Scotland's political parties make final pitches for election votes

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[00:00:00]In just over 30 hours time, the polls will open in the Hollywood election.

[00:00:05][music] Between now and then, politicians will be flat out trying to win over undecided [music] voters. With us tonight for one last push, candidates from the six big parties. We have with us from the SNP, Mari McCallen, from the Scottish Conservatives, Megan Gallagher. From Scottish Labor, Paulo Kane from the Scottish Greens, Holly Bruce. from the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Renie, and from Reform UK Scotland, Angela Ross. Well, thanks all for joining us here tonight. We're in the final home stretch. So, let's quickly get round all of you. Why should voters vote for you? I'll start with you, Mari.

[00:00:44]Well, Both votes SMP on Thursday means that especially in these difficult times, you have a government that's always on Scotland's side. You have the strong uh reliable and experienced leadership of John Swinny as first minister. With a majority SMP government, we can take that hopeful prospect of an independence referendum forward and the fresh start of independence. And it has the added bonus, an SMP majority of making sure that Reform UK have no power in Scotland. Okay, let's hear from Megan.

[00:01:12]>> Thank you. This election is on a knife edge. We could end up on Friday with an SMP majority that will push for one thing and one thing only and that's Scottish independence. So what we are saying to voters right up and down the country is to use your vote wisely and to use the smart vote to vote Scottish Conservative on your peach ballot paper to stop an SMP majority. But one of our other key messages is that we want to put more money back into the pockets of hardworking Scots. And we've got plans across the credible manifesto that will help with the cost of living by putting more money into their pockets. Paul, >> well on Thursday, people have the opportunity to vote for change for the first time in Scotland for almost 20 years. We've had 20 years of an SNP government. On Thursday, people can choose to fix a mess, to get the basics right, and really focus on what matters.

[00:02:06]And the leadership of Anna Sarwir can show that we can do things differently in this country. And for me that's about fixing the problems in our schools. We know that violence is on the rise. Uh fixing the problems in our NHS. We know that people are waiting too long and putting more police on our street crucially. But the choice on Thursday is clear. Do you want to have a third decade of John Swinny in the S&P or do you want change with Anna Sarwar and Scottish Labor?

[00:02:29]>> Okay, let's get hear from you Holie.

[00:02:31]>> Well, we know the era of stale performative politics is over and it's time for something real from our politicians. Um, the Scottish Greens, you can vote for them everywhere in Scotland. We're asking people to demand better from their politicians. We want to reduce the cost of living. We want to ensure people have human rights here in Scotland. And we want to tackle the climate crisis.

[00:02:53]>> Now, Willie, why vote for you?

[00:02:54]>> For the Liberal Democrats, Scotland's a great country, but now for many people, it feels really tough. It's a hard time.

[00:03:00]The cost of living, the NHS waiting times. There's lots of things that need to be fixed. And Liberal Democrats have got a costly plan to make that happen.

[00:03:08]And we want change, but change that's got fairness at its heart. And you can elect a Liberal Democrat across the country, no matter where you live, including in the 10 target constituencies that we are working on.

[00:03:21]The Liberal Democrats are growing in this campaign. The more and more people are joining our campaign. And if you want a Liberal Democrat that delivers change with fairness at its heart, then you can vote for it.

[00:03:33]>> Angela, >> so we want both votes reform. We've had two decades of absolute failure with the SMP government and Westminster is no better. Now, we are a party that's grassroots. We've grown uh tremendously over the last couple of years. We are real people. We have 80% of our candidates have not been politicians before. That includes myself. And we're fed up. We're fed up without having the money in our pockets to pay for things.

[00:04:01]We've got expensive bills. We've got high um food prices. is we haven't got the energy security, the food security that we deserve as people trying to get by working hard in this country. And we propose to grow the economy to to get it back as a an engine of power to en ensure that people have that money in their pockets and they have that choice and autonomy and control.

[00:04:26]>> Okay. Well, I think most of you mentioned cost of living. So, let's start with that. Is something which is on a lot of Scots minds. What's your big idea to help Scots, Mari?

[00:04:37]>> Well, first thing is to retain what the SMPP's already delivered for people. So, when you talk to whoever you are throughout Scotland, you can identify SMP policies that are already helping you in your pocket. Whether that is free prescriptions when they're about over 9 per item elsewhere in the UK, whether that's allowing our children to go to university with with funded education.

