Engagements

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 20 April 2017.

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The First Minister:

Like Ruth Davidson, I support whole-heartedly the commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product on helping the world’s poorest communities. It is something that the SNP argued for long before it was ever a Tory commitment.

I heard Bill Gates’s comment last night. I also heard him in a number of interviews, and I heard him express concern, as others have expressed, that the Tory manifesto for the forthcoming election will drop the 0.7 per cent commitment. I welcome Ruth Davidson’s commitment, but will she assure the chamber today that the commitment will be in the UK Tory manifesto for the next election? No Tory UK minister has yet been willing to give that.

On the wider issue of the election, I think that the key issue is: who is going to stand up for Scotland against an increasingly hardline Tory Government? The Prime Minister herself has made it very clear that in this election her objective is to crush dissent so that she can do whatever she wants. People across Scotland have to be clear: there is no safe tactical Tory vote at this election. We have seen the damage that Tories do with a small majority—[

Interruption

.] I know that they do not want to hear this, but with a small majority, the Tories have cut Scotland’s budget, have imposed the bedroom tax, the rape clause and cuts to disabled support and have robbed women of their pension entitlement. Let us think about the damage that a Tory Government could do with a bigger majority. If the thought of a one-party Tory stranglehold at Westminster horrifies, and if we want effective opposition in Scotland, that opposition can come only from the SNP.