Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 13 2025
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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.