[00:04:57]I'll give you three uh examples of what we're proposing. Firstly, a two pound uh bus cap fair. We've already delivered free bus travel for under 22s, over 60s and disabled Scots. We're going to make a a cap of two pounds for everybody else. We're going to take on the next uh stage in massively expanding child care.

[00:05:15]Went from about 600 hours of funded child care to about 1140 under the S&P.

[00:05:19]We want to take it to the next level now and make it 9 months to primary 7. And the final example I would give you from our manifesto is a recognition that food prices have gotten completely out of control. Well, we want a statutory cap on the price of essential and nutritious goods so that Scots can afford to feed their families a nutritious meal.

[00:05:38]>> Okay. So, a cap on food prices. We all know how expensive food is. What do you think, Megan? Would that would that help?

[00:05:45]>> Well, is it doable? Because it's already been put out there that this policy actually might not come into fruition.

[00:05:52]And this is the problem with the SNP.

[00:05:54]It's election gimmick after election gimmick, broken promise after broken promise. They promised to expand child care from nine months onwards back in 2023. It didn't happen. So, you'll have to forgive me that I don't have much confidence in the SMP trying to fulfill that policy now when they didn't back then. But on the cost of living itself, we need to look at putting money back into people's pockets to help with bills, to help with the the cost of the food shop. And that's what the Scottish Conservatives will do because we know that by putting more money into people's pockets through tax cuts, that means that people will have their own autonomy to decide what to do with their money instead of giving it to an SMP government who will squander it.

[00:06:36]>> When it when it comes to the Conservatives, I mean, whether it's the de over the decade of austerity that you imposed on us, the Brexit that absolutely ransacked our economy or Liz Trust crashing the economy, I don't think that you've really got a leg to stand on when it when it comes to that, Megan. But you know what I find interesting? People expect their governments to be able to make interventions when they can't afford food. All the other parties want to do is stop talk about stopping us. We want to deliver for people.

[00:07:01]>> Okay, let's hear from some more of you here. Willie, what's your big idea? How you going to help Scots who are struggling?

[00:07:06]>> So, the first and foremost thing is we need to get the economy moving because the economy is incredibly sluggish just now. The S&P record on that has been very, very poor and I think they even recognize that themselves. And in order to do that, we need to make sure we get house building moving. We need to reform the planning system. But then also to help people, we need to expand child care, but child care for working families to incentivize work, to make sure that they can cut the cost of actually going to work. So that's another important area. But the final bit is we need to work together with the UK government to link to sorry to break the link between renewables and gas prices. And if we can do that, then we've got a chance of getting the real benefits of the renewables expansion that we're seeing within Scotland. Those are the kind of positive pragmatic proposals that Liberal Democrats have got. We want to work to make this parliament deliver because there's far too much arguments going on as we've heard already today. What we need to do is focus on solutions.

[00:08:08]>> Angela, what do you make?

[00:08:09]>> I mean, I agree. I agree about the arguments. I think watching politicians and actions over over the years I've kind of seen the arguments the you know the theatrics that are used and it's very disheartening when you're out there and your main focus is I haven't got enough money to buy food and when I walk around the supermarkets and I see you know families struggling and they're looking at the discount you know aisle I I just I find that this is modern Scotland we should be progressive in the true sense of the word progressive we should be evolving and we should So how would you tackle it then? How would you tackle?

[00:08:42]>> So we'd use the levers that are at our disposal. So we'd be looking at reducing income tax. So at the moment we had a 4% increase for teachers in their pay and actually half more than half of that comes off in income tax and NI. I know NI is not our remitt but income tax is and that's a huge amount of money that comes off uh a pay increase like that.

[00:09:05]So it's given with one hand and taken away with the other. What do you say to that, Willie?

[00:09:10]>> I mean, I don't I mean, what we need to make sure is because we've got a 5 billion pound public finance deficit coming to that >> and and therefore everything we do needs to be fully costed and we need to be careful with the public finance because we have seen what happens when we don't do that. And my fear is that some of the parties are coming forward with packages that aren't recognized in the reality.

