The First High of Business this afternoon is a great to motion number 10843 in the name of Alex Salmond on Scotland's future. Members wish to take part in the debate should Pres to request speak button now, I want to give a bit of warning to all members at times really tight this afternoon. I call on Alex Salmond to speak and move the motion, First Minister 1. Ydyn ni i fod yn gweithio i ddim yn swyddfaeth a gael ei gael해�au i eich lleol am gwybod yn ymolio. Rydyn ni'n dylen ni'n 120 rymawr yn defineidlau os y parlymu angen ysgrifteig SCF. Fy fydd yn 4 mae'r pethau o SXS yn cottage i ddigonio ddifus y byddfyn i sgolol i sceitio. Ff Boltwch yn ei wneud o ddifus i'r ddifus gwelliad o'r digon ddigon i ddim yn combines i ddifus ei ddifus i ddifus ei wneud o'r gweitho'r wlad. ond mae yn iaith esudio, yn mynd i'ch gyrdd, ac yn ei chyetnodd. The referendum has re-energised politics in Scotland. I was canvassing in Northfield in Aberdeen a dillod wedi fdestllai. The 16-year-old girl ran across the street, demanding to know if she was on the voter's roll to vote in the referendum. I was not even canvassing her house at the time. I think that it is an example of which i sell it any of us have seen before. that there is an enthusiasm to participate in this referendum that we have not seen in any election either Westminster or Scottish. I know that all of us will have had similar experiences, often people who would not be normally interested in the political process. They all want to have their say in this great national debate. It has inspired an outpouring of ideas about the sort of country we seek, the Scotland that we want to see. Very often this has been a hugely positive development. Those things have been outside what we might call traditional party political structures. People who have felt excluded from the normal political processes have responded enthusiastically. New media has fried. Town hall meetings have been packed in villages and towns across the country. One of the challenges for all of us after the referendum will be to retain and to keep that sense of creativity, that sense of energy, of engagement as we work together to build a better country. Another benefit of this debate, I give way to Mr Rennie. I share his ambition that we use that energy through this referendum for the good of politics in the long run. I hope that it is a no vote, as he hopes it is a yes vote, but I hope that we do capture that energy. I bring him back to some of the detail. In the last week's Crawford beverage, Professor Stiglitz and the First Minister himself have all used transition in respect of the currency. Will the First Minister tell the chamber about this new aspect of his policy? If it were a new aspect of the policy and had not been contained in the Fiscal Commission report more than a year ago, I would be able to look at Mr Rennie's question with a bit more consideration. That is exactly what the Fiscal Commission working group said over a year ago. I have commended Mr Rennie on a number of times to read the white paper on independence. I would also commend him to read the Fiscal Commission working group report and see the profound common sense that that galaxy of distinguished economists have presented, low even unto the Liberal Party, and then take it into consideration in there he will find the answers which he seeks. We all agree, even Mr Rennie, as we did two weeks ago, that Scotland has got what it takes to be a successful independent country. Let's use this occasion, this national debate, to celebrate our country, our people and our potential. Scotland is one of the world's wealthiest nations. Our GDP per head is higher than the UK as a whole. It's higher than France, it's higher than Japan. We have contributed more in tax revenues per head of population than the rest of the United Kingdom in each and every one of the last 33 years. We have creative genius, we are a nation of innovators, we are a brilliant manufacturing industry, we have a truly world-class food and drink industry, we have astonishing natural resources, huge potential in renewables and yes, an oil and gas industry, which will be producing many billions of barrels of oil for many decades to come. Many of us regard that as a substantial bonus for this nation of Scotland, not some burden that will have to be tolerated. I give way to the former member for Aberdeen Central. Lewis MacDonald. I am grateful to the current member for West Aberdeenshire for giving way in that gracious fashion. Can he tell me in light of the revision of his central estimate of future oil production this morning from £24 billion to £15 billion to £16 billion of oil equivalent? What has revised the estimate now is of the revenues to come from oil over the next five years? Can I point out that, following the debate at First Minister's Questions, I pointed out from the work of Alex Kemp that the £16 billion to £17 billion barrels seem to be up to £20.50 billion, and that, further to come after that, from the more than 100 fields that are expected to be developed at that stage, Alex Kemp thinks that it is entirely reasonable for the UK oil industry's forecast of up to £24 billion barrels to be perfectly realizable. I know that Lewis MacDonald thought I was being unfair. I was not actually. The reason I said to the member for Aberdeen is that I was trying to create a link with those members from Aberdeen who in the past have suggested that perhaps the oil was running out. Lewis and I well know that it is a long time since we had a Conservative sitting member for an Aberdeen constituency. In the 1970s there was one, the late Ian Sprote, then Conservative MP for Aberdeen South, speaking in the House of Commons in 1976. Oil will only last another 20 to 30 years. According to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, there would not be any oil left at all now if we believed what they had to say in the 1970s and 80s. If Lewis MacDonald will We actually think that 18 billion barrels or 17 billion barrels to 2050 up to 24 billion barrels in total is a fantastic resource and bonus for the Scottish people. Above all, if you give me a few seconds we will make some progress and then I will gladly take the member's intervention. I was going to say and I know that the Conservative Party have this deer to their hearts that the challenge is not to establish the enormous wealth of the country, that is a given. The challenge is to make sure that the people of this country have the opportunity to share in that enormous wealth. Gwernattic heart, the case for independence is a simple one. It is better for all of our futures if decisions about Scotland are taken by the people who care most about Scotland. That is the people who work and live in this country. No one, but no one, is likely to create a more fair, more prosperous country than we will. 80 per cent of Scotland's MPs at Westminster opposed the current UK Government's wider changes to social security. 90 per cent opposed the bedroom tax. With independence, the people of Scotland will get the policies that this democratically elected Scottish Parliament votes for, 100 per cent of the time. It is worth looking at this Parliament record and I am going to be generous to all the parties across this Parliament. The First Parliament introduced world-leading homelessness legislation. The second Parliament tackled Scotland's health inequalities through the ban on smoking and public places. The third Parliament reintroduced free university tuition and unanimously passed ambitious climate change targets. This Parliament is seeing world-leading action to address Scotland's relationship with alcohol, legislation to expand and transform early years education and care. Alongside that, we have adopted policies to support economic growth, cutting business rates, promoting Scotland abroad, giving co-ordinated support to infrastructure and key sectors of the economy. We now have higher employment, lower economic inactivity than the rest of the UK. It does not mean, of course, that this Parliament has not sometimes taken the wrong course, but it does reflect the fact that members of this Parliament, of all parties, have worked together to reflect the values and the priorities and aspirations of the people who voted for us. Because of that, this Parliament has been able to resist the privatisation, the constant reorganisation that has been pursued in the national health service south of the border. But funding for our national health service is still at the mercy of a Westminster Government led by a party that, in the words of Alistair Darling, relishes, quote, the chance to swing at the axe at the public services that millions rely on, unquote. It was Nye Bevan, who once said of the national health service, you don't need a crystal ball when you can read the book. Today, we can read the book produced by the Labour Party called The Choice, which discusses what Labour calls the Tory threat. It says under the Tories, quote, there is more prospect of more national health service services being charged for, fewer service being provided free at the point of need. Now it follows a better writing officer. If patients are charged and private money replaces public money, those cuts in public spending are passed directly on to the public services of Scotland under the devolution settlement. Increased privatisation and charging in England on top of the £25 billion of cuts promised by George Osborne is a direct threat to the national health service and funding in Scotland. I give way to Malcolm Chill. I thank the First Minister for giving way. I am glad that the First Minister has moved on from the early scares about privatising in Scotland the health service and from the earlier misinformation about privatised services costing less money, but now they have moved on to charging. Does he not realise that the reason Labour is saying that is because we know full well that no UK Government would be elected that was pledged to abolish healthcare free at the point of need? That will not happen. It is an insult to the people of England to believe that it will happen. Order. Presiding Officer, Andy Burnham is saying that the Conservative Party is going to abolish repair, which has not really got to the stage. He is defending the Tories as some defenders of the health service. In their debate and blog this afternoon, the threat from Westminster cut backs to the health service in Scotland. People will be astonished that the Labour Party has come to the stage that they have to defend Tory cuts and privatisation of the health service so that they can defend the better together campaign. The constitutional guarantee of independence to the health service is quite a different matter. We can guarantee a fairer Scotland because we can guarantee that the minimum wage rises in line with inflation. We can guarantee to ensure greater gender equality in the boardroom and in the workplace, fairer because we can outlaw outrages such as the bedroom tax, which 90 per cent of MPs in Scotland opposed. At the moment, the Government is launching its assault through austerity on the poor. It is also starting to replace Trident and at a lifetime-estimated cost of £100,000 million. Wouldn't it be rather better, Presiding Officer, if we could remove Trident, abolish measures such as the bedroom tax and get on with building a decent society for the Scottish people? Alongside a fairer country, let's create a more prosperous country, and let's create a country that can offer a lifetime opportunity for the people of Scotland. At present, almost 70,000 people a year leave Scotland. More than half of them are fed 16 to 34, and every single family in Scotland knows of a friend or family member who has to leave to get a job or further a career. We have huge hydrocarbon reserves for the next half century, but we need to build a renewable wealth that will last forever. We want to transform childcare provision to unleash the full potential of all of our population. With independence, we can use the wealth and control over taxation to attract more employers to invest in Scotland, creating more and better local jobs, more opportunities for young people, closer to home, keeping families together, and a powerful legacy from a yes vote. We believe that if we take the powers that we need and use them well and work hard, then, over time, we create a more prosperous country and also a fairer society. In four weeks' time, when the polling station is open, it will be the first time ever that the people of Scotland have had democratic control over their own destiny. When the polls close, this is the first democratic referendum on national independence. When they close, let's not hand that control back. Let's keep Scotland's future in Scotland's hands and then come together to build a better Scotland that we know is possible. We have the ability, the talent and the resources and abundance. The people of Scotland are waking up to the greatest opportunity that we will ever have on September 18. Let's take it. We speak to a move amendment number 108 for 3.1, Ms Lamont, 10 minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As I came into the Parliament this morning, it felt to me that this was a very important time in the history of this place and of our country. It is a immense privilege for me to speak on behalf of the Labour Party and move an amendment in my name at the point where the people of Scotland are making an important decision. If we are to come together after that decision, it is important that we do not impugn the motives of those who are either arguing for no or for yes. We all care deeply about our country. Before I set out what I believe is the no case, I want to talk about how we got here and the importance of settling this question. Earlier today, I had my weekly set to you with the First Minister and we debated the current issues in perhaps our usual robust and forceful way, and it is important that we do that. But over the next four weeks, we will no longer be focusing and debating with each other. We will be talking directly with the people of Scotland something that I have welcomed and relished since this debate began. I recognise the interest and appetite that exists in our communities and towns to have these debates. It is no secret that I did not support a referendum, and while I respect the mandate that the current Government has to hold it, I believe that its prominence has had negative consequences. Only last night, a woman expressing to me her concerns about the way in which families and communities have been divided. Equally, the way in which Scotland has been in pause and the big decisions facing our country. It is incumbent on all of us to find a way through this debate without leaving us so damaged at the end that we cannot go back to democratic debate and policy. I embrace the opportunity that the referendum presents, the opportunity finally to answer the constitutional question and agree among us the settled will of Scotland. Whatever happens in September 18, Alex Salmond can claim this important legacy, that the question on Scottish independence will have been put to Scottish people and that it will have been given a fair opportunity to answer it. For those who have argued for Scottish independence for so many years, I am pleased that they will get the opportunity to test their argument in a vote. For those of us who believe that we are better off as part of the United Kingdom, we will get the chance to reaffirm our place in the United Kingdom. If we vote no, the UK will no longer be a historical decision taken by the few, but Scotland's place in the United Kingdom will have been actively confirmed and decided by the democratic will of the people. For all of us who care about a better Scotland, it is vital that we agree on a settled constitution and go on with the job of delivering that vision. I have heard