Hansard

I open by recognising what a huge privilege it is to speak in the chamber, as I am doing for the first time, not least in a debate about securing a positive future for Scotland—a fairer, greener and independent Scotland.

I was born only a couple of months before the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. I say that not to make some people feel a bit old but to say that devolution and I have grown up together. Deputy Presiding Officer, I grew up in your constituency, in Motherwell, where the ghosts of cooling towers sit above hopeful regeneration while thousands of families who are still affected by job losses struggle to this day. I watched my uncles, grandparents and family friends become shells of themselves following years of underemployment and unemployment due to their livelihoods being pulled from under them. I did not live through the Thatcher years, but I lived through the trauma, uncertainty, austerity and anger that passes through generations in our communities. The failed Thatcherite experiments that still cause so much damage to those communities through issues ranging from privatised bus networks to sewage polluting our natural environment need to come to an end.

Independence provides a fresh start: a break from the past, and an opportunity to build a better Scotland that works for all. Because of that, the vision of an independent Scotland has always struck a chord with me on a personal level, and I know that a lot of people my age feel the same way. Because the subject is so important to me, it felt fitting that one of the first pieces of engagement that I undertook with my new constituents—an Instagram story—should be on independence. I asked a range of folk for their thoughts, and they said that independence is equality, democracy, internationalism and solidarity; it is trust in making our own decisions and the freedom to make our own laws for ourselves; it is the power to be radical and make the change that is needed for people and for the planet; it is hope and choice, and an opportunity to rejoin the European Union; and it is hope that there may still be any alternative to all that we are ever given.

I was not old enough to vote in 2014, but the result left me and many of my generation feeling helpless about our future—the same type of helplessness that was forced on us by the Brexit vote. The truth is that, when living with the threat of having personal independence taken away, seeing it happen to everyone in Scotland becomes painful. As a disabled person, I know all too well what it is like to have people above me tell me what I am and am not capable of. We are vilified by the media and the right-wing pundits in order to distract people from the real greed and fraud that prop up this system. Our existence and authority are constantly under scrutiny.

I will bring those comparisons together and touch briefly on the social model of disability. Scope, a disability equality charity, states:

“The social model of disability is a way of viewing the world … The model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or condition.”

That counters the medical model way of thinking, which focuses only on what a person currently has, instead of what they actually need. Scope goes on to say that that model

“creates low expectations and leads to people losing independence, choice and control in their lives.”

I will give an example that brings that a bit closer to home. Until this session of Parliament, we could not have had a Presiding Officer in a wheelchair—not because members should have been expected to fix themselves or sit aside and assume that they would never be elected anyway, but because the steps to the chair excluded equal opportunity.

I am disabled not solely because of my illness but because of the barriers that I face every day—in healthcare, in moving around, in accessing support and in just trying to live my life like anybody else. In that sense, Scotland has been disabled not by an inherent illness, but because we are held back by the needless barriers that Westminster has erected and the arrogant presumption that it knows better than we, the people of Scotland.

Following the election, and throughout the parliamentary session, I am determined to see bold change. We cannot go on under the same pressure, disrespect and uncertainty. We must create a fresh start with independence, with the emphasis on that being the start of Scotland’s progressive journey, not a final destination in itself.

I know that we cannot fix our inherent and systemic problems overnight but, with hope, honesty and respect, independence can and will be the real driver towards a better, greener future for all.