[00:09:34]Therefore, I come back to my central point. Growing the economy is the most important thing that this parliament has got to do in the next 5 years. And if we can grow the economy, of course, then we can look for other opportunities to give people support. But the most important thing we do, we need to get this moving.

[00:09:52]I really do fear that if we've got so many people, one in four to one in five of the working age population are economically inactive on top of those who are unemployed. That's a huge number. So, we need to deal with it.

[00:10:04]>> Okay. What do you think of that, Paul?

[00:10:05]What would your party do?

[00:10:06]>> Well, well, look, there's an immediate crisis right now in terms of the situation in Iran. And if that illegal action that we've seen taken by the United States and others continues, there needs to be an immediate package from government. That's why we've spoken about£100 million being invested by a Scottish government into things like loans and grants to support people with household fuel, potentially looking at supporting businesses, and looking at things like bulk buying of fuel.

[00:10:28]Something we also said is that you need to get the supermarkets around the table to to talk about food prices. What I don't think you should do is have this sort of gimmick of we will legislate to cap food prices. Something that probably wouldn't happen for a number of years because the crisis is right now. It's immediate and I think actually John himself has had to backtrack and say that actually that's that's what he was talking about.

[00:10:47]>> He hasn't had to backtrack. We intend to bring legislation forward very quickly if we are reelected.

[00:10:52]>> And how long will it take but how long will it take to a draft the bill and legislate for it? And then so when are the prices going to come down in the supermarket?

[00:10:57]>> I think in a previous um debate your leader Anna Sar said he would convene the supermarkets. We're talking about legislating. We are taking >> How long? No. How long is that going to take? Because the thing is convenience supermarkets, that's what happened in co during the co crisis. We brought supermarkets together and people were able to talk about not price gouging, making sure availability of products. I mean, you are literally having to defend a position where people are saying, will there be an availability of bread and milk? I mean, that is ridiculous.

[00:11:22]>> We are talking about a very discreet uh intervention to support households to buy nutrition and Scottish labor are trying to stop that. That tells you everything that you need to know about labor. We've not heard from the Greens yet on this. What do you think?

[00:11:37]>> Thank you very much. So, in order to tackle the cost of living crisis, we do need to lower household bills. That should be our priority. Um, within um the last parliament, the Scottish Greens pushed the S&P to deliver the free bus travel for under 22s. We want to go a step further and expand that to everyone in Scotland. Um, we know that places like Glasgow, we have some of the highest bus fairs in the whole of Scotland and that would do wonders for people's pockets. Secondly, we also want to expand child care, similarly to the S&P, but we want to go one step further from the age of six months. We know that a lot of families struggle with the cost of child care. It can cost up to a thousand pounds per month for um to put your child into care. And we think that will do great for getting women back into work and but we also don't want to make it means tested like the Liberal Democrats do. We want to extend it to all families and make it universal. And in terms of energy bills, we know that Scotland unfortunately doesn't have the power to um to um decide what those prices or to dictate the market. But what we can do is invest in renewable energy.

[00:12:45]>> Okay, look, Willie mentioned it earlier the5 billion pound black hole. You know, economic experts are warning that the Scottish government budget faces a5 billion pounds black hole by the end of the decade. Are any of you being realistic about the state of the nation's finances when you're talking about all your policies?

[00:13:04]>> Yes. Yes, we are. And we've already outlined how we'd be looking to close that. we would look at the ballooning benefits bill that we're seeing in this country under years of an SMP government. We need to have difficult discussions but honest discussions with the public around the soaring costs of benefits in our country and that's one of the ways that we can look to plug this black hole. But I think Willie raised a really good point. It's about growing the economy. It's about getting our house building moving. It's about making sure that people feel economically active as opposed to inactive.

[00:13:40]>> Okay. Paul, will you say that?

[00:13:41]>> Well, look, the IFS has looked at all of the manifestos and uh their commentary on the Scottish Labor Manifesto was that there's a lot of realistic uh policies and proposals in there that can be paid for. I think the problem we've got in this election though is we're hearing assertion after assertion from, for example, the S&P and the Greens about we're just going to have child care from zero to primary 7. But I've not seen any credible plan or costed plan about how that will be rolled out. What Scottish Labor have done is said, "Here's something we actually could do," which is £3,000 of extra tax-free child care, something that would allow parents to choose their tax where they get their child care >> for working families.

