Kirsty Blackman
MP for Aberdeen North · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“I first raised the issue of self-generated images in Parliament more than four years ago. I have asked almost every single Culture, Media and Sport team about the issue of livestreaming. I am pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that action is being taken, and about the belt-and-braces approach that is coming in.”
“Labour promised £200 million for Grangemouth, none of which has materialised. Labour promised 1,000 jobs for GB Energy, and it turns out that a third of the 130 delivered so far are not actually in Scotland.”
“There is a geographical divide on this issue starker than I have ever seen in this place. Across all parties, every Member representing a Scottish constituency has stressed the issue of jobs, and how important this is to the north-east of Scotland.”
“There is a fundamental question here about what our priority is. Is it to reduce the bill, to reduce the amount of money that we are spending, or to ensure that disabled people can access all the human rights that the rest of us can, access society and be supported? We must recognise the extra costs of disability. What is the priority?”
“May I continue to encourage the Minister to talk to Social Security Scotland and our colleagues in the SNP Government about their experiences of the adult disability payment and whether the changes that have been implemented in Scotland would make a positive difference to those claiming PIP?”
“I will point out where things are today and how we can improve them, rather than looking at what was done in the past, but first, I recognise that although Pride is about celebration, it is also about being angry. We should be angry about the injustices.”
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“The in-game chat that children use is overwhelmingly voice chat. Children do not type if they can possibly avoid it. I am sure that that is not the case for all children, but it is for most children. Aural communication is used if someone is playing Fortnite duos, for example, with somebody they do not know. That is why that needs to be included.”
“The difference is that the Scottish Government are doing everything they can, with their very limited powers and limited ability to do anything in-year with their budgets, to try to make life better for those struggling the most, and this UK Government are continuing to refuse to do so.”
“The Government have shown no willingness to understand the genuine dire straits that people are living in, to take action on that, and to prioritise the most vulnerable people—not just to say it, but to actually do it—by looking at the universal credit system and the decision-making process to ensure that people can afford rice and pasta, and to heat their homes. How is it that we have to be asking that in 2022? How is it that we have to be living in a situation where the next generation are currently set to be poorer than our generation? We have that lack of optimism, and this Conservative Government continue to hammer that home, rather than attempting in any way to make it better. That outlines very clearly the difference between the two Governments.”
“We need to ensure that people in oil and gas are given, or have the opportunity to move into, high-earning jobs in the new industries of the future that do not cause an increase in climate change. Austerity has been levied on the poorest people for years. Conservative Governments have consistently made decisions at the expense of our worst-off constituents. I have never been less optimistic about the future for the poorest people in the UK than now—not even through the Brexit process and decision-making.”
“We cannot just ignore climate change and pretend that it is not happening—it is!—so it should be in every Government statement, and the Government should talk about the effect on climate change of every spend that they decide to make. The decisions in the Finance Bill take us backwards rather than forwards. The Scottish Government are supporting a just transition in Scotland with £500 million of funding to ensure that we move away from the reliance on fossil fuels that we absolutely have in the UK, particularly in Aberdeen, where there are a huge number of jobs in oil and gas. We need to support a transition that is just and fair for my constituents and for people across the UK.”
“When the UK Government created the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, why did they refuse point blank any amendments that would have put tackling climate change at the heart of its decisions? We said that it should be climate neutral and that the Government could lead the way with a brand-new Government agency working on a net zero basis, but they refused. We said that they could convince or ask it to focus on innovations and inventions that tackle climate change, but they refused to do that, too. We need to see an actual effort made—actual things done and decisions taken—to ensure that we tackle climate change and meet our net zero ambitions. If we could meet our net zero ambitions even earlier than we have proposed, that would be the best thing for the planet, rather than trying to push things until the last possible moment.”
“We are looking at issues in relation to electric cars, as was mentioned earlier, and allowances for oil and gas companies to extract more oil and gas, rather than the allowances that could be given to companies to develop renewable electricity. The electricity generator levy is also being levied on people who are producing renewable energy, which is the kind of energy that we need. We cannot talk about COP only once a year when it is COP26 or COP27—it should be threaded through every single decision that we make. We have heard about R&D credits and tax reliefs, which I do not have a problem with in principle, although I am concerned that we need to see whether they work. I do have a problem, however, with how decisions are made to give people R&D tax credits.”
