Category: Speeches

Below is the text of the speech made by Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, in Musselburgh on 24 November 2015.

The rural parliament was established to ensure that the needs of rural communities were considered, debated and acted upon by government, by the wider public sector and by local communities themselves.

Last year’s event was a major success, and I welcome the fact that next year’s parliament – which we hope will be even more successful – will be held in Brechin. I’m sure that they will be great hosts.

For today’s rural summit, I want to do two things. The first – very simply – is to confirm that the Scottish Government broadly agrees with the five “asks” which you have just heard outlined. We believe that delivering them – in partnership with rural communities – will bring benefits for rural areas and for Scotland.

We will publish a detailed response before the end of the year, and as part of that, we will make it clear that we expect all public sector bodies to play their part in meeting our shared aims for rural communities.

The second thing I want to do – which will take a bit more time – is to set the Scottish Government’s ambitions for rural Scotland a wider context.

The Programme for Government which we published in September – sets out our intention to create a Scotland which is fairer, more prosperous, and which has more empowered local communities.

So I’m going to look at each of those aims – fairness, prosperity and empowerment – in turn.

Because each in different ways demonstrates the potential value of the rural parliament. Although the aims we have for rural areas are often the same as those for Scotland as a whole – what’s often distinctive, are the particular issues and challenges which rural areas face.

If you look at our ambitions for a fairer Scotland, for example, we know that in general – although there are genuine difficulties around measuring rural poverty – poverty rates seem to be lower in rural Scotland than in urban Scotland.

But there are some quite specific problems in rural areas. For example – and I know this was raised in Oban last year – in remote rural areas, more than 1 person in every 5 lives in extreme fuel poverty. In the rest of Scotland it’s fewer than 1 in 10.

Fuel poverty is something this government is determined to address – it’s scandalous that in a developed, energy-rich nation, there are people who cannot afford to heat their homes. So we are allocating almost £120 million this year to relieve poverty and improve energy efficiency across Scotland.

But we know that we need to do more for rural areas. That’s why we have established a Rural Fuel Poverty Task Force – to explore the specific challenges we face, and to guide future policies. It will report within a year with specific proposals which make it easier for people in rural areas to keep their homes warm.

Another example is housing. The Scottish Government is currently well on course to deliver our pledge of 30,000 affordable homes during this Parliament. That’s a record level since devolution. And one of our key commitments for the next parliament is to increase this still further, and deliver 50,000 affordable homes in the next 5 years.

But we know that there are very specific challenges relating to rural areas.

That’s why we have established a new rural housing fund. It’s open to community groups and rural landowners – meaning that they can take a more active role in meeting the housing needs of local communities.

Again, it’s a specific intervention targeted at a specific rural issue – it will help to reduce housing costs, and enable more people to live in rural areas.

Alongside our work to promote equality, we also want to build prosperity.

The two go together – a more equal society, where everyone can participate to their full potential, will lead to a stronger and more sustainable economy. And we need a strong economy to fund the public services we value so highly.

My view is that although rural areas face challenges, they also have great economic opportunities – maybe to a greater extent now, than at any time for many years.

It’s maybe worth providing some context for that statement. Tomorrow night, there’s a reception in the Scottish Parliament. It will mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Highlands and Islands Development Board – now Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

When that board was established, it was a time of great gloom about the economic prospects of the Highlands and Islands. The population of the area had been in decline for more than a century. Unemployment was higher than in the rest of Scotland.

Times have changed dramatically since then. In fact, the population of the Highlands and Islands is now at its highest point in more than a century. The area accounts for 4/5 of Scotland’s total population growth since the 1960s. Employment is higher than the Scottish average.

This area has a stronger, more diverse and productive economy than ever before.

There are still challenges. But the successes have been significant. And one thing which is contributing to those successes is that if you look at the key sectors in our national economic strategy – ones where we see great growth potential for the future – they are ones where rural areas are well placed to prosper. For example they include tourism, food and drink, renewable energy and life sciences.

So what we are doing is promoting those sectors – food and drink has been a huge success story in recent years, for example. And we are also providing the wider business support and infrastructure investment which will help rural communities to flourish.

