Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 13 2025
The Scotsman
Follow
13/03/2025
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 13 2025
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show.
00:02
We're here to unwrap and unpick First Minister's questions
00:08
for another week.
00:09
Alistair, you're coming to us from Holyrood.
00:13
This came 24 hours after Nicola Sturgeon
00:15
announced that she wasn't standing at next year's
00:18
Scottish elections.
00:19
And perhaps unsurprisingly, she was brought up at FMQs today.
00:24
Yeah, it's no surprise that Scottish Conservative leader
00:26
Russell Findlay brought up Nicola Sturgeon,
00:28
although it's slightly strange for it
00:32
to be First Minister's questions and for the first section
00:35
of it to be dominated by a former First Minister,
00:37
Nicola Sturgeon, who, of course, stood down in 2023.
00:41
But yesterday, she announced that she wasn't going
00:43
to stand again as an MSP in next year's Holyrood election.
00:47
That was obviously a huge story.
00:49
Russell Findlay today very much attacking her legacy
00:51
as First Minister, attacking the decisions
00:53
that she took when she was in power,
00:55
and in particular, bringing up the controversy
00:58
over her gender reform legislation.
01:01
And this was legislation that Nicola Sturgeon
01:04
introduced as First Minister, aimed
01:06
to make the process of trans people changing
01:08
their legally recognised sex easier.
01:10
It was subsequently blocked by the UK government.
01:12
People might remember there was a massive feud
01:14
over this.
01:15
But despite the fact it was blocked,
01:18
I think the debate around this in Holyrood
01:20
and the wider debate around the issue of self-ID,
01:23
people being able to self-identify their gender,
01:26
it proved to be extremely contentious
01:28
and led to wider repercussions across society.
01:34
Today, Russell Findlay accusing her
01:35
of pursuing a toxic agenda, he called it,
01:38
that trampled on women's rights, very much saying
01:42
that she had basically become obsessed with,
01:45
this is his language, obsessed with gender policies
01:48
to the detriment of actually stewarding Scotland's
01:51
public services and focusing on the things
01:53
that he says Scottish people would rather she focused on.
01:56
John Swinney, obviously her successor as First Minister,
02:00
very much defending her legacy and defending her achievements.
02:03
He was pointing to various things,
02:04
such as the fact that she had the first ever
02:07
gender-balanced cabinet, stood up against
02:10
the UK government's rape clause,
02:12
and also kind of introduced legislation
02:15
that made kind of psychological abuse
02:18
and domestic abuse situations against the law.
02:22
So he's very much defending her legacy.
02:24
But it's fair to say that for Russell Findlay,
02:27
this is kind of prime ground for him.
02:30
Attacking Nicola Sturgeon, attacking Nicola Sturgeon's legacy
02:33
is something that the Tories do a lot.
02:36
So yeah, as expected, they went in on it today.
02:39
Although, as I say, slightly strange
02:41
to be discussing a former First Minister
02:42
during First Minister's Questions.
02:44
But the point that Russell Findlay, I think,
02:45
was making that John Swinney has sort of continued
02:48
a lot of what the Tories would say continued
02:51
a lot of the agenda of Nicola Sturgeon.
02:54
And in particular, Russell Findlay was asking them
02:56
to step away from any further moves on gender.
03:00
Out of interest was Sturgeon in the chamber
03:03
to witness it at all?
03:05
She was, she was in the chamber.
03:07
The camera actually, interestingly,
03:08
kept focusing on her face during these exchanges.
03:11
And she was obviously trying to kind of laugh it off.
03:15
I'm sure she's very used to attacks
03:17
from the Scottish Conservative benches in Holyrood.
03:19
So it's nothing new for her.
03:22
Outside of that, Anas Sarwar brought up
03:26
something quite different, but perhaps good territory,
03:29
given what the UK government is pressing ahead with.
03:33
Yeah, so Anas Sarwar was focusing on defence.
03:36
This obviously comes in the back of the global climate
03:38
we're seeing at the moment, the global instability,
03:41
the aggression of Russia.
03:42
And he was saying that Scottish government
03:44
needs to reassess some of its red lines on defence.