“By trying to do everything they can to reduce immigration, therefore, the UK Government increase public sector net debt. The UK Government could decide that one of the best ways to do something about the lack of growth and the amount of debt, about which they are concerned, would be to encourage people to come and live here, and to make that easier. Instead, my constituent is going to move away from the UK because he cannot get a visitor visa for his family to come and visit, so he is fed up and has had enough. As a software engineer, he is somebody who we need to have and whom we should be encouraging to stay; we should not be as obstructive as possible in our decisions. The UK Government have also failed to tackle—in fact, they have gone out of their way to oppose—our climate change ambitions and targets in this Finance Bill.”
“We already have the issue that, when the DWP decides to make debt reductions from people’s universal credit payments, it does that not on the basis of whether those receiving universal credit can afford it, but on the basis of an arbitrary 25% threshold. As a result of DWP actions and the failures of the UK Government, we will have a situation where people cannot afford to heat their homes or feed their children purely because of the reductions that are being made to their income. I have harped on about immigration several times. A number of years ago—I am a veteran of many Finance Bills—the former Chancellor George Osborne stood up and spoke about public sector net debt. In fact, his Red Book that year talked about it specifically and made it clear that an increase in net migration to the UK reduces public sector net debt.”
“Just because someone is in receipt of social security does not mean that they are not hard working or that they are less deserving than people earning an awful lot of money from dividend incomes or other sorts of unearned income. Stats came out earlier this year about the level of sanctions on people receiving universal credit, which said that there had been a monthly increase in the total amount of reductions being levied—money taken back from individuals who are claiming universal credit. Right now, the Department for Work and Pensions should not be trying to increase the amount of money that it is clawing back from people in receipt of universal credit.”
“Members regularly use the term “hard-working people”, which is one of my biggest bugbears. When Conservative Members talk about hard-working people, they are talking about people earning £40,000 or £50,000 a year; they are not talking about people working in minimum-wage jobs. When they say that hard-working people have to pay higher taxes in Scotland than the rest of the UK, they are failing to recognise that we have an additional lower-rate tax band that means that people on the lowest incomes pay less in Scotland, and they are denying that people on the lowest incomes are hard-working people. It is the case, however, that a significant proportion of people on universal credit are in work.”
“We have put tackling child poverty at the forefront of what we are doing in Scotland. The eligibility of the Scottish child payment increased again the week before last, so more children in more families can get it than ever before. We in the Scottish Government are targeting our support there, because that is where we feel that we need to make the most difference. We need to ensure that children are not living in poverty or in cold homes that their parents cannot afford to heat. We need the UK Government to step up, and not in an empty way by saying that there is an extra £1.5 billion—I do not know—in Barnett consequentials over two years, because that is not helpful. We need the money now—my constituents need the money now—to afford to get through the winter. Another thing that has been mentioned is that hon.”
“We need to ensure that those who need it most—the people who can afford the increases least—are the ones being targeted by Government support and receiving the funding to help them to afford the basic necessities: food, clothing for their children and energy to get them through this winter. That is why the decision-making processes of the Scottish Government have been the way that they have. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) pointed out, the UK Government have talked about the additional money from Barnett consequentials, but that does not assist people this year, because of the constraints on the Scottish Parliament’s budget and because of the decisions taken by the UK Government. It will not help us to work on our second child poverty action plan, which we are now in the process of doing.”
“We are not seeing people better able to afford their energy bills; their energy bills are still significantly more than they were this time last year. The benefit cap still needs to grow massively to keep pace with its 2013 levels. The childcare allowance included within universal credit is at the same level it was when it was first introduced, when universal credit first started. It has never been increased. These are decisions that could be made that would make a difference to my constituents’ lives on a daily basis, but they are not being made. We will not get our way out of this with innovative jam. That is not how it will work.”