Rural rates relief benefits more than 2,500 businesses across Scotland. It’s an important way of alleviating the extra costs companies can incur, and of helping the sustainability of the rural economy.

We’re making major investments in rural infrastructure. This autumn has seen the completion of the Borders railway – the longest new domestic railway line in Britain in more than a century.

We’ve also started work on the dualling of the A9 – our largest road infrastructure project for a generation. It will bring major economic benefits across the north of Scotland.

And the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband project is currently making broadband available to approximately 7,000 properties every week. By the end of 2017, 95% of properties across Scotland will have access.

I’m going to spend a bit of time talking about that, since I know that it was a major issue in Oban last year.

To give some idea of how much we have achieved so far – 2 years ago, only 4% of homes in the Highlands could get superfast broadband. Now, it’s 59%. By the end of next year, that proportion will increase to 84%.

But – and this is a hugely important point – we see that as a staging post, rather than an endpoint. That’s why we have lobbied the UK Government to introduce a Universal Service Obligation for broadband – it’s commitment to do that is welcome.

And we have allocated £7.5 million to Community Broadband Scotland to work with local communities to reach the remaining properties in the Highlands and across Scotland.

That actually provides a very good example of the value of the rural parliament. Earlier this year, the rural parliament asked for more data about the Digital Scotland programme. It wanted greater transparency about which postcodes weren’t likely to be connected under the current plans.

That information is now starting to be released more quickly. It means that communities – if they’re not likely to be covered – can get on with developing alternative plans.

We’ve seen a good example today of what can be achieved by local communities here in East Lothian.

Community Broadband Scotland has just announced a grant of £150,000 to Humbie Lammermuir Community Enterprise – a non-profit venture which has been established to deliver broadband in the villages of Humbie, Fala and neighbouring areas.

The initial project – using wireless transmission – could connect up to 250 homes. It’s a good example of how Government funding, combined with local initiative, can make a major difference.

Improving digital connectivity doesn’t just boost economic opportunities; it transforms the way people live, work and learn. That’s particularly true in remote and rural Scotland – so we need to do everything possible to connect those areas.

And I know that the rural Parliament, as you have already shown, will be an important ally of the Scottish Government – and sometimes a very challenging ally – as we work to do that.

The grant to Humbie Lammermuir Community Trust demonstrates something else. It’s a good example of the fact that economic development requires more than central or local government investment. It’s often about local initiative.

That’s why – and this of course is a major theme of the 5 “asks” from the parliament – this Government is giving communities more power to take decisions about issues which directly affect them.

For example the Parliament passed a Community Empowerment Act earlier in the summer– among other things, it requires public bodies, including the Scottish Government, to consider how to engage with local communities.

We have also a target of ensuring that 1 million acres of land were in community ownership by 2020. We have set up a short life working group to help us to achieve that target. We have also introduced a Land Reform Bill, and we are trebling the size of the Scottish Land Fund, which supports community buy-outs.

And we are taking very specific steps to give more powers to islands and coastal communities. In September we published a consultation paper seeking views on specific proposals for an islands Bill.

We’re also ensuring that when Crown Estate lands are devolved to the Scottish parliament, the parliament will in turn devolve power to local communities.

We will consult widely on the best way of doing that. But we have already made it clear that Coastal and island communities will benefit from the net revenues resulting from offshore activities within 12 miles of their coast. It’s a further way in which we will ensure that local communities benefit from their natural resources.

It is consistent with a wider vision for Scotland – as a nation whose natural resources bring prosperity to every corner of the country.

The rural parliament has an important role to play in achieving that vision. It is also a further vital way of giving communities a stronger voice and a bigger say.

By coming together, we can discuss and address the distinct challenges and opportunities facing rural areas. We can ensure that local communities have a real say in the decisions that directly affect them. And we can take steps which will improve the prosperity and wellbeing of rural Scotland, and of Scotland as a whole.

So I’m delighted to speak here this afternoon; I wish all of you, all the best for a productive set of discussions; and I look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, at the Jimmy Reid Memorial Lecture held in Glasgow on 24 November 2015.

Thank you, Grahame [Smith, General Secretary of the STUC].

You know, I sat quite a few of my university exams in this room. But I don’t think I’ve ever been set a bigger test than to follow what we have just seen.