many times over the past few weeks that this is not a vote for Alex Salmond. I agree, but it is his prospectus that has been put to Scottish people. I congratulate the First Minister in his determination in bringing this referendum before us and giving us the opportunity to settle this question once and for all. However, he will not be surprised to know that there is much that I disagree with in his statement. My party has made clear this week our feelings on the latest NHS argument. I also do not believe that the people of Scotland should be going to the polls with such little certainty of something as basic as a currency. I have serious doubts about the cavalier economic assumptions and estimates that have been made to counter the predictions of the independent experts who say that we will have £6 billion worth of cuts to make. Indeed, those doubts have been compounded by Sir Ian Wood in the last 24 hours. However, it is for Alex Salmond to decide on which arguments the yes campaign will deploy. It will not stop me asking the hard questions, rebutting as a certain and countering his claims. However, I will put forward our case as to why people should vote to stay in the United Kingdom. Ultimately—let me progress just now—it will be for the people of Scotland to decide who is right and what is best. They have my every confidence that they will get that decision right. As a young woman, I instinctively believed that Scotland should stay in the United Kingdom. However, in the last period, I, like many of my fellow Scots, have tested the arguments. Although some have come to a different conclusion, there is no doubt that people who are voting yes and people who are voting no very often share the same ambitions for a fairer, more equal Scotland. That will put the challenge post that vote. I hope that they decide to vote no because I believe that it is in the best interests of Scotland. I believe it with my head and with my heart. With my head, I look at economic forecasts from the experts and believe that the strength of the United Kingdom gives us the best chance of achieving our goals here in the Scottish Parliament. On areas such as pensions and welfare, I believe that the pooling and sharing of resources across £60 million rather than £5 million just makes sense. On jobs, I believe that, by being part of something bigger, we have given the security and the opportunity we want. I believe that, on the currency, we should be in a monetary union with the rest of the United Kingdom, with Scottish voices representing us at the heart of Government. Those are the arguments of the head, but the arguments of the heart are every bit as strong. I believe in working in partnership and in co-operation with our friends and neighbours, whether they are in Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast or Cardiff, Glasgow or Edinburgh. This is a co-operation that saw us stand up against fascism, create the welfare state, create the national health service and make significant steps on the road to tackling inequality and disadvantage. Prizes that came out of Westminster during the whole period of which the SNP opposed a Labour Government that delivered that change. You talked about the health service and standing against fascism, and all those things are very positive reasons and good things that came out of the union. Could you give me an example of something over the last 20 years where the people of Scotland are benefitted from being a member of the union? National Women and Wage tackling poverty, creating greater inequality in our communities, creating this Parliament that brought power closer to people. You know the heart of this, and why it matters to me in my soul. I look at the rest of the United Kingdom and I don't see people whose job is to do us down, but I see families facing the same challenges as the family I have and families across the whole of Scotland. I believe that we should celebrate what we have in common, not emphasise our differences. I believe that borders, literal or metaphorical, should be broken down, not thrown up where they are not necessary. It is simple for me. I believe that sovereignty lies with the Scottish people and we can choose to share that with our neighbours when it is in our interests without compromising our Scottishness. I disagree with Alex Salmond. He disagrees with the values at the heart of the Labour Party that by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone. People who say, right throughout time, not to vote for the Labour Party can hardly claim that they have concerns about the Labour Party now. I just remind people that, in 2010, Alex Salmond told the people— Members are not giving way to the Liberal Democrats, rather than a Scottish Labour Prime Minister—but, however, put that to one side, let us agree on this. Whatever the result, Scottish politics will never be the same again. If there is a yes vote, then that seems obvious, but I believe that it is equally true if there is a no vote. In one month, the constitutional question will be answered. The settled will of the Scottish people will be decided whether that is to go our own way or to continue to work in partnership with our neighbours. I have never claimed that a no vote will unlock a bounty of treasures and opportunity. Indeed, I welcome the comments of Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney that independence equally is not a magic wand. Even Alex Salmond himself admitted that he would face serious challenges and that it would not be easy. A constitutional arrangement, to my mind, is not an end in itself. We disagree with what the best arrangement is for delivering our ambitions, even though many of those ambitions are shared right across the chamber. On the constitutional question, we fundamentally disagree, but the people of Scotland decide on September 18. Then let us get on with the hard work of changing Scotland whatever hand we are dealt with. Let us move past grievance in Anabai and talk about what we can do, rather than what we cannot. We all agree that the educational attainment gap in Scotland must be improved if we achieve a fairer society. We all recognise that our NHS and our care system face real pressures from changing demographics, and we must act and innovate if our sick and vulnerable are to get the treatment they deserve. I make this commitment that if there is a yes vote, I will accept it. If there is a no vote, I demand an equal commitment from the people on the other side of the chamber. Will politics never be the same again? It cannot ever be the same again. Rather than a politics that elevates the interests of party and the political priorities of politicians, we need another kind of politics. We need a Parliament to mature, to do its job, to open up its thinking to the challenges that are facing people in the real world and to the decisions that will define the future of our country and the wellbeing of our people. We stand at an important moment in the history of our country, but the challenge for all of us in here, we cannot go back to the politics of the last few years. It is incumbent on all of us to accept the result in September 2018, come together, and start doing the business of creating a fairer, more equal society in this country. I move the amendment in my name. I call Davidson to speak to you in mover amendment number 10843.1.2 with Davidson in six minutes. Like many people in this chamber, I have made more speeches on the constitution in the last two and a half years than I can remember. Speeches in church halls, in town halls, in school halls and in conference halls. In every one, I have made the economic arguments, the political arguments for staying together and I have made some personal arguments too, but I do not think that in any I have fully articulated what I feel, the sense of loss that I would have at seeing my country broken up before me and the grieving that I would do if it came to pass that Britain no longer existed. I am Scottish first. I will always be Scottish first. I will always put Scotland first. But there is a part of me that feels like I get to be British too, and to me it feels as if those who are proposing separation want to take that British part away from me, to tell me that it is bad or broken or wrong and to throw it in the bin and to give me something less in return. I do not believe that it is broken or bad or wrong. When I look at Britain, I see one of the great nations of this earth. Yes, a large economy, a country that sits at the top table of the world's decision making bodies, a trading powerhouse and all the rest of it, but more than that, I see a country that is willing to shoulder its burden, one that offers a platform of opportunity, and that makes me proud. I am not blind to Britain's faults and I may be jeered or sneered as I am being today, but I think that if you look around the world, we are one of the good guys. We are one of the countries that other people aspire to be like, from our art, to our freedom, to our humour, to our decency, to our sense of fair play and, yes, even to our politics. I think that we make a huge contribution to this planet and I want to keep doing it, and I want to keep doing it together. Yes, I will take an intervention. Thank you, I am very grateful for never taking an intervention. The member was suggesting that people would look up to the UK as it currently is. Would they be looking up to the UK in terms of it being the fourth-most unequal society in the world? Firstly, it is not the fourth-most unequal society in the world. Since 2010, inequality has been falling. The member knows that because her own government has stated that it is true. I want us to keep contributing to the world together and I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends, my family, my allies in England, in Wales and in Northern Ireland, too. I want to continue making that contribution. There are people alive in the world today because Britain shoulders her burden and because we act together. We are the second biggest giver of overseas aid on the planet.  It is not that an independent Scotland would not give aid, of course it would, but it is precisely because of our size and scale that we are able to do more with what we have. I know that I have talked about this before in the chamber, but I have never been more proud of my country than I was when I was a young journalist sent to Cosebo to see the black watch, watching soldiers my age and younger that went to my school in Buckhaven and schools just like it, patrolling the streets and protecting school children from attack, clearing bombs and stopping bullets. I know that the First Minister called her involvement in Cosebo unpargnerable folly. He is entitled to that opinion, but I know that the world is a safer place for Cosebars, for ethnic Serbs and Albanians because the service men and women of our country because we had an integrating fighting force and the capability to act not at this time. Even here at home, our research and medical expertise reaches far beyond our borders because of the UK support structure. Nine out of 10 women and eight out of 10 men are now surviving skin cancer, thanks in part to the work being done at Dundee University. Scottish expertise, UK support and worldwide benefits, I give way to the First Minister. Is the world the safer place because of the illegal intervention in Iraq? For a place because of our ability to work, and of course that ability must be used judiciously, but there are people huddling on a mountainside in Iraq right now that have caused us to thank us hooting our troops to deliver them. There are people in Cosebo right now who would not have been alive if they had followed your advice on what we should have done there. For me, that is how it should be. Stronger, safer and better able to deliver because of Black Watch soldiers serving in Pristina next to their royal wealth fusillir colleagues. Diffid teams operating in Africa being run from East Kilbride, academics from across the UK conducting research in Scottish universities. Labour migration is estimated to be up to 75 per cent higher because the UK is all one country, four nations but a single state. I want a kid growing up in Birmingham that is good at science to say that they want to work with the Dolly, the sheep team. I want a student in Aberdeen to decide that London's tech centre in Shoreditch is for them. At the moment it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are Scottish or English or Welsh or Northern Irish, you can go anywhere and do anything and all be equal under the union flag. I'm 35 years old and in those 35 years I have never lived or worked anywhere other than Scotland. I love to travel but I always know where is home. But the Scotland I know, the Scotland I love is part of the UK. It's been shaped by it and in turn has done the shaping. Every success that the UK has in this world is our success too because we built the UK. We've driven it. Britain didn't colonise us and it doesn't oppress us. Britain only exists because of us. Leaving it would be to lose something and to see what's left behind become diminished too. I've heard the nationalist arguments and while I don't agree with them I can respect them but in return I asked them to see what I see. I asked them to see them asking us to vote for something that is less than we have now and I don't want something less. I want to be part of something bigger to put all the strength and resource and imagination and infinite talent that we have in Scotland and put it towards a common endeavour with our friends, our neighbours, our allies and our countrymen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK is ours. We built it and to leave it would be to lose something of ourselves and to leave behind less. I move the amendment in my name. I thank you, Mr Davidson. Before I call Willie Rennie, can I just point out to all members in the chamber that if a member is not taking an intervention will you please sit down and stop standing in the hope that the member might take an intervention? I call on Willie Rennie to speak to move amendment number 1084 3.1.1. Mr Rennie, six minutes. When I heard Ruth Davidson talk about her pride in being Scottish, I consider I've shared her pride. When I heard members on the SNP benches scoff at her claim about being Scottish, I felt disgust at that attitude. The SNP do not have a monopoly on being Scottish. I am as proud of Scotland as they are and they should not deny it. When I was 17, I became politically active. I did so because I was impatient for change. I wanted to tackle injustice and make the world a better place. That drive is as strong today as it was 30 years ago. For me, liberalism was the answer and it still is the answer. I want to help all individuals to achieve great things for people to be all they can be and to fulfil their potential. When I shout freedom, it's not a cry for national freedom but for individual freedom. As my great liberal forefathers would have said, it's freedom from ignorance, poverty and conformity that is our vision. It's why I support education from the early years and throughout life. It's why I support the building of a strong economy and spreading that wealth. It's why personal freedom is important too, to live life as you wish as long as it does not impinge on someone else's freedom. As a liberal, I believe in the outstanding power of the individual to do great things. Human nature is innately good, generous and open. That's why I have never warned to nationalism. As I have always viewed the central philosophy as inward rather than outward looking, and I believe that it divides rather than unites, I recognise that not all supporters of independence regard themselves as isolationist, but the effect and the outcome of their desired destination feeds that philosophy. Of course, Britain isn't perfect, but it's