[00:14:14]>> Well, but well, which is really important actually because what you have at the moment is we have um free child care at 1140 hours for, for example, 2-year-olds, but there's not been a proper analysis done of that of the impact that's having on supporting parents to get back into work to giving them the support needed. What we would also do is expand the shore start model which has worked really well over many many years to reduce poverty and to support families. That's where I would want to invest money to make sure that we're getting it right for everyone.

[00:14:38]>> You've gone big as well on this um the black hole. Are you being honest with the public?

[00:14:46]>> Cuts will be required.

[00:14:48]>> Well, look, our um we have balanced our budget every single year that we have been in government. John Swinny, who's the first minister, was the finance secretary for many years. He knows a thing or two about balancing our budgets. Um, and we will we will continue to do that. But clearly we need to and we have included in our manifesto a suite of public sector reforms that we need to undertake in Scotland to make our public services work more efficiently and there is there is cash to be saved there undoubtedly. But the thing is cuts are coming for 19 years.

[00:15:18]>> Yeah. One at a time. One at a time. I was just about to come on to when reform and when the conservatives are talking about either cutting income tax or cutting uh social security support presumably from children or disabled people. I don't know Megan will need to speak to that. What we believe is that you can adopt a progressive taxation approach which we have done. We've raised um about an additional 1.8 billion pounds rather than if we had followed the the UK's model and that has allowed us to invest in policies that are making life better for people in Scotland. find your way to prosperity.

[00:15:49]And the issue that we've got is that the benefits bill will reach 10 billion by the end of this decade. How are you going to plug that?

[00:15:56]>> Well, look, I believe that social security is an investment in our people.

[00:15:59]Not only is it the right thing to alleviate children from the sticky tar like pain of poverty, but it's also an investment in your future workforce because those people grow up healthier, better educated, and more able to contribute to your economy.

[00:16:10]>> Look, let's bring in reform. We've not heard from you.

[00:16:12]>> I was going to say the present situation is unsustainable. There is an accounting gap. So there is a difference between tax revenue in this country is 87.3 billion and then public spend is 117.5 billion. There's a 30 billion accounting gap which is covered by the block grant and that takes away things like the apprenticeship levy which is lost because you haven't ring fenced it and you can't use that in colleges. So you have a deficit which is there it's unsustainable. You wouldn't get into Europe because that's 12% of GDP. I'm sorry. There are absolutely no fiscal requirements for joining the EU. What you're talking about is the exchange rate mechanism.

[00:16:50]>> Right. Well, there is a requirement.

[00:16:51]>> We're going to have to move on soon to our next topic. We've got so much to squeeze in tonight.

[00:16:56]>> Health. It's a big issue on voters minds.

[00:17:00]What's your big idea to help our health service?

[00:17:04]>> So, it's the foundations of the NHS that need reform.

[00:17:08]The big demands now are through neurode divergence, mental health and primary care as well as social care and all of those have been neglected for a large number of years. Now it requires proper pathways for neurode divergence that don't exist in many parts of the country so that people can have an early discussion using the Royal College of Psychiatrist four- stage method. Then you can have an early discussion just like you can with mental health. then we can make sure that you don't have to wait to see a consultant so you can take away that blockage. If we can do that, we can take an awful lot of the mental health issues away from E&E and the other emergency services. But on social care, social >> things we need to get around to everybody out of fairness.

[00:17:52]>> I know I am, but social, this is fundamentally important. Social care, unless we get that right, we're going to have the system blocked up throughout the system all the way through to A&E.

[00:18:03]So therefore we need to pay social care workers properly and we need to expand the social care system.

[00:18:10]>> What about you? What would you do for health?

[00:18:13]>> So we know that our waiting lists are over thousands and thousands um long and we want to invest money within GPS and we also want to boost the number of nurses within our NHS. We also know that we need um to tackle the mental health crisis as well has already pointed out and we want to roll out mental health practitioners within GP clinic so people can access that care um as soon as possible. Um to speak about social care as well and I did stand with striking workers outside blue triangle in Glasgow with unison to champion a better pay deal for social care workers. We are committing to a minimum of 15 pounds per hour for the third for the public and for the private sector.

[00:18:55]>> Why did you not do it when you were in government, Holly?