To give a lecture in Jimmy Reid’s honour – in the room, indeed on the very spot, where he delivered, what is undoubtedly the finest political speech in Scotland’s postwar history – is a daunting challenge. It is also of course an enormous privilege.

I was privileged to know Jimmy, and it’s a particular honour tonight to speak in the presence of his family. I am grateful to them, and to all of you, for coming here tonight, and to the Jimmy Reid Foundation for organising tonight’s event.

I’m going to start with the rectorial address you’ve just listened to – partly because it’s magnificent, but partly also because it’s directly relevant to what I want to talk about tonight. The reason that speech has endured – and you heard it very clearly in that clip – is that Jimmy, above all else, was making a moral case. He was articulating the values which he exemplified throughout his entire life.

He argued that humans are essentially social beings. We flourish through contact, conversation, the contribution we make to each other and to our wider society. And so when people sign up to the values of a rat-race, when they allow themselves to be blinded to the misfortunes of others.

And also, when things are done to people – when they are told they are expendable, or feel excluded from decision-making – it doesn’t simply cut their income. It corrodes their soul and diminishes their sense of self. So the basic principle of empowerment – through respect for individual dignity, and encouragement of individual potential – is at the core of what I want to talk about tonight.

The title of this speech is that worker’s rights are human rights. I’ll spend some time looking at the UK Government’s Trade Union Bill – since it’s such an extraordinary and unwarranted assault on some of the social and economic rights we value and have come to take for granted.

I’ll then make a broader case about rights; about our duty to recognise and cherish the value, dignity and potential of every individual in our society – and the fact that when we fail to do so, we don’t just harm those individuals, but diminish our society as well.

But I want to start with some immediate context. Tomorrow, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce the results of the UK government’s spending review. He has a chance – possibly the final chance – to accept austerity is not a necessity, to change course on some potentially catastrophic decisions.

For example, if all of the UK Government’s proposed tax credit changes are implemented, around 200,000 families with children in Scotland stand to lose an average of approximately £3000 a year. More than three quarters of the families who receive tax credits have at least one person who works. The cuts are directly targeted at working people on low incomes and their children. They hurt many of the people we most need to help.

I call, again tonight, on the Chancellor to reverse his decision to cut tax credits when he has the opportunity to do so tomorrow. If he doesn’t do so, the Scottish Government will set out proposals to protect the incomes of low paid families in our budget in December.

Obviously, the substance of the Chancellor’s proposals on tax credits is of greatest concern, but the process is deeply damaging too.

There was no consultation before the Chancellor announced these cuts in June and no mention of them in the Conservative manifesto. The decision was taken behind closed doors with no opportunity for people to vote against it, and the full implications and will be made clear to families in letters around Christmas time. This is something which is being done to people – to working families and their children – with no opportunity for meaningful debate or discussion, or for them to influence their own destiny.

If you reflect on the opening of Jimmy Reid’s rectorial address– its evocation of “the despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies” – it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that UK Government policy is not tackling alienation, it is breeding alienation.

The tax credit cuts; the bedroom tax; the way in which budgets in recent years have impacted most negatively on women, those on low incomes and people with disabilities – These are things which are being done to the least powerful in our society, by a Government which too often seems oblivious to the consequences.

And they are now being accompanied by other measures which seem set to strike at basic and fundamental rights – protections which are most valuable, for people who are at their most vulnerable. The proposal to abolish the Human Rights Act is one deeply regressive step; the Trade Union Bill is another.

When Jimmy Reid spoke here in April 1972, it was towards the end of the Upper Clyde Shipworkers dispute. The work-in Jimmy helped to organise was arguably – in fact, in my view, unarguably – the greatest achievement of the post war union movement in Scotland. It asserted the fundamental right of individuals to work. It did so through a peaceful, positive, optimistic, uplifting protest which captured the imagination of people at home and around the world.

It stands as an enduring example of how trade unions empower people; of how they provide a voice for those who might otherwise go unheard.

The right to strike is an essential part of that, but the real value of trade unions goes much further. They help employers to create the safe, humane, productive working conditions which head off industrial disputes – and which build better businesses. Because of that, trade unions are a force for good in modern society.

