16:53 John Lamont (Conservative)

“But why,” we ask, “is the SNP doing this?” It does not want Scotland’s voters to look at its record in government over the last 14 years. Scotland’s education standards are in decline; Scotland’s NHS is in crisis; Scotland’s rural broadband delivery is in chaos; Scotland’s economy is lagging behind; Scotland has missed climate change targets; I could go on and on.

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17:31 Ian Murray (Labour)

We need to concentrate now on a national covid recovery plan. We need an NHS recovery. All those people who have missed out on treatments for cancer and other illnesses need to get their treatments and diagnoses. We need that to be at the forefront of everything we do post the next election. We need an education catch-up for all the kids that have been left behind. The education system, and the NHS, were in a poor place before the pandemic and are in an even worse place now. We need a jobs and business recovery. Scotland’s economy was in a bad place before the pandemic and is in an even worse place now. We need a climate recovery. All those wonderful climate targets that the Scottish Government set—it is great to set targets—will not be met. We were in a dreadful place with regard to climate targets before the pandemic, and we are in an even worse place now. We need a community recovery; we have a housing crisis and local services starved of cash, with billions taken from local council budgets. That was in a bad place before the pandemic, so we need a recovery now.

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17:41 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)

We have seen how much we can achieve together—all spheres of government, be it local, Scottish or UK—by working together to help us get through the pandemic and rebuild. For example, the British armed forces are helping to establish new vaccine centres right across Scotland and are helping to vaccinate people, a programme that is delivering huge strides forward to getting us back together. We are promoting our green industrial revolution, investing in the technologies and industries of the future, a programme that will support levelling up and up to 250,000 new jobs, while Glasgow will of course host COP26 later this year—a golden opportunity to showcase the best of what we can offer and to demonstrate our global leadership on this vital issue. Just at the time that the world’s eyes would be on us, the SNP would have us fighting one another, family against family, community against community. That is not what we want.

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