[00:18:57]>> So the Greens were in government with the S&P and we called for £15 an hour consistently at the beginning of the parliament and the Greens didn't didn't advocate for it or deliver it.

[00:19:06]>> Well, we're considering that now.

[00:19:09]>> Okay.

[00:19:09]>> Only done it when you're in government.

[00:19:11]>> Let's ask you, Megan, hit me with your big idea for health. It is a big issue for our voters.

[00:19:16]>> Absolutely. So there's there's two things that we we need to do. We would implement a frontline first guarantee.

[00:19:23]We want to make sure that frontline services are well catered for because we know that that's where there's the immense pressure right now within our NHS. There's been years and years of pouring money into our NHS with very little results in the end. So we need to look at the way that we fund the NHS. We also need to look at the number of GPS, number of nurses, frontline staff that we have and make sure that they can meet the demand of patients that they're aiming to see. But we also need to tackle the AAM rush. That's something that has been spoken about many times across this election campaign. And what we would also seek to do is make sure that we have a GP a guarantee of a GP appointment within 40 48 hours by the end of the parliamentary session. We need to get GP waiting times down so people can get to frontline services and be able to be seen quicker.

[00:20:13]>> You want to get um GP clinics opened and you want to reduce waiting times. What do you make?

[00:20:19]>> Well, look, I think first of all, fundamentally, I'm very wary of people who talk about fundamental reform of our NHS of burn it to the ground and start again. We cannot do that. It's our most precious institution. And with the SNP, we will never dabble with privatization and we will always stand by the founding principles of free at the point of need.

[00:20:37]But a couple of big ideas. Well, we promised to begin rolling out GP walk-in clinics in our communities in Scotland.

[00:20:44]They are now being rolled out. And what that means is it's just a novel way of accessing GP care which can suit around people's lives better and relieve a bit of pressure in our communities. The other novel idea is shifting the balance of care into the community. And many watchers tonight might have already experienced hospital at home. Very soon, hospital at home will be the biggest hospital ward in Scotland. And it's allowing people to be treated in their homes where they're comfortable, keeping them out of hospital if they don't need to be there. So with GP walk-in clinics, we're helping people to get intoos into treatment in the NHS more easily and out of treatment more easily because the care in the middle is excellent and we should thank our NHS workers for that.

[00:21:21]What do you think about that, Paul?

[00:21:22]Well, the NHS is Labor's proudest achievement and it should always be free at the point of need, but it doesn't mean it's not in need of reform. And actually, doctors and nurses and their hardworking staff will tell you that.

[00:21:31]And the S&P have had 19 years and the big idea now is to roll out GP walk-in clinics that have been, I think, roundly panned by medical professionals as as not going to deliver the change that you just want to stop. You're just standing in the way of progress in Scotland.

[00:21:44]Typical Scottish labor.

[00:21:45]>> I standing from someone who doesn't think that we should reform health boards and doesn't think we should have any reform in the NHS. We've got too many health boards. there's too much middle management. Again, professionals will tell you that. So, we're going to reduce the number of health boards, cut out the bureaucracy. What that'll allow us to do is speak to many of the issues we're already hearing tonight, end the ATM rush, get the family doctor back, um, look at how we structure those GP surgeries and support our GPS. But I think even more fundamentally than that is we're going to have to really work on social care and ensure that we improve paying conditions. As I've said already, that £15 an hour is a minimum for social care workers. But also, we should do things that the S&P said they would do a long time ago, like getting rid of non-residential care charges for people with disabilities. We could do that pretty quickly.

[00:22:24]>> Well, look, we need to get around all of you as well, Angela.

[00:22:28]>> Yep. Give me your idea.

[00:22:29]>> Well, we've got 93% of the public saying we need to change the NHS somehow, and we've got 840,000 people waiting for some form of treatment or surgery, which is unacceptable, especially in a country of our size.

[00:22:44]um they've had walk-in clinics in England for 20 odd years. So, it's not very novel. Uh what we need to do is look at things like frontline access.

[00:22:54]So, that's where people will come into the NHS through our GPS. And we do have the issues we've talked about with the AM rush. But more than that, we've got highly qualified GPS, medically trained for numbers of years, nurses, medically trained, and they are doing nothing more than admin access work in the mornings.