not as imperfect as the nationalists would like you to believe. Just because it is not perfect does not mean that I want to break it up, and just because I want change does not mean that I want just any change that happens to come along. In fact, I think that there is a lot to be proud of in our United Kingdom, a lot that helps people to achieve great things. Take science and innovation. Even though Scottish universities only form one-tenth of the UK university base, they get 13 per cent of UK funding against the population share of 8 per cent—50 per cent more than elsewhere in the UK. I will come to the First Minister in a second, but it is 50 per cent more than elsewhere in the UK because of the combination of the talent and access to that bigger pool of funding. I will take the First Minister. I was talking to understand the idea that liberalism was incompatible with wanting an independent Scotland. I couldn't understand that. I heard today that John Barrett, the former Liberal MP from Edinburgh West, is voting yes and has publicly announced that today in the referendum. Is that not an indication that it's perfectly proper to be a loyal liberal who vows to liberalism and also support yes in the referendum? Members of our party are free to vote as they wish. We are not the strict party that this party seeks to do that drives out division and difference. I respect John Barrett for who he is, but I wonder if the First Minister agrees with John Barrett's criticism of the First Minister, because I suspect that he doesn't agree with him in that respect, so not necessarily unity there. Take energy. To meet our ambitions for Scottish renewable energy, it makes sense to share the UK consumer base during development, to advance renewables and keep energy bills lower. Take food and drink. Scotland and Scottish businesses have been able to take good advantage of our natural food and drink products, and businesses have been able to innovate and add value to Scottish products. The global network of 270 UK embassies, consulates and trade missions support those businesses. UK exports to Brazil have risen in the last four years by 28 per cent, to India by 55 per cent and to China by 115 per cent. Our ambition should be that those embassies step up their work for us to open doors to new markets and not close their doors to Scotland. Take the single market and the single regulatory regime and the single currency that the First Minister refused to talk about. That means that a business here in Edinburgh can trade across the UK with limited barriers. That trade is worth 270,000 jobs to Scotland. Those examples speak to the United Kingdom as a great platform from which Scots can be all they can be. I do not want a Scotland that retreats from other countries, cutting two-thirds of our overseas representation, just as the time to promote Scottish excellence and businesses has never been better. That cuts the opportunities for Scottish universities to keep the huge funding boost that they get from the UK at the very moment when the 21st century Western economies demands more innovation. That shrinks our ambition on climate change with our great renewable energy developments, just when the climate needs the whole world to rally round. My ambition is to build on a quarter of a million jobs that come from trade with the rest of the United Kingdom. My ambition is to use that large network of embassies. My ambition is to increase UK research funding, not cut it. That is our positive vision. I simply do not accept that the maximum potential of people in Scotland can only be achieved if we create a separate nation. A no vote is a vote of confidence in the ability of Scots to be all they can be, to aspire in the finest traditions of our nation, confident to be part of something bigger, with global reach of 60 million people, within a UK economic base with broad shoulders, proud to stand with the rest of the UK family together. We are truly better together. Thank you. We now move to the opening debate. I just reiterate that we are extremely tight for time this afternoon. There is a distinct possibility that at least one member will not get to speak at all. We may have to cut some of the speeches by a couple of minutes. I now call Eileen McLeod to be followed by Lewis MacDonald. Presiding Officer, I am delighted to speak in today's debate and to sit at the reasons why I want to see Scotland's future decided by the people who live and work in Scotland. That can only be assured with a yes vote on 18 September. Like many in this chamber, last weekend I read with considerable interest the report in Sunday's Observer, newspaper that Professor Sir Tom Devine, one of Scotland's outstanding public intellectuals, will vote yes in the independence referendum. The point is not simply that one of Scotland's most internationally acclaimed academics has endorsed Scottish independence important as that is. More significant were the reasons that he gave for reaching this decision. Professor Devine stated, and I quote, It is the Scots who have succeeded most in preserving the British idea of fairness and compassion in terms of state support and intervention. Ironically, it is England since the 1980s, which has embarked on a separate journey. These short sentences, I believe that Professor Devine expressed exactly what an increasing number of Scottish voters, particularly among the undecided, know to be true. Namely, if we are to continue to deliver and to be able to deliver policies that reflect our shared commitment to uphold the values of fairness, compassion and social justice, values that have been at the very heart of public policy in Scotland for decades, then we must choose independence over the status quo. Nowhere are those values of fairness, compassion and social justice more in evidence than in Scotland's national health service, a Scottish NHS that today is publicly funded and publicly delivered and whose staff, doctors, nurses and a vast array of trained support workers tirelessly work to support the sick and vulnerable across our communities. There is no doubt in my mind, and there should be none in the minds of Scotland's voters, that the only way of ensuring Scotland's NHS remains true to the founding principles set out all those years ago by Nye Bevan, that it should meet the needs of everyone, that it be free at the point of delivery and that it should be based on clinical needs and not the ability to pay is to vote for independence. And as the First Minister made clear on Monday, these principles will not be mere aspirations or guidelines in independent Scotland. Aspirations and guidelines are vulnerable to betrayal as political fashion change as so clearly has been and remains the case south of the border. Instead, in an independent Scotland, we will seek to enshrine these NHS principles in a written constitution for an independent Scotland, thereby ensuring that no future government can undermine what is a foundational building block of a fair and just society and protecting future generations from the vagaries of a neoliberal political opportunism. On Tuesday, the health secretary set out the risks to Scotland's NHS under the status quo, and of those risks none are so great as the risks to the Scottish budget of the continual cuts to public spending imposed by the Tory Liberal Coalition Government. Cuts to the Labour Party is committed to implementing should it be elected in the UK general election next May. And as the health secretary also said, for every £10 cut by Westminster from spending on health and public services, there will be £1 lost to Scotland's budget for public spending on essential services, including health here in Scotland, not just now, Mr Finlay. Independence, Presiding Officer, will ensure that Scotland's finances are under the control of this Parliament and the people of Scotland are thereby free to make their own choices about the quality of public services, including health, that they want to have available for themselves and their fellow citizens now and in the future. However, what is most extraordinary, Presiding Officer, in this entire debate is the position of the Labour Party in Scotland. It seems that in every other part of these islands, in England and in Wales, we hear Labour politicians issuing dire warnings of the devastating impact that Tory Liberal spending cuts and privatisation are having on NHS England and Wales. From Andy Burnham in Westminster to Mark Drakeford in Clariff, the Clarion calls have gone up to save the NHS from privatisation and cuts. The irony is, of course, that in this regard I agree with the Labour Party in England and I agree with the Labour Party in Wales, but you contrast that with the Labour Party in Scotland, where we find Labour campaigning, hand in glove, with its Tory and Liberal Democrat partners, the very parties that are wielding the public spending acts in Westminster, trying to convince the Scottish public that Scotland's NHS is safe inside the union. Order. Order. The member is in her last minute. Order, please. I did not hear what Mr Finlay said. If it is on the official record, I will check it. Can I tell Parliament that time spent discussing, jeering or interrupting Mr Maxwell, any time spent doing this, will be taken out of back bench speeches? Ms McLeod, please continue. I do not buy that and it is increasingly clear that a majority of Scottish voters are not about to be filled into believing it either. The message to the Scottish electorate is clear. If you want to protect Scotland's NHS and public services from the privatisation and cuts coming out of Westminster by this and future UK Governments, then on 18 September you should vote for independence. To conclude, people across Scotland are waking up to the fact that voting yes on 18 September will give us the one opportunity to ensure that we protect our NHS, and it is not only for this generation that a yes is so important. It is to secure for future generations an NHS that not only remains true to the principles set out by Nye Bevan all those years ago, but one that in every respect is representative of the fundamental values of Scottish society. I support the motion in the First Minister's name. I will continue. I will reiterate that I will not be allowing any time for interruptions, any more time, on to member's speeches. Unfortunately, speeches will probably now have to be reduced. Lewis MacDonald is to be followed by Kenneth Gibson. Thank you very much. An independent Scotland or a political, social, economic and currency union with our closest neighbours and friends. At the end of this campaign it is a very simple choice and it is a choice for the people of Scotland to make. This campaign really is historic because, after 15 years of devolution, we stand at the crossroads and the choice we make will set the direction for future generations as well as our own. The decision of the Scottish people in 1997 to set up this Parliament was a decision that no future Government could overturn. The choice of either independence or union will be decided by the self-determination of the Scottish people and will be just as irreversible a decision. Because whatever we choose, there are tough challenges ahead. The world remains a dangerous place, divided and ill divided. Financt resources must, by definition, come to an end, and competitive advantage must be won and won again in every generation. Sir Ian Wood has had some important things to say on these issues this week, laid out and full in today's press and journal. I first worked with Sir Ian when I was vice-chair of the Government oil and gas industry forum pilot a decade ago, and he chaired the industry leadership team. Even at that time, his clear focus was on what more could be done to maximise the recovery of oil and gas from the North Sea. Sir Ian Wood is happy to work with Governments of any party, as ministers here well know, but when he says he cannot stand idly by while his words are misquoted in the referendum debate, we should all pay attention to what he actually says. Sir Ian Wood has never said that there are 24 billion barrels of oil equivalent waiting to be extracted from the UK continental shelf. His report says that there may be as little as 12 billion barrels and there may be as much as 24 billion barrels, but nothing is certain other than the scale of challenges to be overcome along the way. Sir Ian Wood believes that if Government implements all his recommendations for taxes, licensing and regulation, and if the industry gets back to carrying out new exploration, as it has largely ceased to do, and finds a lot more oil and gas in future years, then they might be able to produce between 15 and 16.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent over the next 40 years. If they do that, then future revenues for government might come in around £5 billion a year—not at the moment, as they did last year—$2 billion a year less than predicted by the SNP, a shortfall of around £370 a year for every man, woman and child living in Scotland. Even more important than the numbers is what Sir Ian Wood has said about the impact of independence on this vital industry. Costs in the North Sea rose by 15 per cent last year. Exploration in UK waters is at an all-time low. Critical to maximising economic recovery are stability and certainty going forward. A yes vote in the referendum, in his view, would inevitably cause a significant loss of momentum over the next three or four years a critical development period in maximising recovery of our reserves. None of the optimistic projections made by him or by anybody else will be realised unless we secure that certainty going forward. That is why Sir Ian Wood has chosen to highlight the risks of a vote for Scottish independence, because a yes vote would not bring certainty and stability to the North Sea. Instead of a single fiscal and licensing and regulatory regime across the UK continental shelf, we would have one regime in Scottish waters and a different regime in the rest of the UK. That clearly has implications for employment in the sector, not least in Aberdeen, where there are so many companies that operate their entire UK assets from the city. It also means that much time and many millions of pounds spent disaggregating the assets and liabilities of companies operating across the UK continental shelf when that time urgently needs to be spent on creating a new approach to maximising recovery in the future. Just as it makes more sense for the offshore industry in Britain to stay together, the same applies across the economy. The United Kingdom provides Scottish business with a home market of over 60 million people. That would no longer be true in the event of independence. I received a letter the other day from Richard Lochhead, who wanted to talk to me about access to that home market for Aberdeenshire farmers. Richard Lochhead should not worry about losing preferential access in the event of a yes vote. He said, and I quote, that Britain is a geographical term, so Scottish farmers could still describe what they grew as produce of Britain. Well, yes, Britain is indeed the name of an island, but it is much more than that. It is also the name of a state and a culture and a country that we share with our closest neighbours and friends. Those who work in Scotland's food and drink sector have to make a choice, just like those who work in our oil economy and everyone else who has a vote next month. A choice to stay together, to renew our union, to seek to make it stronger and better in the years ahead, or alternatively to listen to Mr Salmond and walk away. It is a choice not just for this generation but for the generations to come. I look forward to the majority of the people of Scotland next month voting no. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Despite Alasher Darlings' refusal to admit that Scotland could be a successful independent nation during the recent televised debate, other prominent Unionist politicians, including the Prime Minister, David Cameron, accept that Scotland could be a successful independent nation. How do we know? Because he said so. Supporters of independence will always be able to cite examples of small independent and thriving economies across Europe, such as Finland, Switzerland and Norway. It would be wrong to suggest that Scotland could not be another such successful independent country. The Labour amendment leaves out everything after a grizz in the Scottish Government motion, including that first line, which says that a grizz at Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is rich in human talent and benefits from vast natural resources. Other Unionist amendments, sadly, are in similar vein. I wonder, Presiding Officer, what makes some so unable and unwilling to see the obvious positives in their own country? Do not they believe that we are rich in human talent? Why cannot they not acknowledge our vast natural resources? Scotland is the 14th wealthiest nation in the OECD, and there is no doubt that Scotland is a dynamic and successful economy, highly skilled workforce, strong manufacturing, tourism, knowledge and growing food and drink sectors. The most recent industry figures show that turnover in the Scottish food and drink sector alone reached £14 billion in 2012, a 40 per cent increase since 2007. It is no wonder that, over the last five years, Scotland's finances were stronger than the UK's as a whole by £8.3 billion or £1,600 per person. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why standard and poor rating agencies stated that, even excluding North Sea oil output, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Of course, it would be foolish to underplay the importance of our oil and gas resources, something that the doomsayers have strived to do, since a no campaign began, not least today. New discoveries in the clear field suggest that there is plenty of life in Scotland's oil and gas industry. As BBC News pointed out, oil industry experts have described as a monster field containing an estimated £8 billion of oil, and some analysts believe oil produced there could say that Atlantic overtake the North Sea as the UK's biggest oil producing region. Only the no campaign would try to persuade Scotland that oil is a burden and nuclear weapons that have hindered exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels in the west, as Michael Heseltine admitted last week, are an asset. Why do we have some of the highest levels of child poverty in the western world? Why are working families relying on food handouts? Why is our state pension among the lowest in Europe relative to earnings? Why do people living in oil, gas and renewables-rich nations suffer fuel poverty? And why have living standards fallen in each of the last five years and will not reach 2002 levels until 2019? Welfare pensions, energy and defence policies are controlled by Westminster. To me, it is obvious that decisions made in Scotland for Scotland must surely be better for the people living here than decisions made elsewhere on our behalf. Only with a yes vote can we ensure that Scotland's wealth is placed in Scotland's hands and used to improve our society. Only with a yes vote can we use the powers of independence to establish policies tailored to Scottish needs and create more opportunities for people who live here, including nearly 40,000 young people who feel the need to leave Scotland every year. With independence Scotland, we have access to Scottish taxes that currently flow to the treasury and cease to pay for Scottish MPs, and our share of running the House of Lords are trident. With independence, even relatively small changes could make a big difference. According to aviation industry leaders, for example, the abolition of air passenger duty would double the number of visitors to Scotland within five years, greatly enhancing our international connectivity and bolstering our tourism industry and all the jobs that go along with that. The Scottish Government's transformational childcare proposals will lead to increased participation in the labour market, further expanding our economy, and the opportunity to make Scotland wealthier is alone an argument for Scotland to reassert itself as an independent nation. However, there are consequences of remaining shackled to Westminster. According to Oxfam, Britain's five richest families are now worth more than the poorest, 12 million people. In the years ahead, welfare cuts will see more disabled people in Scotland losing disability benefits and more children pushed into poverty. Adam Smith said that no society can surely be flourishing and happy of which a far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. Canon King and Wright outlined his concerns about the impact of a no vote in this week's Scotsman. He said, Do not be fooled by the various vague promises of more devolution. The press called me the godfather of devolution. While I tell you this, the child has grown up an outgrown devolution no matter how max for two reasons. Firstly, because it leaves crucial constitutional and economic areas to be decided by London. Secondly, because devolution is powered by gift or perhaps it is really power on loan for gifts cannot be taken back. Power devolved is power retained. Yesterday's Herald Alan Taylor wrote that, all the fresh, innovative and imaginative ideas have come from those eager for change. They are the ones who want to make a fairer, more equitable society and who have inspired people to become involved in the hope of making that happen. They have made an often selfless investment. The same cannot be said of many on the no side. What they want to do is to protect what they have. For those in the yes campaign, the referendum is not about protecting vested interests but about Scotland, our country and our people being all that it and they can be. It is surely time, colleagues, that Scotland rejoined the family of independent nations and set about creating the better Scotland we all wish to see. To do that, I urge everyone in our country to vote yes on 18 September. Thank you. I now call Patrick Harvie to be followed by Joan McAlpine. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The First Minister began by saying that the referendum debate has re-energised Scottish politics and I believe that that's true. An outpouring of ideas and enthusiasm, as he said, and also the need which has been recognised by people on both sides of the debate today to retain that energy, that engagement after the vote. I believe that Scotland can be proud of the debate that's been taking place. What's made that true is not always us debating here in this room. It's not politicians, political parties, large or small. It's the broad, creative, inclusive national debate that's been taking place in communities right across Scotland. That's the debate that I think Scotland can be proud of. In thinking about how to retain that energy, that engagement and creativity after the debate, I think that there's one thing that we can be clear about. It won't be achieved if politicians on either side, whoever wins or loses, pull up the drawbridge and decide that they know what Scotland wants. The engagement has to continue in a participative sense, ensuring that all people feel able to shape Scotland's future direction. There have been those saying that this debate in some way will cut us off from one another within our own communities or from friends and families south of the border. I don't think anything could be farther from the truth. Bringing us more into connection with the question of power in our society gives us the ability to build the kind of relationship that will be beneficial to all. I spoke recently to green colleagues in London, a range of green party and other activists from England and Wales, looking at the opportunity for democratic renewal throughout these islands that could come from Scottish independence. Looking at the opportunity to question the existence and the renewal of weapons of mass destruction within these islands that could come from Scottish independence, looking at the opportunities for a clean renewable energy system that could come from Scotland ensuring that we harness the renewable energy potential not just for our own needs but for export as well. There are opportunities for a better relationship within these islands, not just for Scots to make decisions about our own domestic affairs. Either in the case of a yes or a no, there is a danger that politicians on the winning side will feel triumphalist and decide that they know exactly what is best. Either in favour of one flavour of Devo Maxx or another, in the case of a no vote. I have friends and party colleagues who may be voting no in this referendum. None of them are voting no because they are signed up to one of, in my view, slightly dubious versions of Devo Maxx that have come from the UK political parties, which seem to me designed not to transfer the ability to run different economic policy in Scotland but rather to transfer the responsibility to implement the cuts that would come from ideological austerity economics south of the border. I also have friends and colleagues, most of my party colleagues like myself, who will be voting yes in September. We may be voting yes in sympathy with some of the elements in those famous 650 answers, but not for all of them. We will be voting yes on the basis of a question. Everyone in this room, every voter in this country will be voting yes or no on the basis of a question, printed in black and white on the ballot paper, should Scotland be an independent country. It would be undermining of that ethos of participative, engaging or re-engaging political debate that we have enjoyed in the last few months if a winning side in either scenario pulled up the drawbridge and said, we know what to do next on every question. A mandate for questions on currently reserved issues will be sought in 2016 if we are independent. It is not what is being sought next month. On issues, for example, discussed today, such as oil, the Greens will never agree with Governments, whether in Edinburgh or in London, who simply want to ensure the conditions to maximise oil and gas extraction, burning through the stuff ever faster. There is an absolute contradiction between the goal of extracting fossil fuels from the North Sea ever faster and the goal of keeping carbon fossil out of the atmosphere, which both Governments north and south have committed to. The exposure of our economy, not just in Scotland, but in the whole of the UK and much of the western world, is the exposure of our economies to the carbon bubble, a dramatically overvalued industry that is sitting on reserves four or five times more than we can afford ever to burn. That is a bubble that we need to break our reliance on before it bursts. Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, the last point I want to make, and I am sure that it is one that we can all agree with. I certainly hope so. It is not so very long since we gathered in our temporary home up at the top of the royal to mourn the passing of our friend Margaret MacDonald and to hear her call for us to treat one another perhaps as opponents but never as enemies in this debate. In the past few weeks, every one of us has a responsibility to remember that every day that we get out of bed and go into the communities that we represent in Scotland to continue this debate. We have a responsibility to remember it every day as we end our campaigning to treat one another with respect and have this debate in the spirit of friendship that Scotland deserves. It is very telling that, in drafting their amendments, the better-together parties could not find it in themselves to leave the first clause of the Government motion in place, that this Parliament agrees that Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, rich in human talent and benefit from vast natural resources. Whatever the views on the constitution, I would have thought that we could all agree that Scotland is a wealthy country, rich in talent and has vast natural resources. That statement is rooted in fact and backed up by countless authorities that have been quoted by colleagues today. The Financial Times on 2 February this year said that Scotland is richer than the rest of the UK and in the top 20 countries globally in terms of GDP per head. Only yesterday, the world's most preeminent communist Nobel prize-winning Professor Joe Stiglitz told Bloomberg that Scotland could be an independent country. I was also encouraged to hear Professor Stiglitz acknowledge the different directions that the Scottish and Westminster Governments were taking in his view on social policy, with the Scottish Government having a far greater commitment to social democratic values and public services. Professor Stiglitz's book is called The Price of Inequality, so he knows what he is talking about. This is the best opportunity to address inequality. A yes vote is the best opportunity we will ever have to address that inequality. I want to talk today in particular about the geographical inequality that pulls our young people out of Scotland towards London in the south-east. I have on several occasions had the pleasure of speaking beside Dr Phillipa Whitford, the consultant breast surgeon who is one of the most inspirational figures in the grassroots movement for yes, which has brought our country alive in recent months. Dr Whitford is one of a growing number of clinicians to speak out about the threat to the Scottish NHS from the privatisation agenda in England, which my colleague Aileen McLeod outlined. However, there is another observation that Phillipa makes, which is very striking, as she speaks to full halls all over the country. Most of her patients are older women, and like any good doctor, she will ask them what support they have at home to help them to recuperate from surgery. Far too often, they tell her that they have no support because their grown-up children have moved away, sometimes abroad more often to the south of England. As the First Minister said in his speech, Scotland loses almost 40,000 young people every year, and they are our brightest and best. According to recent figures from ONS, Scotland has the best educated population in Europe, not just in terms of the high proportion of people with degrees, but also the high number of people with good vocational qualifications. In an area that this Parliament fully controls education, we have established ourselves as a world leader, but in an area that we do not control, which is economic and fiscal policy, we are victims of our success in education because we cannot provide the sort of jobs that these highly educated and ambitious young people want. That is not a new trend. Professor Tom Devine, our most eminent historian, who, as my colleague Aileen McLeod said, had come out for yes, like so many other Scots, has written in his book The Scottish Diaspora about the union dividend that has resulted in a huge mass migration from Scotland. Scotland was the only country of similar sized European countries, Denmark, Finland and Norway, Sweden and Ireland, to have a falling population between 1950 and 2000. That has reversed under this present Parliament, but we need to do so much more because the outward migration of our young people is greater than other parts of the UK. That is partly because of the pool of London. Eight out of 10 new jobs in the private sector are created in London, and it is the sort of jobs that are created in London that are attracting our young people. London has 14 per cent more jobs in the top employment categories of managers, professionals and technical staff in Scotland and an imbalance that has existed for many years. Business research and development