Royal Society of Edinburgh: First Minister's speech - 27 November 2024

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

It is a great pleasure to be with you today, and I thank the Royal Society of Edinburgh for providing me with the opportunity to set out my aspirations in Government as we approach St Andrew’s Day. 

This esteemed building – the gathering place of the Royal Society of Edinburgh – is the perfect place to discuss the challenges that we face as a nation, and how we can best address them together.

Day in and day out, Fellows of the Royal Society share their expert knowledge and independent advice with policymakers, with the purpose of “growing, exploring, and sharing knowledge for a thriving Scotland.”

A precursor to Academies and Royal Societies was the Republic of Letters, which developed across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Long before emails and video conferencing, this vast network of correspondents shared knowledge and discovery through an endless number of letters and visits. 

Through all this correspondence and discussion, the Republic of Letters sped the advancement of the public good.

They developed deeper understandings of the problems of their day.  They found a shared approach to tackling those problems.  And they increased the speed of society’s advancement. 

I want to speak with you today about the shared approach that lay at the heart of that early communication.

Having recently marked six months in office as First Minister – and as we look towards the publication of our Budget next week – this feels like an ideal moment to set out my style of government.

Firstly, let me say that every day in office is an extraordinary privilege.

No two days are the same – some, not surprisingly, are more challenging than others – but every single day I meet inspirational people from all walks of life. People who are doing their bit to make their communities, their businesses or their country better today than it was yesterday.

When added together, those efforts form the engine of progress that is driving our country forward. For me, unlocking that potential is what government is all about. It is about creating the conditions for every person in Scotland to thrive.

And it means thinking carefully about what kind of country we seek to build.

I believe Scotland would best be served by a robust, resilient wellbeing economy. One that promotes economic and social equality, and decarbonises our communities. One that values the health and the happiness of its people, as much as their productivity.

So, when I accepted the role of First Minister, I stated there were four priorities behind which I would throw the whole weight of my Government:

• Eradicating child poverty
• Growing the economy
• Tackling the climate crisis
• Improving public services

I chose these priorities carefully. Clearly, they are not mutually exclusive. And taken together, delivering on them puts Scotland on a path to a sustainable and prosperous future for all.

But I also recognise that government cannot do this alone.

So rather, I favour an approach much like the correspondents in the Republic of Letters long ago, and much like the universities and research institutions of today. 

Scotland is best served when we collaborate, when we build consensus and work together across sectors, across disciplines and across cultures.

The need to do so has never been more urgent. For the issues we are now facing are complex, pervasive and entrenched. 

And they are mounting. 

In these last seven years, we have seen global challenges stacked upon global challenges. From Brexit and Covid, to international conflicts, economic crises and climate disasters.

On top of this, we have seen domestic problems, like delayed discharge and the availability of housing, become more and more acute, due to rapidly increasing need in our society. 

I’ve referred to this before as a long, dark winter, because for most people, it’s increased uncertainty, anxiety and hardship.

So the question I am addressing as First Minister is how do we now prepare the ground for spring?

As a society we expect – not wrongly, I would argue – for our leaders and our government to have a deep understanding of the issues of the day.

We expect them to grasp the root causes and the complexity of those issues enough to find the right solutions, not merely the quick and easy ones.

Yet, too often – and particularly in politics – discussions and the public discourse are dominated by surface solutions, because they are the few that can gain consensus.

Because the hard work of finding true consensus, of peer-reviewing ideas in good faith, can feel unrealistic in this – our increasingly polarised reality.

In a year that has seen more people take part in elections than ever before, across the globe, the outcomes have seen a lurch to the right.

Because when things are difficult, it is natural that people want a direct and immediate response. They want their fears and problems to go away.

But history, and the example of the Republic of Letters, tell us that we must resist that urge.

We must maintain enough hope and energy to work together, to understand the root causes and the complexity of problems. And to find the right solutions.

These solutions may not always be quick.  They may not always be easy. But that does not make them any less necessary.

This then, is the approach that people should expect from a Swinney government.

I don’t believe in trying to solve problems from the top down. Rather, I believe they need to be solved from the bottom up.

I am not here to dictate from on high to those on the frontline. I am prepared to roll my sleeves up – and the sleeves of my Government – to properly understand barriers to progress and to find solutions.

