority of people in Scotland want the Scottish Government to focus on the issues that impact their day-to-day lives; considers that the priority of the Scottish Government should therefore be to improve the NHS and public services, make life more affordable, support communities and high streets, grow a fair and prosperous economy, which tackles inequality, and ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed; believes that this ambitious future can and should be achieved through the devolved powers of the Parliament and rejects any attempt by the Scottish Government to delay this work by dedicating resources towards returning to divisive arguments of the past.”