in the UK is concentrated in the east and south east of England, a pattern that has held since at least 1990. Scotland has a very low business, R&D spends 0.5 per cent of GDP. That explains why Scotland, despite being one of the richest countries in the world, according to the Financial Times, is still losing its best talent. It explains why, even when Scotland is doing relatively well economically, we are one of the best performing areas for inward investment, according to Ernst and Young. Even in these better times, we are losing a high proportion of our young people's outward migration. We need the fiscal levers that are reserved to Westminster and we need the Scottish tax revenues that flow to Westminster to keep our most precious resource of all—the aspirational young Scots who leave in search of a better life. If I can quote the economist Margaret Cuthbert, those things are only going to get worse. She says that the regional disparities in the UK are not some short-term phenomenon, rather the result of the fast-growing south, particularly London in the city, acting as a magnet for capital and labour from other parts of the UK. If I can borrow our rather more colourful phrase from the coalition's business secretary, Vince Cable, London is a giant suction machine swallowing up not just Scotland's wealth but our future wealth creators. That is why I am urging a yes vote, because independence is the greatest opportunity we have to combat the power of that giant suction machine that is described so vividly by Mr Cable. We can do it in several ways, and we have outlined over the past weeks and months several plans for growth, such as the re-industrialisation of Scotland and the jobs plan, which means that by taking our economy into our own hands and our future into our own hands, we can create a much better future for our young people and keep them here in Scotland. Alex Rowley to be followed by Stuart Macphail Presiding Officer, I have only come into this Parliament in January this year under circumstances that I certainly did not want. However, I am delighted that we have got to this point today, and I will be more delighted when we get to 19 September, regardless of the result, because I think that we can then start to focus on what I came into this Parliament to do, which was to fight for the communities that I represent and to fight for a better Scotland. I have found it very difficult to be able to do that over this last period of time, because the whole focus seems to have been on this referendum, regardless of your views on that. I certainly have never had any problem in terms of my identity. I was brought up a fifer, and I have always been proud to be a fifer. I was brought up by my mum, who, without having any type of label, I think it would be fair to describe as a socialist. She brought me up to believe that we had to fight for better opportunities for working people and that working people had never got anything for nothing, and we had always had to fight for that. It would be fair to say that my mum was not keen on the Tories and probably neither have I been. That is the starting point for me in terms of looking at how we move forward and what is best in this debate. As Joan McAlpine talks about the talent going south, I think that anger is so many people when we see the masses of young people across Scotland that are the precious resources of Scotland that do not get the opportunities. Surely, if we are talking about ambition for Scotland, then our ambition has to be that every child, no matter what household they were born into, no matter what area they are born into, are given the opportunity to achieve to their full potential. Surely it is about eradicating poverty and deprivation right across Scotland, and that has got to be the key objective that we fight for. Tough on poverty, tough on the causes of poverty. However, when I look round about me and I examined the last seven years of this current Government, I do have to say that in five, in the last two and a half years of a Labour Administration, I have seen more direction, more policy and more political leadership towards tackling poverty inequality and giving young people the opportunity than I actually have seen in the seven years that the Government led by Alex Salmond. For me, it is about investing in housing. Surely every child should have the right to have a roof over their head, yet we have seen over the last seven years the monies that have come into housing for local authorities being cut back. Surely it is about early intervention, early intervention, family intervention. In five, one of the first things the Labour Administration did two and a half years ago was redirect £8 million into family centres focusing on those in the greatest need. You can bring about populist policies that will make you popular with everybody, or you can look at prioritising and directing your resources at the communities, at the schools, at the areas that most need them, and that is what there has been a lack of. So, when I think about this issue, I think about where best are we in terms of moving forward and how best will we tackle the priorities for me. I conclude that the way to do that is by pulling and sharing the resources across the United Kingdom, a strong Scottish Parliament here, where we actually use the powers that we have, because that is the other point that needs to be made. I have yet to see a whole range of powers that this Parliament currently has that we could be using to tackle inequality across Scotland being used at the present time, and tough on the causes of poverty. Joan McAlpine, I thank the member for taking an intervention. Talk about the pooling of resources across the United Kingdom. The UK welfare cuts are going to take £6 billion out of the Scottish welfare budget and result in up to 100,000 children being plunged into poverty. How does he see that as a fair pooling of resources? I will say to you that, under the last Labour Government, there were over a million pensioners lifted out of poverty across the United Kingdom. Many of those pensioners in Scotland are a member under the last Tory Government where pensioners were having to choose between eating and eating, and that is not acceptable. Over 200,000 children were lifted out of poverty in Scotland. I remember as a teenager, as a shop steward and new pay, the public sector union campaigning for the national minimum wage and being told at that time, even by some trade unionists, that it would never happen, it did happen and it happened under a Labour Government. I believe that what we need to have is a poverty strategy for Scotland. We have to devolve powers into local government. I would have to say that we have to look at this place again because I am not convinced that this place that we are in today is working to create joined-up government that will tackle inequality and poverty. For me, the best opportunity to tackle the big issues and getting every youngster in Scotland the best chance in life is a strong Scottish Parliament focused on doing that as part of a strong United Kingdom. My final point is that I think that I would describe myself not just as a socialist but as an internationalist and we need to be looking outward, not inward at a time when we have so many problems right across the world. Thank you. I now call Stuart Maxwell to be followed by Ken Macintosh. Four weeks from today, the people of Scotland will decide between two futures. We can vote no and accept the consequences of leaving our national health service in the hands of Westminster parties that are intent on cuts, austerity, health charges and the privatisation of our NHS. We will also have to accept the years of austerity and the damage to our cherished public services that will flow from the £25 billion of cuts that will be implemented by the UK Government, irrespective of which party forms that Government after the 2015 UK general election. Or the people of Scotland can choose to vote yes and take Scotland's future into Scotland's hands. We can choose to protect our NHS from the market-driven ideology of the Westminster parties that is unpicking the NHS south of the border. We can choose to rid our country of the wasteful and immoral weapons of mass destruction that spoil our country. We can choose to invest in transformational childcare policies for families across Scotland, and we can choose to have an education system that is based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay. I consider it a great privilege to be part of the historic events currently taking place in Scotland, but I know that there are those in this chamber who would rather none of that was taking place. Having a democratic debate and a passionate discussion about Scotland's future and how we can create a better society is somehow a distraction. It's just a wee thing. I would challenge those members to recall any other time in recent memory where town and village halls have been filled with people wanting to re-engage with the democratic process, where talk of what we can do has replaced the depressing dirge of what we can't. This enthusiasm is because the independence debate is opening up new possibilities about how we can create a fairer and more prosperous society, how we can take the vast wealth of Scotland and make it work for the many and not just the few. Johann Lamont, I am happy to concur with the member that, in fact, there has been a very exciting and energetic debate and a democratic debate. Will the member confirm that he will accept the result of that vote? If there is a no vote, he will make devolution work. We have always said that we will accept the democratic decision of the Scottish people. I am surprised that Johann Lamont yet again has to ask such a rather silly question. People feel a newfound sense of empowerment. They are waking up to the opportunities of independence and are realising that Scotland is not a poor country but is, in fact, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Wealthier ahead than countries such as France or Japan and wealthier than the rest of the United Kingdom, but it doesn't feel that way and it often doesn't look that way. Those newfound feelings of opportunity, of hope, of ambition contrast sharply with the disempowerment and stagnation of the Westminster system. After all, this is a system that regularly imposes Tory Governments on Scotland without any democratic mandate from the Scottish people. Scotland's future must be in Scotland's hands. Our Parliament has already shown that, where we have the power, we make the best decisions for Scotland and nowhere is this more evident than in our education system. Whilst we have adhered to the principle of access to education based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay, Westminster is burdening English students with fees of up to £9,000 a year. A certain trust report concluded that many students will still be repaying loans into their 40s and 50s and that some will never clear their debts. However, having a bit of power over a bit of the system is akin to being a boxer fighting with one hand tied behind his back. He might strike the odd blow but ultimately he cannot win. Our lack of macroeconomic power means that more than 700,000 Scots have immigrated in the last 10 years, including over 30,000 young people a year. We need to ensure that we not only continue to be a world leader in education but that the Scottish Parliament has the economic levers to create opportunities for our young people here at home in Scotland. If people choose to travel the world to seek out new opportunities and experiences, that is absolutely fantastic. However, if they are forced to leave splitting up families because they can only find work elsewhere, then that is a failure. That is a disgrace. Watching your grandchildren grow up via Skype is not the kind of future that I want for the families of Scotland. The no campaign continually used the negative language of splits and separation to describe the universally recognised normal state others call independence, but the truth is that independence will provide us with the opportunities to keep families together. It will allow young people to choose to stay and work here in Scotland, near to their families, if that is what they choose to do. However, Westminster's damage has extended beyond its failure to balance economic opportunities across the UK. The UK Government has also made it increasingly difficult for international students to study here. Professor Wright of Strathclyde University said that the UK Government policy on international students was a disaster that made us less competitive. International students contribute hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy every year. Yet Westminster's ideologically driven immigration policy is putting this at risk. To prevent further damage to our economy and to our higher education sector, Scotland needs a yes vote and the transfer of powers over immigration to hear to the Scottish Parliament. Every day on the doorsteps and in the public meetings across Scotland, we are seeing that more and more people are waking up to the opportunities of independence. The referendum is about many things, but fundamentally it is about the desire to seize the opportunity of a lifetime, to choose between two futures that could not be more different, to decide whether to leave our future in the hands of Westminster or to bring power over Scotland home to Scotland. That is no we thing. All three generations of my family are united in saying that we choose hope over fear, we choose Scotland over Westminster and on September 18 we choose yes. Now, Colin, Ken Macintosh, to be followed by Annabelle Ewing, up to six minutes as we are very tight for time. There have been too many political funerals over the last year. I was saddened at Sam Galbraith's death earlier this week and he was a combative politician, but someone managed to be both spiky and very likable at the same time. His death got me thinking of how far we have travelled since those heady days of the new Scottish Parliament in 1999. We may have recently forgotten it, but the early days and early years of devolution were marked by a sense of common purpose and a willingness to work together. The huge expansion of nursery education, the introduction of free personal care, the growing self-confidence that allowed us to ban smoking in public places, those are all products of devolution and I note of devolution within the United Kingdom, not of independence. In fact, it struck me in passing and SNP bankbenchers may find this hard to believe, but that was also a time when John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and their cabinet colleagues were among the staunchest advocates of a strong Scottish Parliament holding a potentially overbearing executive to account. However, that train of thought took me straight as it did with Patrick Harvie earlier to the very moving celebration of Margo MacDonald's life and in particular her parting message read by her husband Jim Sillars, appealing whatever the result of the referendum in four weeks' time for any divisions to end and for us as a nation to seek unity of purpose. It is a message that I have taken comfort from both in the face of the occasional bad-tempered spat or ill-judge intervention and also I admit when struggling to contain my own frustration at what I often feel is the pointlessness of the offer before us. What I have found even more encouraging is that underneath the froth of constitutional discussion, I can see common themes underpinning many of the contributions from both sides and a meaningful, achievable political vision for Scotland's future around which we could coalesce post-September. Those themes, ideas that support us building a modern, progressive country, are echoed by voices from civic Scotland. For example, the