That’s certainly been our experience in Scotland. Industrial relations here are strong. The number of working days lost due to strikes has declined by 84% since 2007- that’s the highest reduction anywhere in the UK. Last year, fewer days were lost in Scotland, relative to our working population, than in any other part of the UK.

And so the UK Government’s proposed Trade Union Bill is based on a worldview we simply don’t recognise. It sees the relationship between employers and unions as one of conflict rather than co-operation. It does not reflect public opinion here, or the reality of industrial relations either. It offers illiberal solutions to a problem which simply doesn’t exist in Scotland.

And it makes an overwhelming case – one which both the Scottish government and the STUC made last year – for trade union law to be devolved to our own democratically elected parliament in Scotland. After all, that Bill doesn’t contain a single proposal, in my view, which would ever be passed by the current Scottish Parliament. In fact, in a debate two weeks ago, the Scottish Parliament disagreed with the bill by 104 votes to 14.

It’s worth looking at some of the measures. The UK Government wants the right to restrict facility time. Facility time means that employees can spend time carrying out union duties – helping employees at disciplinary hearings, offering training, or meeting employers. It’s a vital part of partnership working, it is the embodiment of how we do industrial relations – it’s not an abuse which needs to be controlled.

The UK Government also advocates a ban on public sector employers using “check off” facilities – that’s the payroll mechanism which enables union membership subscriptions to be deducted at source.

Now the Scottish Government, as an employer, has been operating a check-off facility for years. The costs are so minimal that we have never charged unions for it.

The UK Government intends to make our actions illegal. It’s maybe worth repeating that. The UK Government doesn’t want to stop using check-off procedures themselves; it wants to make them illegal for the Scottish Government to use.

It’s an extraordinary and completely unacceptable attempt to control how we act as an employer. It demonstrates that fundamentally, the UK Government wants to discourage union membership. The provision has no other conceivable purpose.

The UK Government also wants the power to call in agency workers to take over the duties of people who go on strike. And it has consulted on the proposal that picket leaders should wear armbands or identification tags – a proposal that quite frankly borders on the sinister.

Liberty has pointed out that this provision increases the chances of blacklisting – something which has been a very real and recent danger for union members.

Overall, in fact, Liberty has stated that the Bill “represents a severe unnecessary and unjustified intrusion by the state into the freedom of association and assembly of trade union members.”

The UK Government’s own Regulatory Policy Committee has pointed out that key consultation proposals aren’t backed by any supporting data. The entire Bill is driven by dogma and ideology rather than being underpinned by evidence. That’s why the Scottish Government is part of a broad coalition – among the devolved administrations, the trade unions and wider civic society – we are, and will continue to be vigorously opposing the Bill.

We have argued for it to be voted down at Westminster. We have proposed that Scotland should be exempted from its provisions. And since the Bill will have a significant impact on Scotland – including on how the Scottish Government as an employer carries out devolved functions – we will argue that it should only apply to Scotland if legislative consent is given by the Scottish Parliament. It is almost impossible to imagine that such consent would ever be granted.

We will do everything in our power to frustrate this Bill. Finally, if the Bill is passed, and its provisions do apply to Scotland, the Scottish Government will not willingly co-operate with it. We will seek to do everything we can to continue the good workplace practices that the Bill attacks. Indeed, I can pledge categorically tonight that we would never employ agency workers in the event of industrial action in the Scottish Government.

But in addition to opposing this Bill we want to do something much more positive. We want to exemplify here in Scotland that there is a better way of conducting industrial relations; one which is based on a different vision of society. After all, there’s a fundamental contradiction in the UK Government’s approach. The UK Government claims to want a high-wage/high-productivity economy. But if you genuinely want to bring that about, hostility to union membership makes no sense.

It’s maybe worth looking at West Germany after the war. It developed what became known as Rhine capitalism. It was based on a strong sense of partnership between workers, trade unions, businesses and the public sector. Rhine Capitalism encouraged competitive markets, but combined them with strong social protections. As a result, the German economy has been characterised by innovation, high productivity and strong exports.

That approach to the economy was based on a distinct vision of society. Article 1 of postwar Germany’s constitution places human dignity as the underpinning principle of the entire state. That feeds into concepts such as the constitutional principle of the “social state” – a state which strives for social justice.