And in identifying those solutions, I am not looking for popular quick-fixes or sticking plasters. I am here to do the hard work, to lay the foundations for lasting improvements to our country, our economy, and our society.

I don’t pretend that this style of government is always headline-grabbing, but I do believe it is effective. And, in the long run, I know the results will speak for themselves.

Let me give a few examples of this approach, and how it is now paying off.

Delayed discharge in our hospitals is an issue which is never far from the headlines. And rightly so.

Delayed discharge is a canary in the coal mine for our National Health Service. It tells us that the flow of people through hospital is not happening as it should. That people are not getting the right care in the right place.

That causes pressure everywhere else in our system. 

If we can tackle this issue, we can drive improvements in care across our whole system, and provide better care for everyone.

The public discourse around delayed discharge focuses on the national picture, where the numbers are – of course, far too high.

But that masks the fact that in some areas, delayed discharge is, in fact, very rare.

So, to understand it nationally, we must understand why some parts of Scotland are successful, and support others to replicate that success elsewhere.

That is the focus of my government.

We are working with areas with high levels of delay to understand their challenges. And we are drawing in expertise to deliver the right changes for them. 

It looks different in different parts of Scotland, but we know there is excellent practice out there – and we want to share it. I would characterise this approach as the activist government that I expect to see.

Another example is in housing and planning. Here, we are working with housebuilders, local authorities and businesses to understand what, precisely, is blocking the delivery of homes on specific sites across Scotland.

This will enable us to identify the concrete actions that will more practically support development. While planning is not responsible for the housing emergency, our fully devolved planning system – and the planning profession – are well-placed to deliver solutions. 

For example, we are about to introduce new master planning powers that will enable planning authorities to take a proactive lead and grant planning permission upfront.

This will support a “collaboration over conflict” approach and help us to move past some of the cross-sector issues that are too common in our planning system.

We cannot fix the systemic blockers to housing overnight. But we can and should work together to cut through entrenched positions and find positive solutions.

And then there is the transition to a net zero economy. This requires us to redesign huge parts of our society, and systems that have existed for generations.  It also takes unprecedented levels of investment.

Here again, my government is looking to take a collaborative, ground-up approach.

Through work with the Scottish National Investment Bank and regional enterprise agencies, we are jump-starting private investment in renewables. And filling gaps in capital available to businesses.

We are introducing planning reforms and allocating more resource to consenting. All of this is incentivising renewable industries to invest in Scottish communities. And industry has responded.

This is how Scotland became home to the world’s first floating offshore wind farm. 

It is how Sumitomo's cable factory investment came to the Highlands. And how the major redevelopment project at Ardersier Port has been secured with Haventus.

Focused use of public investment to secure significant private sector investment is therefore a key intervention by my Government.

Around this room, we see portraits of eminent women scientists from Scotland. Even 100 years ago, an exhibition of anything other than male scientists would have been a scandal. A particular delight about this exhibition is that all of the descriptions of these eminent women scientists are both in English and in Gaelic, which demonstrates the commitment of the Royal Society to nurture and support the development of the Gaelic language, which is enormously welcome.

This exhibition and what it demonstrates proves that progress on inequality can be made in our society.  I want us to make progress in one aspect of our society above all else in terms of equality.

I want every child – male or female – growing up in Scotland, to have an equal chance to prosper and to thrive. To do that we must end child poverty. And that is why it is my foremost priority in government.

There are many setbacks in this journey, there are many milestones still to be reached when it comes to equality. But just look around this room and see how far we have come.

Yesterday, Social Security Scotland announced that we have reached the milestone of paying £1 billion to support families through our Five Family Payments.

I am proud of the impact these payments are having on reducing child poverty.

But the fact that we need to make these payments – the fact that we will continue to need to make these payments – shows that, as impactful as they are, the root of the problem goes far deeper.

I hear, time and again, that services don’t speak to each other. That the effort needed to navigate them is exhausting.

Frontline staff tell me they struggle to help people the way they ideally would want to help people.

Councils tell me they are constrained by numerous, small pockets of funding, all with strings attached.

In my Programme for Government, I committed to introducing more flexibility in how services can be designed, and resources pooled, so as to better support the families who need them most.

So we are committed to collaboration between national and local governments, and with community partners.

Together, we can redesign systems that are integrated, locally responsive and focussed on improving lives.