“Most of my constituents and most people across the UK will never see anything like that money in their entire lifetimes, yet it seems to be acceptable to the Government—while the fact that my constituents and people in Aberdeen, across Scotland and across the UK cannot afford to pay for the very barest of necessities is not remarked upon, is not mentioned and does not seem to be happening. The Conservative Government keep talking about how much they care about vulnerable people—it has been mentioned a number of times—but that is not borne out and it is not what is happening on the ground. People’s lives are not being improved as a result of the decisions being made by those on the Government Benches.”
“It is all well and good for Government Members to stand up in the Chamber and talk about the importance of growth—I will not for one second deny that growth is important, but if growth means that rich people get richer and people in Aberdeen and our constituencies still cannot afford to buy rice and pasta, that growth is not worth it. It is not worth it to see people get unimaginable amounts of money. Some £29 million in profits from personal protective equipment is an unbelievable amount of money for somebody or a family to get.”
“I am baffled by this scenario. We have been hit by a major number of issues. It is absolutely the case that the war in Europe—Putin’s illegal invasion—has had a major impact, and it has also had a major impact on other economies across the EU and the world. It has had an impact not just on energy prices, but on the price of food, for example. All those countries are seeing prices increase, yet none of them is struggling with growth in the way that the UK seems to be. None of them is seeing the level of recession predicted for here, and it is entirely down to Brexit and the decision-making processes of this UK Government. It is also down to the choices made earlier this year, which failed to take into account the scenario we are in. They failed to listen to the situation facing our constituents.”
“Something is happening in the UK that is not happening in other places, apart from Russia, where there are sanctions, and it is understandable that the Russian economy is not in the best of states. What could possibly be happening to the UK economy? What is it—what uniquely is happening? I keep wondering what has happened to this Brexit bonus. If our economy is so much better as a result of Brexit—if that has massively helped our economy, and many Brexiteers have made it clear over many years how much of a good thing it would be for the UK economy —can the House imagine the state we would be in if Brexit had not happened? Can the House imagine how dreadful things would be if we had not seen this Brexit bonus, which has still left us somehow, unexplainably, in a worse economic condition than has happened with other countries?”
“If we are going to have a spring statement next year that will, presumably, from what was said earlier, have a Finance Bill attached, will we also be having one in the autumn next year? Will we have an additional one in September that will crash the economy? One would hope not. It would be good to know what the plans are. We heard from the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), in quite a lot of detail, comparisons of the UK’s economy and economic state with that of many other countries. He laid out the figures nicely, which saves me from doing the same thing; I will not repeat what he said. What he said makes it clear that there is a unique issue here.”
“We have Schrödinger’s Finance Bill. For a while, there was no Finance Bill. Then yes, there was going to be one. Then, no, there was not going to be one. Now, finally, we have come to the decision that the cat is alive and the Finance Bill is here before us. I am old enough to remember Philip Hammond standing up and being very clear that there would only be one fiscal event in a year, that we would move to having an autumn statement and that would be the fiscal event, and that the spring statement would only be a statement and an update. I would be the first to admit that this year has gone somewhat wrong, so there are some excuses for having a different scenario this year, but I am keen to know what the intention is. Do the Government intend to have one major fiscal event a year, or are they planning to have more than one?”
“Our Scottish Government are now into their second child poverty action plan. We had “Every child, every chance”, which ran from 2018 to 2022; we now have “Best start, bright futures” from ’22 to ’26. These plans are about putting tackling child poverty at the heart of the decision-making processes of the Scottish Government. I do not think it is too much to ask that the UK Government replicate that, and say that they care about eradicating child poverty, and therefore will have a strategy to do that and make it a central aim of their plans.”
“I have less optimism now for the futures of my constituents than I have ever had at any point in this job and in my previous job as a city councillor. In about 15 years in an elected role, I have never seen the levels of hardship that I see coming through the door in my constituency office, on the news and in our communities. This has not happened before. The problem is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel right now, no matter what the Government have announced in terms of inflationary upgrades, for example. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, that is a temporary measure; it is not permanent and does not provide the level of structural reform people need to afford to live. What could be more important than ensuring that kids are fed and warm? There is nothing more important.”
“Members are doing what they can in their constituencies, as well as putting pressure on the UK Government to try and ensure a sufficiency of social security. Social security is about security; it is about having a secure situation where people can have positive mental health—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about people’s mental health—rather than spending every moment worrying about whether they are going to be able to feed their children tomorrow, next week or next month, and whether they will be able to afford food. We need the social security system to work and provide the safety net that it is supposed to. After a decade of Tory Government, it continues to fail and it is not getting better.”