[00:23:14]You know, that takes them all day just on the phone triaging. We need to change that. It's about changing the structure.

[00:23:20]It's about changing that bloated middle management that came in in the '9s and putting that money into frontline services. Okay, I'm sure we could talk about it much longer, but we do need to move on. Recent Hollywood elections have really been sort of dominated by the constitutional issue. This one perhaps less so, but John Swinny did set out his target of getting a majority so that he says that would be a mandate for another independence referendum. Do you think that'll happen?

[00:23:49]>> I hope it will. We're not complacent.

[00:23:51]You know, we are every single majority.

[00:23:53]>> I hope we will. All I can say, >> you confident? I'm confident we have the opportunity to do it, but it will require everybody who wants to break the impass that we're in in this country to have the opportunity of using our energy well for our people to rejoin the EU.

[00:24:06]Everybody who wants that will need to come out and make it both votes S&P on Thursday. If they do that, we absolutely can get a majority that will replicate the precedent that was set in 2011 and we can go onwards to independence.

[00:24:18]>> But what if Westminster says no actually?

[00:24:20]>> Well, I don't accept that they will. I mean, first of all, I don't think that Ker Starha will be the prime minister if we win a majority. So, um, that particular obstacle will go out the way.

[00:24:31]But look, what what we're proposing here is that in an unwritten constitution like the UK, a legal and political precedent was set in 2011. All we're proposing is that should be respected.

[00:24:41]If the opposite case is put to us, and if we accept the opposite case, it says that the whole democratic well of the nation of Scotland can be ignored on a whim. That would mean the UK was no longer a democracy and that would be a very very troubling prospect indeed.

[00:24:56]>> No longer a democracy. You mentioned opposing a referendum in your very first answer. What do you make to what Maddie said?

[00:25:03]>> This is why people need to get out and vote and use their votes to vote for the Scottish Conservative in key seats and on the Peach ballot paper right up and down the country because we don't want another 5 years of the SNP talking about their one and only priority which is independence. And this is why we're seeing public services failing because the S SNP have got one obsession and one obsession only. And that's the reality of this election. That's why it really is important that people engage with the election itself. And if you don't want to see another independence referendum being touted in the Scottish Parliament, then use your votes and vote for the party that will always stand against it.

[00:25:42]>> Let's get your views.

[00:25:44]>> It's just really boring.

[00:25:46]>> Really boring. Majority of people have had enough of this and on about the same issue and actually when I'm on the doors and I'm sure if Mari was honest she would find this as well is that people are not talking about this what they're talking about >> what's just let me finish they're talking about the cost of living the fact they can't get a house they're overcrowded they've got damp in their house the fact that they can't get a proper paid job >> and can we solve that in a broken UK economic model >> no we can't you hold on. I'm trying to explain why people are bored endlessly with the repeated calls for another referendum when we've already decided this. It wasn't that long ago we decided this. I think they want a parliament and that's why this campaign for many people they've switched off because they're just talking about the same things over and over again. What we need to do is focus on the things that people really care about. They want their lives improved and it's about time this >> parody. Are people talking about independence, Holly?

[00:26:44]>> Absolutely. I mean, a vote for the Scottish Greens is a vote for independence. Um, full disclosure, I voted no back in 2014. Um, I lived up in Aberdine at that time and since then, I've changed my mind. We've seen Brexit, we've seen Trump's America, we've seen cost of living crisis, austerity from Tory governments, and people are feeling that and changing their minds and I'm seeing that on the doors. Um, and I believe that we can become an [clears throat] independent country if we elect a pro-independence majority.

[00:27:13]What are you getting on the doors, Paul?

[00:27:15]Look, >> I'm getting the NHS. I'm getting the violence in our independence. I'm getting violence in our classrooms. I'm getting the condition of our local streets. Um, no, I mean, independence, you know, I might disagree with people on the end destination for Scotland. Um, but what I'm saying to people is we have a chance for change in this election.

[00:27:30]We've had almost 20 years of the SNP running our services and I don't think things are getting better. And I think many, many people I talked to in the doors are saying the same thing. So, they're not preoccupied by independence in this election. They want things to get better using the all the powers of our devolved parliament to move that forward and I think that's what the focus has to be not these these arguments which um seem to take up so much time.

