2. Presiding Officer,

“An independent Scotland will keep the pound because it is in everyone’s best interests, and to try and suggest otherwise flies in the face of the facts.”

That is what Nicola Sturgeon said in 2013. If it was true then, why is it not true now? [

Interruption

.]

The Presiding Officer:

Can we please have some quiet for the questions and the answers.

Let me share a quote with the chamber:

“People in Scotland need a strong party of labour that speaks for working-class people and working-class communities. And they are not doing that”.

Richard Leonard’s strategy is

“a recipe for failure.”

That was from Gary Smith of the GMB, on Scottish Labour. Perhaps it is about time that Scottish Labour stopped being a pale echo of the Scottish Conservatives and started standing up for Scotland as well.

I did not discern an answer in that, so let me ask another question.

Last night, the Scottish National Party Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy, Kate Forbes, told the BBC:

“The currency you use the day before independence will be the same currency you use the day after independence.”

However, under the First Minister’s plans, that is simply not true, is it? What Kate Forbes left out last night, and what the First Minister left out in her first answer, is that the SNP plans to use the pound without a central bank. It is the SNP’s very own no-deal exit, and it would mean building up substantial foreign exchange reserves. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Economy and Fair Work, Derek Mackay, could not tell this chamber yesterday afternoon how much that would cost, but the people of Scotland deserve an answer, so, this afternoon, can the First Minister provide us with an answer?

The First Minister:

The position of Labour and the Tories on these questions is utterly ridiculous. Remember that in 2014 they told us that an independent Scotland could not use sterling in a currency union. Now they tell us that we cannot use sterling without a currency union, and they tell us that we cannot have our own currency either. Scotland must be the only country in the entire world that could not have any currency—that is ridiculous and the people of Scotland know it.

Let me tell Richard Leonard exactly what the position will be in an independent Scotland. Until a democratically elected Scottish Parliament decides otherwise, we will use the pound, which is our currency just as it is the currency of other parts of the United Kingdom.

Richard Leonard is again asking questions about independence. I am happy to talk about independence any day, but people across Scotland are worried right now about Brexit. Yesterday, a member of his back benches told us that Richard Leonard is so desperate that he is trying to stop his own party conference openly debating Brexit. Will Richard Leonard join me now in calling not just for no deal to be ruled out, but for people to have a chance again to reject Brexit? Will he do that today?

Yes, I will—I said that on Tuesday afternoon.

The answer to the question that I asked is that £40 billion of foreign exchange reserves would be required, and that is before we look at the reserves needed to ensure bank deposits and before Derek Mackay’s austerity programme to halve the deficit in five years. That is not just a programme for austerity; it is a programme for turbo-charged austerity, at the very time when the people are crying out for investment.

That is not about the best interests of the people of Scotland, is it? It is only about the best interests of the SNP.

The First Minister:

If Scotland was independent right now, we would not be facing being taken out of the European Union against our will three weeks tomorrow. Right now, it is because Scotland is not independent that we have to put up with a Tory Government that we did not vote for. It is because Scotland is not independent that we face being ripped out of the EU against our will. Until Richard Leonard and Scottish Labour find it within themselves to stand up for Scotland instead of standing up for the continuation of Tory rule, the party will never recover in Scotland, and it will never deserve to recover in Scotland.

The Presiding Officer:

We have some constituency supplementary questions, the first of which is from Angus MacDonald.