There are already so many examples of best practice to learn from in places like Glasgow, Dundee, and Clackmannanshire.

And in next week’s budget, we will set out the important next steps we will take to support this reform.

And we will prioritise the funding and the investment needed to build on the progress that I have mentioned.

This budget will be a statement of our intent to deliver real and lasting progress for Scotland.

Despite a difficult fiscal context, we will focus our every effort on delivering not only the quick solutions, but the right solutions.

And that, ultimately, will prevent the need for greater investment further down the line.

There is, of course, an important point to the budget process which strikes at the very heart of the message that I am setting out today.

In a parliament of minorities, no political party is a mere bystander in the budget process - more appropriately, they should be seen as partners.

Certainly that is how I have always seen them in my many years of negotiating budget Bills, and I hope that is how they see themselves. 

But a partnership does, of course, come with increased responsibility.

Collaboration is only effective if it leads to progress being delivered.

“Opposition for opposition’s sake” is all well and good where governments have comfortable majorities. But, put simply, in the Scottish Parliament today, if there is no collaboration, then there is no budget Bill. 

As we have prepared this year’s budget, we have engaged extensively with civic Scotland.

We have listened to our business community about the barriers they face, but also the enormous future opportunities we can help unleash with the decisions we make.

We have engaged in the substantive dialogue I promised with local government.

And we have brought together public authorities, philanthropists and voluntary organisations to find common solutions.

And we have given great consideration to suggestions from other political parties in a wide range of policy areas.

Next week’s budget will bear the fruits of that collective, collaborative effort.

And when the Finance Secretary Shona Robison presents the Budget, my challenge to the other Members of the Scottish Parliament is this: 

We can choose to be mired in party politics.  Or we can choose to put first and foremost our duty to the people we represent. 

We can act with wisdom, in the collective good.  We can advance the prospects of the people of Scotland. But only if we are prepared to reach agreement to do so.

When I look at the wealth of hard work and talent around our country, I am optimistic – confident, even – that Scotland has the agility, ideas and audacity to achieve further real progress.

Scotland is a community in which we can readily – physically and metaphorically – come together. That can happen in a devolved Scotland. I believe we would be able to achieve much more with the full powers of an independent country.

But what we can do is use our position as Scotland’s national government to bring people together to tackle complex, systemic problems such as child poverty.

We can bring leaders and officials closer to communities. And, unlike the correspondents of the Republic of Letters, we don’t have to wait weeks for a letter to arrive by coach.

We can more easily walk through communities ourselves, speak to people, and understand first-hand the issues that affect them.

This is particularly important in a country like Scotland, where the picture in the Central Belt can be so different to the Borders or the Highlands or in our Islands.

Being closer to our communities also makes it easier for us to bring those communities into policymaking. Government from the ground up. 

And, as the persistence of child poverty shows, that collaboration is not only important. It is essential. 

We need local government, public institutions, businesses and people to keep this country running. We need them every bit as much as they need an effective central government.

So, as the Republic of Letters pioneered open science, we must pioneer open dialogue. We must break down entrenched silos and invite people into government.

Nothing significant in public policy will ever come from a siloed, protectionist approach to policy making. 

We must focus on outcomes, on impact and on delivery – so that everyone in Scotland can feel the warmth of spring once again.

Voltaire, the French philosopher and prolific contributor to the Republic of Letters, wrote –

“We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.”  

Yes, Scotland offered those ideas.  But at that time, Scotland was far from the pinnacle of civilisation. It was home to staggering poverty and inequality.

We have come far from that time, and we must now be ready to work to make the progress I hope for and know Scotland is capable of. 

The Republic of Letters sparked a period of scientific and political advancement. It was a tremendous step forward for civilisation. It gave birth to the Enlightenment.

If that’s the scale of what can be achieved by letters, imagine what we can do with the inventiveness, creativity and talent that we have available to us.

Scotland, without doubt, has that strength and ingenuity. So, will we continue to be entrenched in our silos? Blaming the other? Waiting for the seasons to change? Or will we choose to advance together with renewed purpose?

The people I’ve met in Scotland as First Minister, the people I’ve met in my 27 years so far as a parliamentarian, want us to do that in Scotland.

In the period to come,  I hope we can respond with generosity to the challenge that the people of Scotland have put before us.