recent publication Our Vision from the Church of Scotland talks about its commitment to ensuring issues of social justice will be a focus of action after September, regardless of what happens. The STUC, in its Adjust Scotland report, similarly talks about equality and the collective values of the labour and trade union movement. I thought that the teachers union, the EIS, put it very well when they said, we are not neutral. We firmly believe that it is imperative that emerges a strong sense of the type of Scotland we wish to live in irrespective of the constitutional settlement. Many political observers have commented that the SNP has tried to reinvent itself over the last couple of decades as a party of the social democratic left. I have highlighted before my misgivings that populism is as powerful a force within the SNP as genuine progressivism. Nonetheless, the fact is that ministers feel obliged to use the language of progressive politics simply to ensure that assertions on the constitution have a chance of being heard. Some contributions, such as the repeated and increasingly desperate attempts to trade in the legacy of Ngai Bevan, are slightly cringe-worthy, but they are a recognition of where both mainstream and majority political opinion lies in Scotland. Even though the result of the 2011 election might not necessarily suggest it, most analysts viewed the labour and SNP manifestos at the time as remarkably similar documents. The point that I want to emphasise is that there is much in the way of common ground between Labour and the SNP. I absolutely agree with Mr McIntosh. There is much that binds us in our history and experiences, and indeed I have come from a very similar background to that of his colleague Mr Rowley. Does it not concern him that his colleague Roy Hattisley, on radio 4 this week, said that he did not think that the Labour Government, or Blayden Brown, had been real Labour Governments? Because when he now challenges the Tories about the consequences of soft-touch banking and the damaging welfare reforms, he's told that they were started under the Labour Governments, and the only chance for Labour values to be reflected in the governance of this country is through an independence vote. Yes. Unfortunately, despite my attempts, Clare Adamson makes a very small party political point rather than rising to the constitutional debate that we are having before us today. I recognise that it is difficult to put political tribalism behind us, but I am actually appealing to the SNP to try and do so after September 18. It will be difficult for members in the Labour Party too, because many supporters and members of the party are cynical about the SNP's commitment to progressive politics and see it simply as a means to an end a nationalist vision for Scotland. However, many of us across Scotland, across political parties, are agreed not just on the necessity, but on the political importance, the political priority that we should give, reducing inequality that divides our society. On the priority that we need to give to promoting a sustainable economy, on decent jobs and more caring society, supporting education not just as the root out of poverty, but the root to genuine national prosperity, on the emphasis on common wellbeing, not just on wealth. Constitutional change is not a prerequisite for agreeing any of the above. In fact, I believe that it is clear to most Scots that not only do we not need independence to deliver progressive change, but breaking away from the United Kingdom would positively damage our chances. Separation would threaten the very social solidarity that we are trying to build. It would create new divisions rather than heal existing ones. I think that we can unite in pursuit of a better Scotland, but let us not break up the NHS. Let us not give up our currency. We do not need independence to deliver childcare. Let us vote no thanks and deliver a better Scotland together. I now call on Annabelle Ewing to be followed by Annabelle Goldie up to six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and it is an absolute privilege to have been called to speak in this key debate this afternoon in Scotland's future for what a momentous moment we have arrived at in our country when, in just four weeks' time, we will have the one opportunity of a lifetime to decide what kind of country we want to live in and what kind of country we wish to build for future generations. Indeed, on Thursday, 18 September, each of us will have the opportunity to make a choice between two futures—a Scotland that controls her vast resources and puts them to use to build a better, more prosperous and fairer Scotland—or a Scotland whose decisions continue to be taken by out-of-touch Westminster Governments that we do not vote for, who place a ceiling on our ambitions and who squander our resources. Aspiration and ambition for something better, Presiding Officer, or the same old, same old from Westminster—that is the choice of two futures facing all of the people who live and work in Scotland on 18 September. Many areas of importance to our daily lives have been discussed already this afternoon, and in the time remaining for me, I would like, as a member of this Parliament's welfare reform committee, to direct my remarks to the important issue of welfare. What has emerged very clearly from the inception of the work of this committee over the last two years or so is that the welfare system, sadly controlled by Westminster, is no longer fit for purpose. Indeed, it is being dismantled before our very eyes with the safety net that should be embodied within it being removed by stealth. For what other conclusion could be reached by people at home with the notion of the common wheel when we look at the deeply damaging impacts of so-called welfare reform on individuals and families across Scotland? For who could not feel diminished as a human being by Westminster policies that forced those with motor neuron disease to take in a lodger to avoid paying the bedroom tax or harass recently bereaved widdles to leave their home of many decades because their UK Government says that it has too many rooms? I see the Tory front bench laughing, as it did in the debate last week. I do not think that that is funny. I do not think that the lady who came to our committee to give evidence on that very issue thought that it was funny. Who could not feel diminished by Westminster's work capability assessments introduced by the last Labour Government with the help of Tony Blair's friend the Tory Lord Freud and kept on by the Tories? Which assessments turn medical orthodoxies on their head by finding vulnerable ill people somehow fit for work and forcing them to go through hoops in an effort to maintain their health, their sanity and indeed their dignity? Who would not feel diminished by Westminster Government policies that will see over 100,000 disabled Scots lose some or all of their disability benefits as a result of the roll-out of the new personal independence payment, a benefit introduced by the current UK Tory Liberal Government and one that Labour plans to keep? Of course, a welfare system should have the objective of supporting people into work and work that is paid at a decent rate. At the same time, who would wish to choose a society where a bit of help was to be taken away from some of the most vulnerable members of our society? That, Presiding Officer, is the miserable, rotten place where we have reached under the union. That is, for me, the unacceptable price that our most vulnerable members of society, our poorest members of society, are now paying for the union. A country as rich as Scotland is more wealthy per head than the UK, than France, than Japan and yet we have seen 22,387 children having to rely on food banks in order to be able to eat in the last year alone. A country with vast, vast resources both in terms of human talent and natural resources and yet we will see, if we stay on the Westminster path, 100,000 more children being pushed into poverty by 2020. It does not have to be this way and we, each of us, cannot, in all conscience, allow it to continue to be so. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, the opportunity to say that we want a decent society, a society with fairness at its heart. That, Presiding Officer, is what voting yes means. That is what voting yes is about and that is what voting yes will deliver for Scotland. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This is an important day for this Parliament because whatever the outcome of the referendum this Parliament will change. When we meet again in this chamber, after 18 September, Scotland will have decided her future. Either she will have rejected the United Kingdom and endorsed separation or she will have rejected separation and endorsed the United Kingdom. It is right that, in this place of all places, we today mark the magnitude of that decision by holding this debate. It is important to be clear what this referendum is not about. It is not about can Scotland be independent. It is not about whether we are doing down independence or whether we are talking up the union. It is quite simply about what is a better future for Scotland. It is not about whether you like or dislike Tory's Labour or the Lib Dems, however much some of the yes campaign may want to reduce it to that. This referendum is most certainly not about who is the better Scott, who is the bigger patriot. We all believe in our country. We all love our country and we are all fighting for what we believe is the best future for Scotland. Alex Salmond believes that separation is patriotic. I believe that partnership is patriotic. Very importantly, this referendum is not a choice between independence and no change. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have all committed to including more powers to the Scottish Parliament in their manifestos and to delivering on that in government. This Parliament will get more powers, which is why, which is why, certainly, as we have made it. Baroness Goldie, for taking intervention, you rightly say that the unionist parties have committed to saying that there shall be more powers for the Scottish Parliament guaranteed. Can you tell us which ones and when? That will be very much down to the electorate to decide which parties' proposals they favour. The common theme in all of them is more powers to this Parliament. In the time allocated, I cannot deliver a forensic and lengthy dissertation on the merits, attributes, strengths, stability and security implicit within the partnership, which is the United Kingdom. However, I do not have to. The case for staying within the United Kingdom is so compelling, so self-evident, brevity is all I need. A partnership of over 60 million friends and customers working with each other for each other. A partnership with over 30 million people paying taxes and contributing jointly to our common good. A partnership where businesses, not least the financial sector, can invest and operate freely because of a UK-wide system of regulation. A partnership that, in a global age, gives us a global reach in the United Nations, in the G7 and G8 groups of major powers, along with the EU, helping others less fortunate. A partnership that, in an age of international uncertainty, gives us a strategic defence capability and a global diplomatic presence. And a partnership that has an established, proven and respected currency, the pound. In all of that is strength, stability and security. Alex Salmond does not want that. He wants separation, an irrevocable, irreversible step. There are two certainties about Mr Salmond, and I am sorry that he is not here to share this peon of praise.  What will be our currency? He does not know. Will we have a central bank to support it? He does not know. When will we get into the EU? He does not know. What conditions will be imposed on our membership? He does not know. How will we pay for pensions in an increasingly aging population? He does not know. How many thousands of defence jobs in Scotland will be lost? He does not know. What will be our credit rating? He does not know. What is the effect of our biggest trading partner becoming our biggest commercial competitor? He does not know. How will Scotland deal with a continuing budget deficit? He does not know. Will he cut expenditure or put up taxes, or do both? He does not know. If it all goes belly up, what do we do? Who do we turn to? He does not know. I have compared this gamble to being asked to put your life savings on 100 to one outsider with a limp on the 330 at air. Given the recent telling interventions from Sir Ian Wood and Dr Anna McGregor, the odds have just lengthened. I am not going to take a punt on Scotland's future. On 18 September, I shall choose partnership and say no to separation. I shall choose mutual support and say no to severance. I shall choose union and say no to isolation. I shall choose certainty and say no to risk. Because Deputy Presiding Officer, I have the best of both worlds. I know that, and so do hundreds of thousands of voters the length and breadth of Scotland. On 18 September, united and together, we shall reject independence. The choices today are of hope and opportunity with independence while austerity and indifference to Scottish needs characterise so many of the policies of the unionist parties.  It was ever thus. When the radical young Robert Bontein Cunningham Graham MP was arguing in the House of Commons in 1889 about Scottish home rule, he suggested that the demand came not from a sentimental ground, whatever, but from the extreme misery of a certain section of the Scottish population and they wished to have their own ministers under their own hands in order to extort legislation from them suitable to relieve that misery. In 2004, I commented on this over a century later, that misery takes startingly similar forms such as a lack of steady work, poor health, shortage of decent housing, serial misuse of our land and sea resources and yet more unwanted wars. Just yesterday, the poverty and social inclusion project confirmed that misery continues. The poverty alliance director Peter Kelly said that it should not be the case in 21st century Scotland when one in four adults had skimped on their own food to ensure others in the household eat. The fact that 30,000 children in Scotland live in families who cannot afford to feed themselves properly is a national disgrace. Food banks are the mark of misery today from Wick to Wigtonshire. It shows a fair share of our resources does not exist. For example, half of rural Scotland is in the hands of around 430 people. In response, the land reform review group's report, The Land of Scotland and the Common Good, shows how to end speculation in our land and to put that land into the hands of our people to feed and house us and sustain the nation. Land reform has progressed in part under devolution but independence is needed if we are to control tax avoidance, property trust based in tax havens and tax powers to incentivise better land use. Those are conspicuously absent from the unionist's list of more powers if we vote no. Westminster has never shown the slightest wish to relinquish tax powers that are fundamental to our most basic needs and resources. What of food production? The scandal of the CEP settlement, which is broken by the UK in Europe, shows how limited Scotland's devolved powers are. Scotland gets a lower average rate per hectare than any other member state in Europe or the rest of the UK itself in basic payments. The same goes for rural development. Scots, farmers and crofters will lose a billion pounds of euros before 2020 because we are not at the top table. Despite that, Scotland's food and drink under the SNP Government has produced the third highest per capita output in Europe, with only Iceland and Ireland ahead of us. With independence, we can fully promote our food and drink overseas and properly resource export certificates, unlike the UK's dilatory bureaucracy. Clean energy is key for rural and island Scotland. Our renewables already supply almost half of Scotland's electricity demand. That more than doubles our output since 2007, aiming to banish fuel poverty, one of the three major markers of deprivation, hitting the old in rural housing hardest. The renewable industry has wide general public support, despite the scare stories of the Better Together campaign. Between January 2010 and April 2013, it has announced £13.1 billion of investment, promising 9,100 renewable jobs across Scotland, which benefits local contractors, shops and hotels, and builds our economic resilience. Westminster, unlike the Scottish Government, is gung-ho for fracking and offers a huge support package for new nuclear power at Hinkley Point, with a no vote with the try to dump the waste in Scotland. With Scotland's energy wealth, consumers shouldn't face rising prices, the misery of fuel poverty and the risk that our renewable energy ambitions will be thwarted. We need a smooth functioning energy market. We need Westminster to listen to this and to join in with us, rather than ignore us. Under investment in energy generation over decades has led to a looming security of supply crisis, most of all in England. Of the shores of my constituency in the Pentland Firth, we have infinite tidal power. That is a symbol of opportunity compared to the lack of ambition in Westminster. Let's turn these days of hope into years of opportunity, with a tidal wave of yes votes. It's an honour to support the First Minister's motion today. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The decision that we make in just a few weeks' time has been described as the biggest political decision for Scotland in 300 years. It is indeed the opportunity of a lifetime. It is our opportunity to settle this constitutional question once and for all. As has been said between now and polling day, my Labour colleagues and I will be campaigning for a no vote because we believe that what we achieve, we achieve more when we pull together. When the votes are counted and the results are declared, we will accept the judgment of the people of Scotland, whatever they have decided. I hope that others will respect the judgment of the people, even if the vote does not go their way next month either. Of course, when we say that the referendum is a big decision, it is not just because of the ramifications that it may have, whatever the final result, but also because of the level of turnout and what those might be. Estimates of 80 per cent have been quoted in the press, and we have to go back to the 1950s to find a turnout figure that has exceeded 80 per cent in a general election. I won't predict what the level of voter participation might be, but, like most people, I expect it to surpass the last general election, even if it does not match the most optimistic estimates. The operation that we are expecting in the day and overnight, as well as the operation that we are seeing now to get people registered and to manage postal votes in all of Scotland's 32 local authorities, is unprecedented. The size of the operation, the scale of the decision, the nationwide effort to ensure that the people of Scotland have their say, it all just reinforces that basic point. It is not a majority in this Parliament that will determine the outcome of the referendum, it is the majority in the country. On 18 September, the future of Scotland is indeed in the hands of Scotland's people, and we have a choice. Much of the debate has been retent by politicians to frame that choice for people, and understandably so. It is the purpose of a political campaign, and it is part of the unwritten job description of politicians, to persuade and convince, to make people see how our beliefs and priorities lead us to approach decisions in different ways and to come to different conclusions. Let me say, as others have done, set out what I believe the choice is really all about on 18 September. We could vote as the Scottish Government wish, but what we gain from independence has to be bounced against the new pressures that we would face, the uncertainties that remain and what we lose from leaving the United Kingdom. Or we could democratically decide as a nation to share power with the UK, a union in which we have representation, a union that is becoming less centralised and more flexible, while still retaining its essential strength. We have a strong Parliament in Scotland growing stronger, and we are part of something bigger. We have a resilient economy with oil, gas and whisky and renewables, and we have an integrated market with the rest of the UK where we sell more goods and services than we do in the rest of the world. We have sweeping powers over economic development and planning, and we are part of one of the world's largest economies with a stable currency and the Bank of England behind us. What we have is not perfect. Neither is an offer in the white paper, but in constitutional terms we have the best of both worlds. I believe that the best of both worlds is best for Scotland. Most people who are making their minds up about the referendum next month want to do what is best for their community, best for their family and best for the country. The Labour amendment makes clear what we believe is best for Scotland but is for the people to decide. I trust the judgment of the people, and whatever the decision, yes or no, when Parliament reconvenes next month, we must respect that decision and make it work. I would like others. It is a privilege to be asked to speak in this final debate in the Scottish Parliament before the people of Scotland decide their future in just four short weeks' time. Of course, it has been a long campaign since the signing of the Edinburgh agreement, which signed us all up to respect the result, by the way, in October 2012, but now we enter the end phase. From colleagues and friends, I have spoken to across the political divide. There have been a range of emotions and experiences. For myself, I can truly state that this has been the most rewarding and liberating campaign that I have ever been involved in. To have had the chance at this remarkable time in Scottish history, to discuss now with many thousands of people the opportunities for my country's future has been a hugely uplifting experience. I know that that feeling has been shared by many in the yes campaign teams across the country. New and enduring friendships have been forged with people who were never before politically active. People's lives have literally been turned around, as a woman who has become a very important part of the sterling yes campaign told me last week. The campaign has provided her with a new, positive focus on her life, and given an injection of new energy, she thought she would never see again. That has only happened because she and countless others have been involved in a campaign that has tried hard to be relentlessly positive about the opportunity independence brings for Scotland. A campaign, centred on hope, aspiration and being all we can be, will, given Scotland the chance to make her mark on the world stage, a campaign, incidentally, that I am incredibly proud of. Two small words sum up for me best why I want Scotland to become an independent country, dignity and respect. The opportunity of being able to decide her own future with the security and dignity that being in control of her own lives brings. I also want to ensure that our people have a chance to live in dignity and that our children do not have to live a life of poverty. It is an unfortunate fact that, no matter who people in Scotland have voted for at Westminster, the gap between the rich and the poor has only become larger. Here we have figures, as others have said today, from organisations like the child poverty action group that tell us the result of Westminster policies that we can expect to see up to another 100,000 children in poverty by 2020. That is not acceptable in modern-day Scotland. We are a rich country and I know that no one who now seriously doubts it, but yet, if we stay on the current course, we have been warned what to expect. The people of Scotland are waking up to the fact that independence provides them with the opportunity of a lifetime to change the structure of how we are governed and create a better and fairer future for all our people. Of course, we will make mistakes, but they will be our mistakes and we will have the dignity of putting them right for ourselves. Yes, we will need to face up to the real challenges of independence that we will bring, but we will do that with the dignity of being able to tackle those challenges using our people's undoubted skills, intelligence and ability. The dignity of being normal is all that I seek. The respect that Scotland has on the world stage matters very deeply to me and goes to the very core of why I think that it is hugely important that Scotland chooses to vote yes. Of course, a yes vote will make me very happy, but it is the respect that will be gained from having a constitution for Scotland that outlaws weapons of mass destruction from our land that I seek most. Providing Scotland and indeed the rest of the United Kingdom with the opportunity to press the restart button on the obscenity of nuclear weapons is reason enough for me on its own to want independence. The debate on whether trident should remain on the Clyde has tended to centre on the cost, the economy or the effectiveness or otherwise as a deterrent. Yes, the cost of renewing trident is truly important at £100 billion and more and more strategic military experts are questioning its strategic relevance in today's world. For me, the debate goes way beyond these parameters. I want the respect of living in a normal country because not having nuclear weapons is the normal condition of the overwhelming countries on the world. I want Scotland to be respected, not feared as the UK is to the politics of power and domination hanging on to the vestiges of its imperial past. This is Scotland's one opportunity to gain respect by building an alternative future as a co-operator, as a peacemaker, promoting international law and social justice. This new beginning is the one opportunity for Scotland to be a beacon of hope for a world that so desperately needs it. In conflicts all over the world, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and Israel, Ukraine, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, West Pakistan, Sudan, the list goes on and on. This is what is not called isolationism, Alec Rowley and others who have accused of it. This is internationalism in action. In conclusion, I want the respect of living in a normal country without weapons of mass destruction. That is what I seek. I yes vote as Scotland's one opportunity to achieve this by putting Scotland's future in Scotland's hands. I now call in Bob Doris up to three minutes please and then we move to closing speeches. Presiding Officer, thank you very much for finding time. I know that time has been tight in today's debate. I get politically active when I was 17 years old because of a UK Tory government that Scotland didn't elect, wasn't accountable to Scotland and didn't represent the values of the people of Scotland. I'm now 41 years old and I see another UK Tory government that is wreaking havoc in the communities that I represent. That's a fundamental reason why I want a yes vote. I get really sick and tired of hearing about the misty idramanticism of the UK that doesn't actually exist in the towns, cities and villages right across Scotland. Let me tell you, Presiding Officer, what exists in the towns, cities and villages across Scotland? Food banks exist in the towns, villages and cities right across Scotland. Driven to food banks, we mean women and children because of £6 billion of UK welfare reforms in the last five years. I know individual constituents of mine, female constituents, who are now unemployed because of reforms to the tax credit system. Working poor, now benefit-dependent poor. I know individual constituents who are part of the 100,000 individuals, adults and disabilities who have been targeted by the current UK Government are quite frankly terrified that the abandonment of DLA to PIP and the roll-out of universal credit will leave them much poorer off. I know families whose kids have been pushed into poverty because of UK tax credit reforms for children. No one in the chamber gave me the misty idramanticism of the UK because it didn't exist then and it doesn't exist now. We want a better future for the people of Scotland. In the minute or so that I have, let me give you some suggestions. Is it about increasing the minimum wage by at least the inflation every year? £600 better off the poorest workers who have been in the last five years had a UK Government done that. Yes, it would be abolishing the roll-out of PIP, a commitment that the Scottish Government has given. It would be a routine financial review of benefit sanctions that are targeting the most vulnerable in society. That would happen with a yes vote. It would be upgrading the carers allowance in line with job seekers allowance so that the weakest people in society can benefit. Yes, it would be using the tax system to more fairer, particularly for women, for example, the earnings disregard, which would allow women to earn more money before benefits started to be clawed back real equality measures. Do you know something, Presiding Officer? It kind of doesn't matter whether anyone in this chamber agrees with any of the suggestions that I make. The people of Scotland will decide in the first election after Scotland votes for Scottish independence how we make the society more socially just, how we make the society fairer, but one thing is for sure, that could only happen by bringing democracy back to this country and it can only happen with a yes vote. Have we now moved the closing speeches? I call on Willie Rennie. It has been in stages, a half-decent debate, perhaps not fitting the historical moment yet again that we face in a few weeks' time. Bruce Crawford started off by talking about that he is trying hard to be relentlessly positive in this campaign. He must not have been speaking to Aileen McLeod, Joan McAlpine, Kenny Gibson, Rob Gibson, Annabelle Ewing or even Bob Dorris, who sometimes tries to be positive. You would think from the contributions today that there was nothing good about the United Kingdom. I have already said that the UK is not perfect. It is not as imperfect as those people on those benches sometimes want us to believe. We have heard about the creation of the trusted and respected BBC, the national health service with its expanding budget every year since its creation, which has doubled the spending as a share of our national income in the past 50 years and has now been judged the best in the world by the Commonwealth fund. The welfare state worth billions, even though it goes through substantial changes, the defeat of Nazi Germany, the state pension that has grown by £800 since 2010, thanks to the triple lock. The UK is seen also as a force for good around the world. We hold tremendous soft power and judge the greatest soft power in the globe by a special magazine that covers global affairs across the world. As a family of nations, we are using that to tackle gender-based violence, to campaign against the death penalty, to fight for religious and sexual freedom, and to champion the law, the rule of law. Together, we have the second largest aid budget in the world. For a relatively small country, it is a great achievement. Those are things that we can all be proud of and factors that the nationalists omit as they seek to break up the United Kingdom. I thank the member very much for taking the intervention. I wonder if he