“I thank you, Sir Christopher, for chairing the debate today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on bringing forward the debate and I thank all hon. Members for taking part. My hon. Friend made some points about individual organisations in her constituency. I absolutely agree that we should thank those organisations for all the hard work they do, because they are absolutely necessary, but we can do that at the same time as saying they should absolutely not be necessary. It was good to hear about Paul’s Parcels and the work that my colleague is doing to support those organisations and the eradication of poverty in her constituency. I hope that all hon.”
“When the amount people are getting each month is reduced because of those reductions or the benefit cap, it is even less sufficient. Again, the conditionality and sanctions in place reduce that basic minimum level of payment that people should be entitled to.”
“Sometimes, those debts are caused by overpayments that are no fault of the person, but entirely the fault of poor decision making in the DWP or job centres. To be fair, that does not happen all the time; I am just saying that sometimes it is an issue. If the UK Government have done an assessment of social security payments and believe them to be sufficient—that people can afford to live on them—how can they justify putting in place a benefit cap or taking 25% off the standard allowance? They are saying, “This is what we believe is sufficient for people to live on, but we are just going to take a quarter of it away.” It does not make any sense. People already cannot afford to live on the social security payments they are receiving.”
“That was in the summer—before the additional price cap increase on electricity and gas; before the upcoming winter months when people will need to put their heating on; before people had to buy school uniforms for their children when school started again in August or September. That situation is set only to get worse, and the promise of a temporary increase in universal credit will not fix it. There is currently no way out of this. We have no certainty that there is not going to be a cost of living crisis next year. Certainly none of my constituents has that level of certainty. Let me turn to the issue of debt repayment deductions that are made from universal credit and other benefits. We have a situation where the UK Government can take 25% off the standard allowance to reclaim debts.”
“The benefit cap would need to increase by £942 to reverse the loss since 2013. Despite the fact that the Government are looking to increase it, this is only the fourth time that social security payments have risen with inflation in 10 years. If we in Scotland can find an extra £25 a week in order to provide the Scottish child payment, the UK Government, with their far vaster budget and flexibility in dealing with their fiscal situation, can surely afford to do the same. They can afford it, but they choose not to match the payments we are making in Scotland. There is the issue of the sufficiency of social security. One in four people on social security skipped meals this summer.”
“I agree. The fact that the Government are unwilling to even measure child poverty shows the lack of importance they give to this issue. If they cared as much about it as they should, they should be willing to explain, “This is what the current situation is. This is the measurement. This is how bad it is. This is how many people are suffering and how many children are in poverty in the UK in 2022”—in the UK in 2022! How can we be saying this? The UK Government need to stand up, hold up their hands and say, “This is the current situation and this is how we are going to improve it.” I want to set out a few specific asks, some of which have been made already. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts mentioned, 87% of those affected by the benefit cap are families with children.”
“I am glad that the hon. Member has managed that on behalf of his constituents. That is actually not the preferred route that I would take. I would prefer to look at whether people can afford payments rather than coming up with an arbitrary percentage, which is the UK Government’s preferred choice. I would look at affordability. How much are their outgoings and incomings? Can they afford to make the debt repayments? That is what we do, and when organisations like StepChange are managing debt, they look at whether people can afford it.”
“We are seeing children and families who literally cannot afford any food, and I just cannot believe that the UK Government are unwilling to make any change to the system of no recourse to public funds, because what people are going through is horrendous. The UK Government stand up and say, “Oh well, it’s fine. They can just go home to whatever country they came from.” Generally, people who are here having made an asylum or human rights claim are here because it is worse in the country they came from and because their children are in danger if they go back. In fact, no recourse to public funds sometimes applies to people who are stateless—they have no country to go back to. It is a horrendous situation, and the UK Government need to fix it.”
“I absolutely agree. That is the way this should be taken forward, rather than setting an arbitrary percentage—whether it is 25%, 10% or whatever level. It should be done on the basis of affordability, and a debt ratio would be the preferred method; it would make sense. One thing that I do not think has been mentioned yet is those people with no recourse to public funds. They are not in receipt of social security payments or the vast majority of payments that are available to others. We are seeing the most drastic and extreme levels of poverty experienced by some of those families, particularly refugee and asylum-seeking families.”
