Lorna Slater will stand for leadership and selection

Edinburgh Reporter

13 hours ago

In just under a year's time the Scottish Parliamentary election will have decided who will be running the government for the following five years.
As is the way of the polls there are some showing that Labour will win, and others that the SNP will win. The proportional representation by which MSPs are elected is not supposed to return a majority government – it happened only once, unusually, with the SNP under Alex Salmond in 2011. Labour won most seats and most votes in 1999 and 2003 but no overall majority.
In 2021 the SNP was one short of a majority (there are 129 seats so the majority is 65). In an effort to do business more easily, then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, entered into the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens and Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, the co-conveners of the party became government ministers.
Now that there is one year before the election Lorna Slater said that her party offers the 'real, hopeful' and 'transformative' change that Scotland needs.
We met with Ms Slater on the day when the programme for government was about to be announced by John Swinney the First Minister. She did not believe it would bring many changes, but was proved wrong on one policy – the scrapping of peak rail fares.
However the Scottish Greens later responded to the announcement to say that while very welcome and a 'huge win for commuters and climate' the policy change amounted to a U-turn by the government. They also pointed out that this policy was 'initially secured by the Scottish Greens through budget negotiations in 2023 before it was then dropped by the SNP who said the numbers did not stack up to allow them to continue supporting it'.
Ahead of the Programme for Government Ms Slater – who hopes to be selected to stand as Green candidate next year, and who hopes to continue as co-leader after an internal election in the summer, said: 'I don't think there'll be any new news. I think it will absolutely be a holding pattern. They don't have a plan for bringing down people's bills, because that would involve having an ambitious heat and buildings bill to insulate homes and improve the grant system and really roll out that programme.
'I think that they're going to kind of curl in on themselves and be unambitious because they're worried about doing anything ambitious before an election.'
Out of government
Asked if she misses being in government Ms Slater said: 'I really miss the ambitious positive energy we have because we had some really good, ambitious things going, and all the bills that have come out since we've been in government without our influence have been gutted.
'Natural Environment Bill, gutted, heat in buildings Bill, gutted, rent controls watered down. And it just goes to show that with the Greens in there, we were much more ambitious on taking practical action on climate, much more ambitious on tackling landlords, tackling polluting corporations, tackling the vested interests – and the SNP have a lot less interest in that. They have much more interest in keeping things as they are, sort of steadying the ship instead of making big change. And the Greens were about making that big change.'
As to the fallout from Scotland's deposit return scheme which has landed the government in court, being sued by Biffa for their expenses getting ready for legislation which did not materialise, she is matter of fact.
She said: 'The legislation for that was, of course, passed before I was elected. So in 2020 Scottish Parliament agreed that Scotland would have a deposit return scheme. So that already existed before I was in post, my role was to work with industry to implement that scheme. And that I did, we were weeks away from launching the scheme.
'We had nearly all the producers in Scotland lined up. I think it was 95% of the items that were on shelves in Scotland. The producers of those items had paid their money. They were part of the scheme and we had a workable scheme. It would absolutely have launched on time. It would have had maybe a bit of a rocky start, a bit of a phasing in period, but we absolutely would have launched on time.
'But then because Alister Jack (then Secretary of State for Scotland) interfered with it from February 2023 by putting doubts in the media, (and that was despite the fact that he had stood on Boris Johnson's manifesto to implement a deposit return scheme with with glass), he was able to use the internal market act to veto the scheme.
'Alister Jack never gave any justification or basis for that interference. We asked repeatedly why he didn't want glass in the scheme. He never produced any evidence for that. So that was purely political interference in terms of the scheme itself.'
At the time in April 2023 the Scottish Greens called for an investigation into the comments Mr Jack made, saying he had misled the House of Commons.
Ms Slater said that this particular interference shows how the Internal Market Act has been used to 'stifle devolution'. She said: ' The deposit return scheme was a fully devolved matter, protecting the environment, recycling schemes – all fully devolved. That the internal market act can be used to undermine Scotland's ambitions and to harm Scottish businesses is a shocking state of affairs.'
Under the still relatively new UK government administration she still holds the view that devolution is under threat.
She said: 'It's an interesting question about how the Labour government is going to treat this. I have noted of course, that Wales is being allowed to continue forward with a deposit return scheme that has glass in it, even though that does interfere with the Internal market act. So why can't Scotland? Why does Wales get a free pass, and Scotland doesn't. So it isn't clear at all that Keir Starmer is changing direction. He hasn't said he will repeal or even revise the internal market act. So the status quo remains. It depends on the goodwill of individual ministers.'
One of the reasons that the Scottish Greens and the SNP made for a relatively easy marriage was over the question of independence on which they agree. Ms Slater said: 'I'm a proponent of Scottish independence, and that is the only way we can be sure to put in place plans and programs that we know won't be interfered with by the UK government.'
Whether or not I am selected as a candidate, the Scottish Greens will be standing on being a proudly progressive party of Scottish independence. Other parties, Labour, SNP, have conceded that left ground are moving toward the centre. They're allowing Reform to pull them in that rightward direction. You can see that with Labour, with its anti immigration policies, with its neglect of the social security net, the betrayal of the WASPI women, betrayal of disabled people, people who need benefits to live on – sick and disabled people.
'The Scottish Greens will not betray that ground. We are solidly behind equalities. We are absolutely trans rights supporters. We are absolutely in favour of ambitious work toward net zero. We are not going to give this ground. All of these things are really important to us. Human rights are important to us. A secure social safety net. Taxing the rich to pay for it is something we will we are not shy about saying, the rich for too long, have been under taxed. Have increased their wealth enormously well the poorest suffer. We have hungry children in this country. We also have billionaires. The Scottish Greens don't think that that's right, and that's the ground that we are going to contest the election.'
This then shows little change in any policy which the party has stood on before – and their numbers improved at the last election.
She continued: 'We are a party of values. We are a value led party. We believe in peace, equality, sustainability and human rights. Radical local democracy. We are not going to change our values, we believe that we set out a vision for a fairer, greener, independent Scotland, and it's how effectively we can persuade people that we have the power to implement such a vision, that it is possible that the future can be brilliant. We just have to decide to make it so.
Constituency
As to her constituents in Lothians they tell the stories of poverty and lack of benefits that are heard all too often.
Ms Slater said that at the top of people's minds is their 'quality of life, and that includes everything from being able to pay their rent, being able to find housing in Edinburgh to anti social behaviour, whether it's in Portobello or Corstorphine. And people are experiencing anti social, social behaviour in the streets, all the usual troubles that go with having an NHS and care system industry and people being able to find places for loved ones in care homes people being able to get medical procedures in a timely manner.
'All those things are, of course, what people are concerned with. We also get a reasonable amount of case work because of decisions of the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Those are decisions that are not taken it at the Scottish level, but we work with constituents who are, you know, facing exorbitant fees, deportation, uncertainty in their visa status because of paperwork problems, those are all the kind of things we can support people with.'
But there is at least one small chink of light. Asked if it is easier to work with the UK Government under Labour she concedes it is 'slightly easier, yes it is slightly easier. The Conservative government was extremely hostile to Scottish interests. Some of their MPs wouldn't take, correspondence from MSPs, wouldn't help our constituents if they went through an MSP – so they had to always go through an MP.
'I think things are definitely more cooperative, but it doesn't solve the problem that so much of what we need to do we can't help people with because it has to go to London, because it's not devolved.
'And every single day we come across things, Oh, can we help with this? No, it's not devolved. If only Scotland were an independent country, we could take action these things, and that is frustrating every single day.'
Lorna Slater MSP
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