Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 13 2025

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show.

00:02We're here to unwrap and unpick First Minister's questions

00:08for another week.

00:09Alistair, you're coming to us from Holyrood.

00:13This came 24 hours after Nicola Sturgeon

00:15announced that she wasn't standing at next year's

00:18Scottish elections.

00:19And perhaps unsurprisingly, she was brought up at FMQs today.

00:24Yeah, it's no surprise that Scottish Conservative leader

00:26Russell Findlay brought up Nicola Sturgeon,

00:28although it's slightly strange for it

00:32to be First Minister's questions and for the first section

00:35of it to be dominated by a former First Minister,

00:37Nicola Sturgeon, who, of course, stood down in 2023.

00:41But yesterday, she announced that she wasn't going

00:43to stand again as an MSP in next year's Holyrood election.

00:47That was obviously a huge story.

00:49Russell Findlay today very much attacking her legacy

00:51as First Minister, attacking the decisions

00:53that she took when she was in power,

00:55and in particular, bringing up the controversy

00:58over her gender reform legislation.

01:01And this was legislation that Nicola Sturgeon

01:04introduced as First Minister, aimed

01:06to make the process of trans people changing

01:08their legally recognised sex easier.

01:10It was subsequently blocked by the UK government.

01:12People might remember there was a massive feud

01:14over this.

01:15But despite the fact it was blocked,

01:18I think the debate around this in Holyrood

01:20and the wider debate around the issue of self-ID,

01:23people being able to self-identify their gender,

01:26it proved to be extremely contentious

01:28and led to wider repercussions across society.

01:34Today, Russell Findlay accusing her

01:35of pursuing a toxic agenda, he called it,

01:38that trampled on women's rights, very much saying

01:42that she had basically become obsessed with,

01:45this is his language, obsessed with gender policies

01:48to the detriment of actually stewarding Scotland's

01:51public services and focusing on the things

01:53that he says Scottish people would rather she focused on.

01:56John Swinney, obviously her successor as First Minister,

02:00very much defending her legacy and defending her achievements.

02:03He was pointing to various things,

02:04such as the fact that she had the first ever

02:07gender-balanced cabinet, stood up against

02:10the UK government's rape clause,

02:12and also kind of introduced legislation

02:15that made kind of psychological abuse

02:18and domestic abuse situations against the law.

02:22So he's very much defending her legacy.

02:24But it's fair to say that for Russell Findlay,

02:27this is kind of prime ground for him.

02:30Attacking Nicola Sturgeon, attacking Nicola Sturgeon's legacy

02:33is something that the Tories do a lot.

02:36So yeah, as expected, they went in on it today.

02:39Although, as I say, slightly strange

02:41to be discussing a former First Minister

02:42during First Minister's Questions.

02:44But the point that Russell Findlay, I think,

02:45was making that John Swinney has sort of continued

02:48a lot of what the Tories would say continued

02:51a lot of the agenda of Nicola Sturgeon.

02:54And in particular, Russell Findlay was asking them

02:56to step away from any further moves on gender.

03:00Out of interest was Sturgeon in the chamber

03:03to witness it at all?

03:05She was, she was in the chamber.

03:07The camera actually, interestingly,

03:08kept focusing on her face during these exchanges.

03:11And she was obviously trying to kind of laugh it off.

03:15I'm sure she's very used to attacks

03:17from the Scottish Conservative benches in Holyrood.

03:19So it's nothing new for her.

03:22Outside of that, Anas Sarwar brought up

03:26something quite different, but perhaps good territory,

03:29given what the UK government is pressing ahead with.

03:33Yeah, so Anas Sarwar was focusing on defence.

03:36This obviously comes in the back of the global climate

03:38we're seeing at the moment, the global instability,

03:41the aggression of Russia.

03:42And he was saying that Scottish government

03:44needs to reassess some of its red lines on defence.

03:48And in particular, he was focusing on things

03:50like the nuclear deterrent, the Trident nuclear deterrent,

03:53and bringing up comments that Ian Blackford,

03:55the former S&P Westminster leader made a few days ago,

03:58where he effectively advocated moving away

04:01from the traditional S&P position

04:05of unilateral nuclear disarmament instead,

04:09and saying that instead they should kind of focus

04:10on multilateral nuclear disarmament.

04:12So he's still arguing that Trident shouldn't be on the Clyde.

04:16He doesn't want Trident to be there.

04:17But effectively, he's saying that

04:19in the kind of global climate we face,

04:21you've got to change, you've got to adapt,

04:22you've got to move your policy.

04:25And it seems like a very slight shift,

04:27but it is a shift that he's arguing for.

04:28It was rejected by John Swinney,

04:30very much saying that there's no appetite

04:33within the S&P to change position on this.

04:35But Anas Sarwar was effectively saying

04:37that given the global climate,

04:38given some of the uncertainty,

04:40some of the concerns around the global situation,

04:44that the S&P should reassess some of this

04:46and really kind of rethink some of what Anas Sarwar said

04:51were the Scottish government's red lines.

04:54Yeah, it will be an interesting one to follow.

04:58Obviously, we've got the spring statement coming up

05:00in a couple of weeks as well,

05:03and that will set out just how the UK government

05:05is going to try to meet the defence targets

05:08around spending raised to a minimum of 2.5% of GDP as well.

05:14That could obviously have implications

05:16for the budget position for Scotland as well.

05:19Alistair, thanks for bringing us all the latest from FMQs,

05:22and thanks to everyone else for joining us.

05:24You can read a full wrap in tomorrow's paper

05:27and at the Scotsman website throughout today.

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