What we’re aiming to create in Scotland isn’t identical, of course – this is a different time and context. But the core principles are very similar – they’re based on human dignity, value and potential. We have put a commitment to inclusive growth at the heart of our economic strategy. We reject the idea that a strong economy and a fair society are competing objectives. Instead, we recognise them as mutually supportive.

Of course we need a strong economy to fund the public services we value so highly.

But it is just as true that a more equal society, where everyone can participate to their full potential, will lead to a stronger and more sustainable economy. And workers who are well educated and trained, well paid and highly valued and supported, will be more productive than those who aren’t.

That is the principle driving our Fair Work Convention that was established earlier this year. It’s a partnership between Government, unions, employers and employees. It aims to promote productivity in a way that ensures that companies and employees all benefit.

We’ve also established the Scottish Business Pledge for companies that openly embrace those values to show public leadership and commitment. More than 150 companies in Scotland have signed up. And we are championing the real living wage – last year there were only 34 living wage accredited employers in Scotland, now there are 400, and that number is growing.

We have also published new procurement guidance which explicitly recognises fair work – including payment of the living wage – as important considerations when we decide how public sector contracts are awarded.

Now, these are just beginnings – but they are very important beginnings. We’re starting to use the influence and purchasing power of government to send a clear signal. Progressive employment practices are something to be celebrated – not simply because they’re good in themselves, though they are, but also because they contribute to long-term economic and business success.

And of course the basic principle that applies to businesses – that they prosper when their people are valued and empowered – also applies to society as a whole.

Many of you will remember Jimmy Reid’s memorial service. Billy Connolly was one of the speakers, and told a story about going for walks with Jimmy in Govan when they were young. This was probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It resonated particularly strongly with me because many of the streets they walked are streets I now represent in parliament.

Jimmy would point to a tower block and say: “Behind that window is a guy who could win Formula One. And behind that one there’s a winner of the round-the-world yacht race. And behind the next one … And none of them will ever get the chance to sit at the wheel of a racing car or in the cockpit of a yacht.”

Jimmy put the same sentiment even more poignantly when he spoke in this hall – “I am convinced that the great mass of our people go through life without even a glimmer of what they could have contributed to their fellow beings.”

Getting people to see that glimmer, and kindling it into a spark or fire of ambition, and then enabling them to realise that ambition – that is one of the key challenges today for government and for wider society.

Indeed, if you were to ask me to sum up what I consider to be my mission as First Minister, assuming I am re-elected next May, it would be that – the mission of making real progress towards genuine equality of opportunity It will require sustained work to tackle intergenerational poverty.

That’s why I’ve appointed an independent adviser on poverty – to advise and, more importantly, challenge my government to subject all of our policies to the test of whether they help tackle poverty.

It’s also why our commitment to transformative, high quality and universally available childcare; and our determination to close the attainment gap at school; and our work to ensure that more children from deprived areas get to university are such important priorities for this government.

But helping everyone to realise their potential, creating a society in which the determinants of an individual’s success are their own talents and their capacity for hard work, not the accident of their birth or their family background – that will also require sustained work to overturn stereotypes and challenge assumptions.

Last week I went to two events, one after another – one relating to digital skills, and another relating to childcare.

Both are hugely important – we will need thousands more digital specialists in our workforce every year for the next decade, and we will also need many more childcare workers.

But if we proceed as we always have done – 80% of the new digital workers will be men, and more than 90% of the child care workers will be women. It would be wrong to proceed as we have done. That’s why I put such emphasis on gender equality and the need to tackle gender stereotypes.

Similarly, we know we need many more doctors over the coming years. But if we proceed as we have in the past, only 1 in 20 will come from the most disadvantaged areas, rather than the 1 in 5 that equality of opportunity would demand. That’s why the work I’ve put in train through the Commission for Widening Access to university is so important.

Because the facts that I have just cited don’t reflect the real talents of people in Scotland – instead, they reflect social circumstance and entrenched assumption.

And the truth is this – we simply can’t afford as a society, morally or economically, to squander so much of our talent. The price is too high.

I was incredibly fortunate when I was growing up, to have parents who instilled an absolute belief that if I wanted to, had the ability and worked hard enough, I could go to university and achieve my dreams. I’m all too aware that too many people still – more than 30 years later – aren’t that fortunate.