“The ideological choice that I and the SNP would make is to put dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of the decision-making process. We need to make sure that children are not in poverty, and that our guiding mission and our choices go towards eradicating child poverty.”
“We are choosing to provide as much as we possibly can within our limited budgets. Our five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, can be worth over £10,000 by the time a first child turns six, and £9,700 for subsequent children. That compares to £1,800 for an eligible family’s first child in England and Wales, and under £1,300 for subsequent children. The difference is £8,200, and it highlights the Scottish Government’s major support in the early years for low-income families. This is an incredibly important debate. We need a social security safety net that works. I would rather our social security system accidently pay the few people who are not eligible—who do not meet the criteria—than miss any one child who should be receiving those security payments and that Government support.”
“I absolutely agree; I could not have put it better. No matter where they were born, the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexuality or gender identity, those children and families deserve a basic level of human dignity and fairness. That point about dignity, fairness and respect was made earlier. The UK is, in all our names, failing to provide that. It is choosing to make a differentiation between those people who are in slightly different communities and to treat them differently, and it is therefore trying to make that okay. In Scotland, we are putting wellbeing at the heart of what we do. We are one of the founding members of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. We are not choosing to levy austerity on the most vulnerable people in our society; we are choosing to provide respect, dignity and fairness.”
“They are entitled to 85% of childcare costs—that is absolutely true—but is the Minister aware that the caps set in 2005 have not been uprated, despite the fact that childcare costs have since increased dramatically? Will he take a look at those numbers?”
“I am really interested in the hon. Member’s speech and in the harms from nitrous oxide that he raises. As somebody whose lung was punctured as a result of using nitrous oxide during childbirth, I am keen for what he says about education to be at the heart of the proposals that he is making so that we tell people about the very real dangers they face if they misuse nitrous oxide. The only reason I came through it safely was because I was using it in a medical setting with medical professionals who could look after me.”
“The Secretary of State says that in order for there to be democracy, there needs to be cross-party support, and that there needs to cross-support in order for us to have an independence referendum, but there was not cross-party support for a Brexit referendum, austerity or the demonisation of immigrants. Why does the Conservative party get to be the arbiter of what does and does not require democratic support?”
“The shadow Secretary of State is making the case, as a Labour politician would, for why Labour should be in charge. For two thirds of my lifetime we have had a Conservative Government for which Scotland has not voted. How does the hon. Gentleman expect the next 36 years to be any different from the past 36?”
“Our Scottish Government are consistently having to mitigate Tory-inflicted hardships in order to offer some measure of protection for our constituents, and I will make no apology for making the wellbeing of the people of Scotland my ideological mission. Because of the decisions of the UK Government we did not vote for, four out of 10 on those on universal credit skipped meals this summer. Mortgage rates have soared £6,700 a year on average. Since last year, energy costs have gone up £1,200, while pasta costs 60% more and bread costs 40% more. The UK Government have capped benefits and reneged on the pensions triple lock—and we did not vote for this. The people of Scotland and the country of Scotland cannot afford to be part of this Union.”
“Then David Cameron said “Hold my beer”, and had the Brexit referendum. Then the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said “Hold my beer”, demonised immigrants and put in motion the hardest possible Brexit. Then the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said “Hold my beer”, and destroyed what little faith the public had left in politicians being honest. Then the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said “Hold my beer”, and crashed the economy. If the current Prime Minister asks someone to hold his drink, I recommend running a mile. Scotland has not voted for any of this chaos. We did not vote for a Brexit referendum, we did not vote for Brexit, we welcome immigrants—and we do not vote Tory.”
“When I joined the SNP more than 20 years ago, I did so because I wanted Scotland to become an independent country. I believe that the people of Scotland should be able to make the important decisions on the issues that matter to us. It was not all that long after the reopening of the Scottish Parliament, and devolution was still finding its feet. It was also not that long after we had managed to extricate ourselves from 18 years of Tory rule—18 years of Tory Governments, who Scotland had not voted for since 1955. In the time since I joined the party, we have had another 12 years of Conservative government Scotland has not voted for. I honestly thought that it could not get more damaging, and that we could not have a more damaging Government and a more damaging Prime Minister, than what we experienced during the Margaret Thatcher era.”
