Hansard

It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I am delighted to make my first formal contribution in this chamber in this summer of sport debate. As we heard from our excellent minister, who clearly loves her job, it is about being upbeat and aspirational, celebrating excellence, supporting others and being part of something bigger than ourselves. Maybe there is something in that for all of us to think about with regard to how we do our politics in this Parliament.

If members will forgive a brief indulgence, I note that I am deeply proud to be making my third first speech, because this is not my first Parliament. I was first elected to the European Parliament in 2004—and no, thank you, I do not want to know how old some members were in 2004. I proudly represented Scotland there until 2019, when I was elected to the House of Commons to represent Stirling, my home. I served there for five years during a turbulent period.

I now find myself representing Stirling in this chamber—our national Parliament. I am deeply proud and grateful that the people of Stirling and Stirlingshire kept faith with the SNP and with me, and I am deeply grateful to my campaign team and everyone who supported me.

The only other person to have served in all three Parliaments was Winnie Ewing, the late, great and much-missed original Madame Écosse, so I am an obscure pub quiz question, if nothing else.

I mention that in order to stress to colleagues that, although I am new here, I have 20 years of front-line parliamentary experience. I am used to working across borders and party lines to cut through the chaff—the day-to-day urgent trivia—and get stuff done for the people whom we all serve. The election is over. We are all representatives of the people, and we all have a job to do.

The summer of sport is really important because, goodness me, people need something to look forward to. I am sure that, like me, colleagues knocked on a lot of doors over the past few months, and the national mood, however we define it, is not good. I have not seen anything like it since the 2009 European campaign at the height of the MP expenses scandal.

There is, at best, a disconnect—let us call it that—between politics and politicians of all colours and the people whom we serve. I do not think that it is a temporary scunner factor; I think that it is a symptom or factor of a much deeper malaise. There is real anxiety out there among the people whom we serve. In a rich country such as Scotland, we can do better than that. In a rich country such as the UK, we can do better than that.

People feel disempowered and fearful about the future. They feel powerless in the face of big macro stuff such as climate change, technological changes and demographic changes. Too many people feel that the system does not work. Too many people feel that the system does not work for them, and I think that we can do better.

The election was a remarkable, resounding, landslide victory for my party, but SNP members know that the job is not over; it is just beginning. We need to rebuild that trust, and we all need to work hard to do so.

For members who would say that the SNP has been in power for 19 years, I say: of course we have, and we take our share of the responsibility for that disconnect. Surely, however, in a spirit of intellectual honesty, we must also admit that we in the SNP have been in power in a devolved context, with partial, limited powers. We have been able to do a lot of stuff, but we have not been able to do everything. That is why we on the SNP benches, along with our friends the Greens—in the biggest pro-independence majority that the Parliament has seen—believe that we need to complete the powers of the Parliament with independence in Europe. The change that people need, yearn for and deserve will not be delivered by the Westminster parties; it can be delivered only by independence in Europe, taking the full powers of the Parliament to serve the people we all serve.

I believe that the people of Scotland have outgrown the devolution settlement that was endorsed in the 1997 referendum. The things that people are most worried about—the cost of living, energy costs, a sluggish economy, our place in the European Union and our voice in the wider world—are all objectively reserved matters, which can only be touched round the sides by this Parliament. We want to complete the powers of this Parliament and ensure that we can act on the issues that people care most about. I say to the Opposition parties that, if they cannot work with us on that, they should work with us in relation to the fact that change is coming, change is here and change is necessary. I did not come into politics to administer the status quo; I came into politics, as did everyone in the SNP, to change the face of Scotland. We all know that change is necessary. Let us all work on that together. Any member of any group who brings forward real proposals in good faith will have a willing partner and a willing colleague in me.

We have a lot to look forward to. As time is against me, I will say simply that Stirling is a place where we take sport really seriously. I represent a lot of people who are looking forward to this summer of sport. Sport is bigger than ourselves; it unites us. There is something for us all to look forward to in that.