So there’s a responsibility on all of us to encourage each other’s ambitions, and also to vigorously challenge society’s barriers and stereotypes.

And there’s a particular obligation for Government in everything we have responsibility for – whether it’s – support for pregnant mothers, or care for older people; tackling the inequities in our education system ; reducing reoffending, or developing a new welfare system; promoting equal marriage rights, or resettling refugees.

There is an fundamental human right and an obligation to demonstrate that we value the dignity and recognise the potential of every individual. It’s an important part of empowering our people and our communities.

One of the things which came to define the referendum debate last year was not just a desire, but a yearning, for a better society – not just a more prosperous society, but also a fairer one country as well. That wasn’t confined to those who voted yes – it was shared across the entire country.

And one of the things which also changed last year was that we all got to see that alternative futures for Scotland are possible. As a nation we could see what every individual would ideally know from birth – that we control our own fate; that with hard work, the sky is the limit.

I see it as my job, and the job of my government to take that sense of possibility, and to help people experience it in their day to day lives. Our great challenge – and opportunity – is to ensure that:

Schoolchildren thinking about their future know that if they work hard, they can achieve their dreams;

That workers have a real voice in how their employers operate; That their rights are not expendable; that welfare recipients are spoken to as human beings, not scrutinised as cheats;

That people who run small businesses get encouragement to grow;

That citizens have a say in the future of their communities;

That older people receive the support and care they need to live with security and dignity. That is the society we should be striving for.

Jimmy Reid rejected a society where human beings are told that they are expendable; where ordinary people are excluded from the forces of decision-making; where people feel themselves to be victims of forces beyond their control.

We must reject a society where workers’ rights are derided; where inequality is unchecked; where working families wait to get letters telling them their income is being cut by thousands of pounds.

Instead, we can build a better society, based on respecting rights, recognising dignity and encouraging and, crucially, enabling each other’s potential.

Near the beginning of my speech I quoted some of the opening words of Jimmy Reid’s rectorial address. I want to end with the final verse of the final song which was played at his memorial service. It was Paul Robeson’s wonderful version of “Ode to Joy”. It speaks of a society where:

None shall push aside another

None shall let another fall.

March beside me, sisters and brothers

All for one and one for all.

The verse represents the antithesis of the rat race Jimmy Reid rejected. Its vision – of individuals making progress through solidarity – is the one which he worked towards throughout his life.

My hope is that we in Scotland can make much more progress towards it in the years ahead. If we do, we will live in a wealthier, fairer, better nation. And we will have built a fitting memorial to the wonderful, inspiring and challenging legacy of the great and irreplaceable Jimmy Reid.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nicola Sturgeon on 3rd October 2012.

It’s always good to start on a note of consensus, so let me say that there is one thing that I agree with Johann Lamont about.

We do have big questions to ask and to answer about the future of Scotland – about the kind of country we want to be.

So I don’t criticise Johann Lamont for asking the questions.

But, unlike her friends on the Tory benches, I take issue with the conclusion she has reached.

It’s a conclusion that has its roots in the deeply misguided belief of Labour that this parliament should be responsible for divvying up the national cake but have no power to influence the overall size of that cake.

A conclusion – no matter how much she tries to duck and dive and deny that this benefit or that is under threat – that puts at risk many of the hard won social policy victories of this parliament, like free personal care.

And policies, like the council tax freeze, that just five months ago were backed wholeheartedly by Labour when they promised to continue it for another 5 years.

Presiding Officer,

We’ve had Nick Clegg apologising for breaking his promises in government – Labour must be the first party on record to manage to break its promises from opposition.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. It beggars belief that a Labour leader would reach the conclusion that the best response to Tory cuts is to take away benefits and opportunities from pensioners, the sick, families already struggling to make ends meet and working class kids who aspire to a university education.

And how does Johann Lamont describes policies designed to take a bit of the pressure off household budgets, to give our elderly some dignity and peace of mind in their later years, to ensure that education is not the preserve of the wealthy but open to all who have the ability to learn?

She calls these policies part of a ‘something for nothing’ culture.

What an insult to those who work hard, pay their taxes, save what they can and simply expect that their government gives them something back in return.

