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I am pleased to speak in the debate in support of my colleague Evelyn Tweed and all who have campaigned over the years to highlight cardiomyopathy and the need for defibrillators.

I note that you, Presiding Officer, have taken part in previous debates on the issue. This will be my fifth. The first was in 2001, and the subsequent debates took place in 2010, 2014 and 2021.

I put on record my condolences to Mr and Mrs Ferrier, even while I congratulate them on their fundraising efforts following their tragic circumstances.

I first became engaged with the issue of cardiomyopathy when I met Kenneth and Wilma Gunn, who were then constituents of mine in Selkirk. After their son died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy many years ago, they established the Borders-based charity Scottish HART—which stands for Heart At Risk Testing—which is also known as the Cameron Gunn Memorial Fund. Since then, over the decades, Mr and Mrs Gunn have worked tirelessly to promote awareness of cardiomyopathy and to encourage the testing of young athletes.

Back then, they were endeavouring to raise the £0.25 million that was required to provide a mobile echocardiogram that could be used at sports clubs and schools to test young people. Cardiomyopathy is a disease that is usually more recognisable under the headlines that we unfortunately sometimes read, such as “Sudden Death on Sports Field”, “Heart Condition Kills Youth” and “Teenager in Mystery Death”.

Cameron Gunn was playing five-a-side football with workmates, practising for a charity game, when he suddenly dropped down dead. He was 19; it would have been his 20th birthday the next day. Young people are still dying in similar circumstances, so I pay tribute to other members of the Scottish Parliament who have raised awareness of cardiomyopathy and of the work of Scottish HART.

Euan Robson, the former Liberal Democrat MSP, first lodged a motion on the issue in 1999, followed by former Labour MSP Johann Lamont in 2001, myself in 2003 and former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosemary Byrne in 2004. The issue has huge cross-party support.

I recognise the campaigning by outside organisations that are involved in cardiomyopathy prevention—it has made progress, and all parties have responded to it. Malcolm Chisholm, who was then Minister for Health and Community Care, and subsequently Nicola Sturgeon, met Wilma and Kenny Gunn, and both gave up a lot of time to discuss the issues with them. That shows that, with determination and a heartfelt commitment to an issue that requires attention, ordinary people such as the Ferriers and the Gunns can change things in the Parliament. It also shows that politicians listen, and that there are results.

Following the Gunns’ petition to Parliament, and further meetings with and representations from Kenny and Wilma Gunn and Scottish HART, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing launched a pilot screening programme, in conjunction with health professionals and the Scottish Football Association, at Hampden park. It involved screening amateur athletes aged 16 or over for life-threatening conditions. The cabinet secretary put in a further £150,000 of funding to extend the screening pilot over the coming years, and the pilot subsequently found 400 youngsters who exhibited risk factors that ranged from mild to serious. Even one life saved is excellent, so the programme was invaluable.

The Gunns also campaigned for the placement of defibrillators in public areas such as large supermarkets, airports, and train and bus stations, and over the years that has happened—there has been movement on that.

I fast-forward to 2021, when I said in the chamber:

“From 1997 onwards, Wilma Gunn and her husband Kenny have been fundraising; raising the organisation’s profile, even in Parliament; and campaigning not only for early testing of young athletes but for accessible defibrillators. Back then, not many people knew what a defibrillator was—I include myself in that. The profile was raised here, with debates and petitions in ... the Parliament, and in 2014 Wilma was deservedly awarded an MBE.

Today, we have defibrillators at many points—in trains, bus stations, airports and supermarkets, and in the Parliament and some workplaces—but Kenny and Wilma ... have not stopped campaigning, and they are keen for even more ... to be distributed. The new ones are easy to use—you cannot hurt the patient by using them. In fact, it is better to use a defibrillator”

than have the patient die in front of you for lack of action,

“as you cannot do any more harm than if you had done nothing. I have practised on defibrillators, in the Parliament and elsewhere, and if I can use them—because I am hopeless”

with anything practical—

“anyone else certainly can. Those invaluable minutes on the defibrillator will mean life or death until the medics arrive. That is especially relevant in rural areas such as my constituency, where paramedics cannot simply arrive within eight minutes.”—[Official Report, 14 December 2021; c 98-99.]