has spoken recently to Alan McRae, the Lib Dem candidate who stood against me in 2011, or Dr Michael Foxley, the erstwhile Lib Dem leader of Highland Council, who would not classify himself as nationalist, as Mr Rennie says, but who have both decided to vote yes. He obviously was not in earlier on, but unlike the nationalist, we tolerate difference. We respect people's different views. I think that the SNP could learn one or two things from that. Of course, we want the United Kingdom to change. I favour home rule in a federal UK. That is the basis of our plan for more powers, published by Sir Ming Campbell. People know that there is something missing from this Parliament. If we want to do something different, sometimes we cannot because we do not have the necessary financial power. Our plan sets out proposals for the Scottish Parliament to raise the majority of the money that it spends with the transfer of income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, as well as the proceeds from corporation tax. It means that if we want to cut taxes for those on low and middle incomes, like we have done at Westminster, then that can happen here too. If we want to increase childcare, as those people resisted for so long, as we have made progress on this issue, we can raise the money to pay for it if that is what is required. If we want to do something different for our domestic affairs, Holyrood will have the power to do so. Of course, people need to vote no next month to see the further development upon devolution that has been widely praised, and if they do vote no, they need to know that more powers will be on the way. However, the beauty of those proposals is that we have the broad shoulders and the strength of the United Kingdom behind us to make sure that we can continue to make devolution a great success that it has been since its creation. They have the security of that, because Labour and the Conservatives, as well as the Liberal Democrats, have committed absolutely different, but substantial change is definitely on the way. I admire the nationalist passion. I do genuinely admire the nationalist passion for their cause for national independence. What I regret is that their passion drives them to rarely question the consequences of their plans. What will be the hit on public spending from the first six years of the policy to cut corporation tax for big business? How will we get the correct balance in our armed forces and where will the security for Scotland come from while we are waiting? How will they tackle the £6 billion black hole that is identified by the Institute of Fiscal Studies? How will the £2.5 billion of promises of extra money on welfare come? It is not identified in the white paper. It does not count. What services will be cut if the oil revenues are not as wildly optimistic as they claim that they will be? Most fundamental of all, what will the currency be? The Scottish Government reads out a list of options for the currency. Order.  One minute, they are all ruled in. The next minute, they are all ruled out. We need some clarity on this issue. If we do not get clarity and all these fundamentally important questions for the future of our country, because I have the interests of this country as much at heart as the SNP does, but if they are going to have any hope of anywhere near a respectable result, they need to answer those questions so that people have the knowledge, the truth and the facts when they go to vote on 18 September. The nationalist case is not just that we would be a successful independent country. The case that this Scottish Government is campaigning on is that we would be a wealthier country than the rest of the UK. That is what they are putting forward to the people of Scotland. They are claiming that we will be £5 billion a year better off. We will be £1,000 per head better off, and as a consequence of that, they are able to put forward the policies that they do. However, it is time for a bit of realism from this Scottish Government, because the likelihood from the independent economists and analysts is that we would be financially worse off as an independent Scotland and we would be poorer than we would be if we were to remain part of the United Kingdom. Analysts will say that we would begin life in 2016-17 in a weaker financial position, and that would become more challenging as time moves on. That is probably why the white paper only had figures for a single year. Presiding Officer, if a business goes to a bank wanting to borrow £1,000, they have to show a five-year business plan. However, this Scottish Government thinks that it is acceptable to put forward one-year figures when they are deciding to separate and break up a 300-year union. The Institute for Fiscal Studies was very clear. It thought that the deficit that we would face would be 5.2 per cent. The Scottish Government though, on the other hand, are claiming that our deficit would be 2.4 per cent, up to potentially 2.8 per cent. However, if the IFS are right and most economists agree with them, we would have to have greater austerity in an independent Scotland than we would as part of the United Kingdom, regardless of who was in power at Westminster and regardless of who was in power here. The main conclusion of our analysis is that a significant further fiscal tightening would be required in Scotland on top of that already announced by the United Kingdom Government in order to put Scotland's long-term public finances onto a sustainable footing. The only way that the Scottish Government has managed to give the impression that we would be richer is to do through things. The first one is to look back into the past, to try and talk about what would have happened five years ago or 10 years ago, instead of talking about what will happen in 2016 where we are to be independent. The second thing that they have done, which is a completely false prospectus, is to assume that they could only have a high-oil scenario in terms of price and in terms of production. Anyone anywhere knows that that is very unlikely to happen year in, year out. Their financial paper, instead of looking at what they think the finances would be, the starting point was that we have to show that we would be better off than the rest of the UK, and then put the figures in there to try and prove that that would be the case. The only figures in their financial paper assume what they call scenario 4 for oil. They discard any other potential scenario for oil, so, of course, on their paper they make it look as if we would be better off and we would have more money to spend. That only works if we are pulling in 7 billion pounds in year 1, 7.3 billion pounds in year 2 and 7 billion pounds in oil revenues after that. That was the question that Lewis MacDonald put to the First Minister in his opening remarks. What would the tax revenues be like? The First Minister spent two minutes responding to that question but not coming anywhere near answering the question on oil revenues. There is nobody out there who agrees with Alex Salmond's figures on oil for revenues going forward. There is not a single person who agrees with Mr Salmond on his future oil revenues. He would not give me good wave to me. I will gladly give way to him. Sir Donald Mackay, 25 years adviser to successive Secretary of State for Scotland, agrees with the Scottish Government's oil forecast. I do not know why they are clapping. It is clear that Mr Salmond has not even read the three-page letter from Sir Donald Mackay, because on his figures, on his central scenario, when Lewis MacDonald knows what I am going to say, his central scenario, he is almost a billion out from the Scottish Government in year 1 and almost a billion out from the Scottish Government in year 2. So, even the person that he quotes in support of him does not actually agree with him on the figures of the first year and the second year of so-called independence. If he is out, suddenly we have got to find an extra billion from somewhere. But what if Sir Ian Wood is actually right and we are £2 billion out for the first five years of separation? Suddenly there is an extra £10 billion to be found. What about if the other economists are right too? There will be billions to be found. The independent analysts show that we would be slightly poorer financially where we would be to separate. If that is the case, there will not be the money to fund the tax cuts that they say they are going to bring in. There will not be the money for the extra pensions, the extra welfare, the childcare, the protection of the NHS, and there certainly will not be money to put aside for an oil fund. Mr Brown, thank you. I now call Bruce Smith. Mr Smith, eight minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This debate has marked the final consideration of this issue by the Scottish Parliament, but it is not I or the Deputy First Minister or not any member who will have the last word on this question. The decision rightly is now a matter for the people of Scotland. Self-determination is their right and they will decide whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom or whether we continue devolution within the United Kingdom. When we next meet, their answer will be known and all will be bound by their decision with a responsibility to make their choice work. On this side, we believe that the Scottish Government has failed to make a compelling case economic, social or political for ending our partnership with the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our view is the minority one in this chamber, but I believe that it will be the majority wish of Scotland's people. When the old Scots Parliament of the First Minister is fond of referring to Decided for Union some 300 years ago, ordinary Scots were not asked. The course of history was set by Scottish men untroubled by the people's will. Today, this democratic parliament, a modern institution, created in a spirit of hope and progress calls for the people to decide their own future. I believe that a no vote will represent a decision to democratically join Britain to continue devolution and send a message to the rest of the UK that Scots want and choose to work with our closest neighbours and friends for the benefit of all our people. Scotland will never be the same again, whatever the result, and Britain will be forever changed too. With Scotland as a committed member of the United Kingdom, we will all be bound to put our political arguments forward in that spirit, and that will be a healthy thing. The long campaign already run has re-energised my party in our belief in an idea bigger than independence. The pooling and sharing of resources across the UK, a strong Scottish Parliament backed up by the strength and security of partnership. Social progress and change here in Scotland and across the UK remains an idea and an ideal worthy of the Labour movement. It has been a long campaign. Throughout 300 years of union, there have been voices raised for repeal. All of my life, this question has been the dividing line of Scottish politics. For some on the other side, this has been a motivation that has driven life-long political activism. Over the last seven years, the Government has, in our view, been on pause. However, it has been preparation for the next four weeks and for the day when Scotland will decide its own future. On this side, we can acknowledge the achievement of nationalists in getting to this point, even if they have failed to convince us of their case. This is a question to which we will all welcome the answer. We are committed to putting this Parliament back to work in the nation's interests, whatever the result. I hope that the debate, which will now continue, not in the Scottish Parliament but in the homes, schools and workplaces of Scotland, will be worthy of us all. The Government motion made by and large familiar arguments, and we heard them. Independence was, after all, the nationalist answer when the great Labour Government of 45 was building our welfare state. It was the answer when the last Labour Government created this Parliament and embarked upon its quest to tackle child poverty and build a fairer economy. It was the answer when the banks were booming and when the banks went bust. We have heard little new today. The same arguments long rehearsed over so many decades soon to be settled. The questions, too, have been consistent throughout two and a half years of campaigning. How is the enormous risk to our public finances, which independent experts have identified, to be managed? How do the admirable ideas about the better society, which we should all aspire to, square against co-operation tax cuts and the creation of competition on this island, which will surely and inevitably lead to a race to the bottom for Scots and for our neighbours? What are the set-up costs? What will be the costs of renegotiated EU membership? How can it be that postal voting will begin in just days and a party that has campaigned for an independent Scottish state for nearly 90 years cannot tell us what is their plan if the currency union, which is not in their gift, is not agreed? What is the principle for breaking up so many of our institutions to start afresh when there is so little evidence that our hopes and aspirations of what we want from life differ greatly on both sides of the tweed? Is the Englishman in the Scot really so different that no form of government between our nations can be made to work? Do our values against those if the Welsh precludes any adjustment of our partnership such that we can continue to live together under different devolved Governments but within one union? Is the desire of those in Belfast for recognition of our national differences really so far removed from the identity of Glaswegians, of Highlanders, of Borders, of Aberdonians that we cannot possibly share citizenship in a united kingdom? I acknowledge the right of nationalists to put the case that nationhood must be demonstrated by independence. I even accept that some nationalists will carry on arguing in that case even if the nation tells them that it does not agree. I also acknowledge that not all of those arguing for a yes vote are nationalists. I hope that many of them will put the same enthusiasm that they have found in this debate back into the mundane old world, a side of constitutional politics, the questions of decent housing, of fair pay, of a chance to better our own lives and the lives of those around us. I believe that the positive choice to work together is the best option for Scotland and the existence and the extension of devolution means that Scotland can have the best of both worlds. I believe that the struggle to make Britain better, better governed and better in which to live are a bigger idea than withdrawing into ourselves. In my view, it is the politics of despair to say that the Tories can never be beat just as it is conceit to say that the Tories don't and won't exist here. Time is running out in this debate, Presiding Officer, and in this campaign. For many months we have heard the Scottish Government make the case for freedom, armed with focus groups and unhearing to those who do not agree with them. The challenge for all of us in the next four weeks is to put the case as well as it deserves to be put, deserving of tomorrow's generation when today becomes history so that they can distinguish the honest disagreement that exists amongst us and so understand the decision that we are about to take. I want to end by saying this about the national health service, which was referred to by Malcolm Chisholm. On this side, we have a special attachment to the national health service. It is Labour's greatest achievement in office, and our biggest task is always to defend it. The NHS does not just belong to the Labour Party, it belongs to the people right across Britain. Devolution allows us to steer our own c