Scottish First Minister John Swinney has tabled a motion urging Westminster to devolve powers to Holyrood for a second referendum.
MSPs are expected to back a call for Westminster to hand over the powers to allow a second Scottish independence referendum.
Scottish First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney has tabled a motion calling on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order, to devolve to Holyrood the powers needed for such a vote to take place.
It comes the day after Mr Swinney apologised to SNP members after former chief executive Peter Murrell admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party over a 12-year period.
However, the debate – the first to take place at Holyrood since the May 7 Scottish election – makes clear the First Minister’s determination to win another referendum, despite the SNP’s failure to win an overall majority.
Successive UK governments have dismissed repeated calls from SNP first ministers for a second referendum – with Sir Keir Starmer the latest Prime Minister to rebuff such demands.
Mr Swinney insists, however, there is an “emphatic democratic mandate” for such a vote, after elections earlier this month saw the largest ever number of independence supporting MSPs voted in at the Scottish Parliament.
The First Minister’s motion should pass, with Green MSPs voting for it on Tuesday along with SNP MSPs.
And Scottish Green co-leader Gillian Mackay said: “Quite why unionist parties have been so determined to block Scotland’s path to deliver a kinder, more equal Scotland is beyond me.”
She added: “Every unionist politician knows the struggle that people are having with soaring energy and food costs, with discrimination against minority groups, and with an ever-increasing inequality gap.
“They cannot continue to block the path that would give Scotland the powers to tackle these issues.”
However, an amendment to the First Minister’s motion from the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, insists that the “majority of people in Scotland want the Scottish Government to focus on the issues that impact their day-to-day lives”.
As a result, he argued, that “the priority of the Scottish Government should therefore be to improve the NHS and public services, make life more affordable, support communities and high streets and grow a fair and prosperous economy”.
Similarly an amendment from Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said that the coming five-year term at Holyrood should see politicians “focused exclusively on resolving the issues that matter to most people in Scotland, such as dealing with NHS waiting times, reversing Scotland’s falling educational standards, tackling the growing benefits bill and delivering value-for-money for Scotland’s taxpayers”.
As such, Mr Findlay urged the Scottish Government to “drop its demands to hold a second independence referendum”.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton also insisted that the Scottish Government “must now focus on fixing the NHS and care, helping people with the cost-of-living crisis, fixing the roads and the ferries and getting Scottish education back to its best”.
And he noted that while the First Minister had wanted to win an overall majority at Holyrood the SNP “achieved fewer votes and seats than in the previous elections”.