“They have no mandate for xenophobic immigration policies, and no mandate for cutting social security. If this is a voluntary Union of nations, why are the UK Government not respecting the mandate given by the people of Scotland to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum? Why have we had to go to the Supreme Court to assert our right to hold the referendum, and how can the UK Government justify arguing against that? This is not about identity; this is about democracy. Scotland has voted for the right to choose our own future, and we will do everything possible to ensure that happens.”
“Before this cost of living crisis, some people were living below the destitution line, despite being in receipt of social security. Other European countries have stepped up and provided far higher levels of support to ensure that people can live through this crisis. What are the people of Scotland doing about this? We are consistently exercising the democratic rights that we have to vote for the SNP. We have a majority of independence-supporting MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, and we had our best ever council elections this year. We have been the third largest party in Westminster for seven years, despite standing in less than one tenth of the seats. Yet the Westminster Government suggest that we have no mandate. I will say who has no mandate—the Tories. They have no mandate to inflict Tory economic policies on our population.”
“The Prime Minister will not even commit to the triple lock or to uprating benefits in line with inflation. My colleagues have spoken about Scotland’s potential. We have so many resources. We can lead the world in the deployment of renewables, and we can reach our economic potential. We have the best educated population in Europe. We have the talent and the potential, and we are not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said earlier, singularly unable to flourish as an independent country. An independent Scotland would use its potential to ensure minimum living standards. How is it that in 2022 we are having to say that? Why are we being approached by constituents who have nothing, and who are experiencing poverty that has not happened in this widespread way during my lifetime?”
“With borrowing costs rocketing, people are spiralling quickly into unmanageable levels of debt, and that is only set to get worse as the cold weather kicks in. We have consistently voted against that, yet the larger size of England means that we are consistently burdened with Westminster Governments who do not care. Owen Jones published a video that he made during the Tory party conference. He pointed out that mortgage rates are going to go up as a result of the mini-Budget. The Tory party member he was interviewing replied, “I don’t have a mortgage.” That is the attitude we are faced with in the Conservative party. Many Tory party members and donors are doing all right, Jack, so why bother taking action? Our constituents are scared, and the UK Government are refusing to provide adequate help or certainty.”
“This UK Government are failing to tackle the issues that are facing our constituents. It is a joke that they keep mentioning the £37 billion support package. It is a joke that they keep mentioning people being £1,000 better off. For some unknown reason, the UK Government have included a freeze on alcohol duty in their £37 billion calculation. On what planet does that help people to pay their fuel bills or feed their children? People are not £1,000 better off as a result of the energy support provided. The average household is still paying double what it was paying last year. Where does the Prime Minister expect people to find the extra money? A quarter of people across these islands have got no savings.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and she lays out very clearly the democratic deficit facing Scotland. We cannot afford to continue having our resources squandered by Westminster. We cannot afford to go without energy market reform. We cannot afford trickle-down economics. We cannot afford the UK’s xenophobic immigration policy. We cannot afford to keep people having no recourse to public funds, which is making some of the poorest people in the UK even poorer still. We cannot afford a UK Government who refuse to increase the minimum wage. We cannot afford to keep having our workers’ rights stripped. We cannot afford locally—the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), who has just stepped out, mentioned this—to have a UK Government who refuse to match Scotland’s funding for our £500 million just transition fund.”
“I am very pleased that the hon. Member has given way. Is he aware that if all the 1 million people in Scotland who voted to leave the EU had voted to remain in the EU—if we had had a remain vote of 100%—we would still have lost the referendum?”
“I was talking about the different ways in which Scotland has given us a mandate for an independence referendum. When SNP candidates stood for the Scottish Parliament in 2021, the SNP committed explicitly in our manifesto to a referendum on independence. The Scottish people have chosen to have that referendum by voting for independence-supporting parties. If that is not the route for the Scottish people to have an independence referendum, what does the hon. Gentleman think their route to choosing a referendum should be?”