Thread by @theSNP

📺 Watch @NicolaSturgeon answer questions from MSPs at #FMQs.

Live from 12pm: scottishparliament.tv

FM: “I’ve always been open-minded to anything that improves our justice system and ensures that victims get the justice they require and deserve.” #FMQs

FM: “It is absolutely correct that the most serious offenders go to prison for lengthy periods of time, but what the correct periods of time should be in individual cases is rightly and properly a matter for the independent court system.” #FMQs

FM: “The law right now is clear. A punishment part for a life sentence can extend beyond the rest of a person’s life. So it is possible for a court to impose a sentence that extends beyond a person’s life.” #FMQs

FM: “It is important to be clear about what the law says right now and I hope now that I’ve done so, Jackson Carlaw will also reflect on what he is saying.” #FMQs

FM: “Jackson Carlaw in 2015 warned politicians against using individual cases in order to make these broader points. I would’ve agreed with him then, and I would ask him to reflect carefully on how he makes these cases.” #FMQs

FM: “We have to do the right thing for victims, to make sure that victims’ voices are heard much more loudly in the whole process. But it is also incumbent on us to be clear with victims of crime and with the general public what the situation is at the present.” #FMQ

FM: “I’m going to take today’s question from Richard Leonard as progress. In asking me about the question for an independence referendum, he now appears to be accepting that an independence referendum is inevitable. So that’s progress!” #FMQs

FM: “The question was tested by the Electoral Commission. And more than that, the question was tested in the reality of a referendum. And I don’t know anybody in Scotland who say anything other than that question was clear, comprehensible and completely transparent.” #FMQs

FM: “Labour and the Tories have now realised they’re not going to be able to block the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future so they’re now wondering how they can rig the whole process.” #FMQs

FM: “I’ve got news for Richard Leonard. The people of Scotland will get the chance to choose a better future than Tory Brexit Britain. If he now accepts it is right to allow the people of Scotland to choose their own future in an independence referendum, I welcome that.” #FMQs

FM: “I have to be honest, I’m really struggling to keep up with Richard Leonard’s twists and turns. If I’m understanding right, he is standing up here, demanding we test a question again for a referendum that he says shouldn’t happen and he isn’t going to allow to happen.” #FMQs

FM: “That’s the first inconsistency and contradiction in Richard Leonard’s position. Then he says the people of Scotland should’ve have the right to have a referendum at all because we chose our future five years ago…” #FMQs

FM: “..the people of the UK voted on Brexit three years ago but Richard Leonard supports a second Brexit referendum for the whole of the UK, and he seems to have missed all that has changed in the five years since the independence referendum…” #FMQs

FM: “..when people like him were telling the people of Scotland that the only way to protect their membership of the European Union was to vote against independence. We now know that those promises weren’t worth the paper they were written on.” #FMQs

FM: “It’s time for Scotland to have the opportunity to choose our future. It is time for Scotland to choose independence.” #FMQs

FM: “On climate change, I’m really proud of what this Parliament did yesterday and I really struggle to understand the Green position. This Parliament set the strongest, most ambitious, most stringent climate change targets of any country in the world.” #FMQs

FM: “Scotland is already ahead of most of the rest of the world on reducing our emissions. We’ve already almost halved our emissions. That should give all of us confidence that we can meet these targets.” #FMQs

🌍 The SNP is renewing its efforts to make Scotland a world-leader on climate change.

Here’s how we’re leading the way on climate change.

snp.org/how-the-snp-is…

FM: “Most of the countries I go to and talk about climate change, including Germany last week, are looking to Scotland, because they see Scotland as the world leader, not just in the targets we’re setting but in the action we’re taking to meet those targets.” #FMQs

FM: “I do genuinely struggle to understand the Green position. I think I would understand it had they sought to amend the 2045 target. But they didn’t. They didn’t seek to amend the 2040 target. They didn’t seek to amend the 2020 target.” [1/2] #FMQs

FM: "Their only disagreement appeared to be around the 2030 target, even though we had increased that from 70% to 75%, taking it beyond what is required to limit temperature warming to 1.5 degrees.” #FMQs

FM: “We shouldn’t be having to spend a single penny on Brexit preparations. Let me remind the member - Scotland did not vote for Brexit.” #FMQs

FM: “The member talks about £98.7m of consequentials we’ve received. So far we’ve committed £92m of that, but the cost of Brexit will far exceed any consequentials that we have received or no doubt will be likely to receive from the UK Government.” #FMQs

FM: “For example we’re having to cover up to £17m for Police Scotland this year as an unavoidable cost of No Deal Brexit.” #FMQs

FM: "It is shameful that a Conservative member of this Parliament gets up here and asks about the money we’re spending to prepare for the impact of a policy that his party is imposing on this country against our will." #FMQs