03:48
And in particular, he was focusing on things
03:50
like the nuclear deterrent, the Trident nuclear deterrent,
03:53
and bringing up comments that Ian Blackford,
03:55
the former S&P Westminster leader made a few days ago,
03:58
where he effectively advocated moving away
04:01
from the traditional S&P position
04:05
of unilateral nuclear disarmament instead,
04:09
and saying that instead they should kind of focus
04:10
on multilateral nuclear disarmament.
04:12
So he's still arguing that Trident shouldn't be on the Clyde.
04:16
He doesn't want Trident to be there.
04:17
But effectively, he's saying that
04:19
in the kind of global climate we face,
04:21
you've got to change, you've got to adapt,
04:22
you've got to move your policy.
04:25
And it seems like a very slight shift,
04:27
but it is a shift that he's arguing for.
04:28
It was rejected by John Swinney,
04:30
very much saying that there's no appetite
04:33
within the S&P to change position on this.
04:35
But Anas Sarwar was effectively saying
04:37
that given the global climate,
04:38
given some of the uncertainty,
04:40
some of the concerns around the global situation,
04:44
that the S&P should reassess some of this
04:46
and really kind of rethink some of what Anas Sarwar said
04:51
were the Scottish government's red lines.
04:54
Yeah, it will be an interesting one to follow.
04:58
Obviously, we've got the spring statement coming up
05:00
in a couple of weeks as well,
05:03
and that will set out just how the UK government
05:05
is going to try to meet the defence targets
05:08
around spending raised to a minimum of 2.5% of GDP as well.
05:14
That could obviously have implications
05:16
for the budget position for Scotland as well.
05:19
Alistair, thanks for bringing us all the latest from FMQs,
05:22
and thanks to everyone else for joining us.
05:24
You can read a full wrap in tomorrow's paper
05:27
and at the Scotsman website throughout today.
Recommended
5:10
|
Up next
Scotsman Politics FMQs Roundup Thursday March 20 2025 #FMQs
The Scotsman
20/03/2025
8:16
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup for Thursday April 03 2025
The Scotsman
03/04/2025
4:58
Scotsman Politics: FMQs roundup Thursday November 21 2024
The Scotsman
21/11/2024
8:52
The Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday November 07 2024
The Scotsman
07/11/2024
7:52
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday January 09 2025
The Scotsman
09/01/2025
5:42
Scotsman Politics: FMQs roundup Thursday February 06 2025
The Scotsman
06/02/2025
8:29
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 06 2025 #FMQs
The Scotsman
06/03/2025
8:14
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday January 16 2025 #NHS
The Scotsman
16/01/2025
6:13
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Unpicked Thursday December 05 2024
The Scotsman
05/12/2024
7:36
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Unpicked Thursday February 20 2025 #FMQs
The Scotsman
20/02/2025
5:52
The Scotsman Politics Show: FMQs September 21 2023
The Scotsman
21/09/2023
7:37
Scotsman Politics: FMQs unpicked Thursday December 12 2024
The Scotsman
12/12/2024
8:33
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Unpicked Thursday December 19 2024
The Scotsman
19/12/2024
6:29
FMQs Roundup: Thursday May 08 2025 #FMQs
The Scotsman
08/05/2025
54:19
FMQs Roundup with The Scotsman politics team at the Scottish Parliament
The Scotsman
09/11/2023
8:33
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup for Thursday March 27 2025 #ChristinaMcKelvie
The Scotsman
27/03/2025
7:18
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup for Thursday February 27 2025 #FMQs
The Scotsman
27/02/2025
8:29
The Scotsman Bulletin for Wednesday March 19 2025 #Politics
The Scotsman
20/03/2025
8:26
Scotsman Politics: Dale and Alistair look at today's events at #FMQs
The Scotsman
05/06/2025
1:19
Nicola Sturgeon confirms section 30 order request to hold Scottish independence referendum | December 19 2019
The Scotsman
19/12/2019
8:29
FMQs unpicked: Thursday January 23 2025
The Scotsman
23/01/2025
8:06
The Scotsman Morning Bulletin Wednesday December 18th 2024#Politics
The Scotsman
18/12/2024
7:12
Scotsman Politics: FMQs Review - Thursday January 11 2024
The Scotsman
11/01/2024
5:46
The Scotsman Bulletin Friday May 03 2024 #Politics #TWTWTW
The Scotsman
03/05/2024
7:27
Scotsman Politics: FMQs unpicked with Dale and Alistair - Thursday November 28 2024
The Scotsman
28/11/2024