I wanted to take part in the debate to remind members of others who have, just like the Ferriers, through their own tragic circumstances, tried to move the debate forward and tried to bring to the forefront the need for defibrillators, and testing where necessary, to save so many young lives. I congratulate the Ferriers, as I remain forever congratulating Wilma and Kenny Gunn, who are still campaigning after all these years, and I say to them: keep on campaigning, as it does produce results.

In my speech I focused on defibrillators, on which we have come a long way. I just wonder whether we know where they are located. For example, do we know where they are in local authority areas? Could local authorities map where there are defibrillators, so that if somebody is in an emergency they know where to get one?

I refer to the exchanges on the pressures that are on the national health service. I understand that some 2 million people have accessed the flu vaccine—90 per cent or so did that when getting their winter Covid booster—but can more be done to ensure access for those who are eligible? Flu is very serious indeed.

Over the decades, successive UK Governments have used every trick in the book to block the Scottish people’s right to determine democratically their future. The current examples are that the vote in 2014 was a once-in-a-generation vote, that there is no demand and that the Scottish Government should focus on the NHS and pressing domestic issues. I will touch on those as I progress.

I will begin in 1979, with a referendum for an Assembly. Better together was in its infancy, but it managed an extraordinary pairing involving Labour’s George Cunningham, who introduced the rule that 40 per cent of the electorate had to vote for the result to count. The dead and those who abstained were counted as noes. In fact, 51 per cent voted for an Assembly, but that failed the Cunningham rule. There was an intervention by the Tory peer Sir Alec Douglas-Home two weeks before the referendum, promising more for Scotland if it voted no. I know because I was there. We were also too small, too poor and—this is contradictory—because of oil, too greedy. All that and a yes vote still prevailed against the background of a winter of discontent.

Fast forward some years, and Tory-Labour—otherwise known as better together—formalised its partnership and project fear was revisited. One of the main planks of the no campaign was that a yes vote would throw us out of the EU. There was, of course, the vow from Labour’s Gordon Brown: vote no and Labour would enhance devolution. Does that ring any bells? Despite all that, 45 per cent voted for independence.

Twenty-four years have passed since the Parliament came into being in 1999, when SNP MSPs were in a minority. We now have 64 MSPs and eight Green MSPs, all standing openly for independence. That is a majority. The unionists have 57 MSPs. At Westminster, there are six Scottish Tory MPs, four Liberal Democrats, one Labour MP and 45 SNP MPs. However, Westminster blocks a referendum because, according to it, there is no democratic mandate. If ballot box results do not count, what does?

I turn to Brexit. What a democratic affront. Although 62 per cent in Scotland—from Shetland to the Borders—voted remain, we are out. There was no 40 per cent rule then.

The argument that the Scottish Government should focus on current pressing domestic issues—which it is doing—is the very reason why the need for independence is pressing. There has been economic mismanagement by successive UK Governments, which have squandered the oil and gas revenues. Norway saved trillions, but in the bank of UK plc, there is just a huge international overdraft. We have seen Brown’s bank collapse and Trussonomics. The result is that the UK has the highest inflation in the G7, which has led to the right pay demands that we see today. As in the dark days of 1979, now is the very time when Scotland needs independence.

I turn to the Supreme Court ruling that ruled only on the limitations of the Scotland Act 1998. I ask members to read MacCormick v Lord Advocate. Lord President Cooper said, obiter—I hope that I have time for this:

“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law ... I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done.”

In Scotland, the people are sovereign. Charles is King of Scots, not Scotland. Ask the people therefore whether they want Scotland to be independent. Give them that referendum. The reason why it is being blocked is that they would say “Yes, we want to be independent.”

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I lost my connection. I would have voted no.

I refer to the Scottish Government-commissioned research entitled “The Contribution of EU Workers in the Social Care Workforce in Scotland 2022”, which was published in August. Further to those findings, although I accept that Covid has had its impact, does the minister agree that Brexit has made the situation relating to the retention and recruitment of European Union workers worse?

I will put that in my diary. That is good, thank you.

This is a wonderful moment for us.

I will have to, will I not?

How, therefore, would that category be described in the licence? Would it refer to the farmers of X, Y and Z farms?