[00:27:51]>> Are you finding it's a big issue?

[00:27:52]>> Not on the doors. No. Uh the cost of living is the biggest issue and I think when the last referendum cost 14 million and a predicted cost of 20 million for the next. I don't think that's where we should be spending taxpayers money. I think we should be looking at growing our economy. I think we should be looking at leading in the UK, not leaving the UK. We've got problems at the moment, education. We've got problems with our attainment. We've got England outperforming us in maths, in reading, and in science. We need to sort this country out. We need to grow our economy. We need to sort out our health.

[00:28:25]We need to sort out our education.

[00:28:27]That's where we should be fixing all of our attention, not on independence.

[00:28:32]>> Okay. Okay. Well, look, another big issue to this election is just voter disengagement. There just doesn't seem to be that enthusiasm for this election.

[00:28:42]Are you picking up that when you're out and about? Who's to blame? Who's to blame?

[00:28:46]>> Picking up a bit.

[00:28:47]>> Picking up a bit of it certainly.

[00:28:49]Although I do think we've got a highly educated political um population in Scotland. I think what has really put people off politics is that they watched for years as we were taken through austerity by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives when we went into Brexit that we didn't vote for. People felt powerless when that happened to us. They asked themselves, "How do I change anything if I vote to stay in the EU and I'm dragged out?"

[00:29:13]Regardless, they watched the farce around the delivery of Brexit. They watched Liz Trust crash the economy and then they thought Labor might be different. And all Labor has done is demonstrate that nothing changes at West.

[00:29:24]>> Is that to blame, Megan?

[00:29:26]>> Well, look, there has been voter disengagement for quite some time. And you know, as Scottish Conservatives, we've held our hands up. We made mistakes when we were in government.

[00:29:37]We've learned from those mistakes. We are trying to earn the trust back of voters right up and down the country.

[00:29:44]And that's what we've been focused on since the campaign started. And that's why I'm really proud not just to be standing as a Scottish Conservative, but also the manifesto pledges that we've put forward because we want the next government to focus on the priorities of the people of Scotland. We don't want the next government to talk about independence for the next 5 years. But what we've heard, you know, from Mari is that there's some utopia in Scotland.

[00:30:10]There's not not under 80 years of failure.

[00:30:12]>> Let's get round to all voters just not enthused by anything.

[00:30:16]>> I think folk are a bit scared. I think they look at the international situation in the world and wonder how they can influence change in their own corner. I think that's true. But, you know, I have to say to Mari that she can't sit there and look at 19 years of an S&P government and not take some of the blame, particularly when, you know, in 2021 young people were promised bikes and iPads and that didn't come to fruition and we're now been promised a school bag with a 6 million pound price ticket. No wonder people feel totally thr.

[00:30:41]>> We've only got a short time left so we need to get round to everybody else.

[00:30:45]Yeah, there's lots of free gimmicks going on. I think people see through that. They are hardworking, creative people in Scotland. We've come up with so many um in in brilliant and in intuitive and uh creative um uh entrepreneur entrepreneurial kind of skills and things like that. We've come up with so many inventions as a people and we deserve a lot better. We deserve a government that represents the people.

[00:31:09]Donald Dur wanted a government that represented all the priorities of the people. We don't have that now. And the and the worry is turnout could be affected. Very briefly, Willie, what's your thought?

[00:31:18]>> Well, I'm actually very optimistic about the chances of Liberal Democrats in this campaign. Our support is growing and every part of the country, every part of the country, people are looking to Liberal Democrats for change, but change that is fair. And that's why we are going to grow in this election campaign and we're going to be a much bigger force in the Scottish Parliament.

[00:31:36]>> And how about you, Holly?

[00:31:37]>> Well, people are sick of the status quo.

[00:31:39]They're looking for politicians that are ordinary, normal people that will represent their interests and represent their community. And that's what I will do as an MSP. Um, and I believe that people here are actually energized around this campaign. I'm seeing people out on the streets for the first time canvasing in their neighborhoods because they care about change happening in them.

[00:32:01]>> Okay. Well, look, we're almost out of time. You think you're all going to do well on Thursday?

[00:32:04]>> 100%.

[00:32:05]>> Absolutely.

[00:32:06]>> Positivity here. No scunner factor here tonight. [laughter]