What a betrayal of the values that once defined the party she leads. The party of Nye Bevan reduced to attacking the very principle of universality.

Now, Labour tries to say it’s about making the well-off pay more – that it’s about people like her and me.

Well, let me tell her the truth. Let me tell her who she has really put in the frame, who she has chosen to make this debate about.

It’s the pensioner in my constituency – who has worked all of her life – who told me recently that before concessionary travel, she rarely got to see her elderly sister who lives in Inverness but is now able to do so regularly.

It’s the woman with a serious, life-limiting chronic condition – earning little more than £16,000 – who told me that she had often had to choose which of her medicines to take because she couldn’t afford to take them all.

It’s the dementia sufferer whose free personal care might just make the difference between her having to sell her family home or not.

And it’s the young person from a working class family who dreams of going to university but knows that, no matter how supportive and encouraging her parents are, she would never be able to if she had to pay tuition fees.

And since Johann Lamont likes to make these things personal, let me tell her this: that one is about me because it is exactly the position I – and I am sure many others in this chamber – was in.

We are beneficiaries of free education – we have no right to pull up the ladder of opportunity and deprive today’s young people of what we were able to take for granted.

So, presiding officer, these are the people that Johann Lamont has chosen to make this debate about.

No wonder voices in her party are calling it chaotic and shambolic.

And no wonder the Tories are queuing up to congratulate her.

Because these are the people she thinks should bear the brunt of Tory cuts – the people that she would subject to the indignities of means testing for their bus pass or their personal care.

Well, we think differently.

We will protect the council tax freeze, free education, bus passes and personal care for our elderly and the principle of healthcare free at the point of need.

We will continue to do so within a balanced budget – a budget that every year is presented to this parliament for the kind of debate that Labour say they want.

A budget that, yes, is being cut by the Tory government that Labour is so keen to team up with, but that will nevertheless strive to boost growth, protect jobs and household budgets and make Scotland a fairer place to live.

A budget that despite the nonsense talked by Labour, has and will continue to be informed by the Beveridge and Christie reports – whether that is in our approach to preventative spend, our focus on efficiency, our difficult decisions on pay restraint or our ambitious programme of public service reform.

We have and will continue to take the tough decisions. We will make our choices and stand by them.

And let’s not forget that the choices we have made were overwhelmingly endorsed last year by the Scottish people.

But the choices we make within the fixed budget we have at our disposal are not the only differences between Labour and the SNP.

Nor, perhaps, are they even the biggest.

The fundamental difference is this.

Labour is happy to accept a future for Scotland that has us simply deciding how to pass on Tory cuts. We are not.

The real tragedy of Johann Lamont’s speech is that she has allowed herself to be imprisoned in a Tory straitjacket, accepting forever the inevitability of decisions taken elsewhere.

Accepting a situation where we have the responsibility for dividing up the cake, but no power to influence its size.

We think differently.  We want all of Scotland resources to be available to this parliament so that we can seek to chart a different course and shape a different future.

I have said before and I will say again, independence is not a magic pill. It will not take away the difficult financial climate that we live in – thanks in no small part to the economic mismanagement of successive UK governments. Nor will it remove at a stroke the difficult decisions that flow from that.

But it will open up different choices.

In Johann Lamont’s world, the only choice is whether to punish the pensioner or the student, to pass on cuts to the sick or to the family struggling with council tax.

With independence, we will have different choices. We will have the ability to make economic choices that might get our economy growing faster so that revenues increase.

We will have the choice to shape a welfare system that seeks to reduce welfare costs by lifting people out of poverty, rather than have imposed on us one that pushes people deeper down into poverty.

And we will have the choice – the real choice – not to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on Trident nuclear weapons and invest instead on the things that really matter.

So that’s the real debate – the one that this country needs to have.

It’s a debate about who is going to determine the choices that define our politics. Who is going to shape our future as a country?

A right wing Tory government or this parliament and the people whose lives are affected by the decisions we take.

I know this wasn’t Johann Lamont’s intention, but I have no doubt that her interventions of the last week will lead many more people to the latter option – to the conclusion that our own destiny should be in our own hands.

The conclusion is that Scotland will be better off independent.