12 Apr 2025

Lorna Slater Spring Conference 2025

When we met last October our country and our world were in a state of flux. Our political landscape is still shifting dramatically. 

We have a Labour government telling us that things can only get worse while they cut the incomes of sick and disabled people. They kept the cruel two child cap, which has plunged thousands of families into totally avoidable poverty.

Although they look set to nationalise British Steel they have betrayed the workers of Grangemouth.

They betrayed the WASPI women after campaigning for them for years.

They kowtow to a far right Trump administration that is dismantling hard won rights and freedoms. 

Donald Trump is a dangerous, fraudulent, misogynistic, racist, climate-change denier. 

He opposes democratic values and the rule of law. 

His White House is spreading lies and misinformation about abortion rights here in Scotland - including disgraceful attacks on our colleague Gillian Mackay’s Safe Access Zone Bill; 

Labour may be happy to make friends with dangerous despots, but we refuse to play nicely while the world burns.

Trump and his hateful politics are not welcome in Scotland. Our country is not his playground. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, you need to cancel the state visit. Cancel it now.

The impact of Nigel Farage’s hard right Reform party rising in the polls, is already being felt in Scotland as the Tories and Labour shift to the right to try and rescue their votes.

The Tories dropping any kind of commitment to net zero, and Labour throwing trans-people under the bus.

As Patrick said: You can’t beat the far right by stealing their policies.

You don’t beat Nigel Farage by cozying up to Donald Trump.

The Scottish Greens will stand our ground as a proud party of the left. 

We stand with refugees who are being attacked by racist politicians and the billionaire-owned press. 

We stand with people who have fled war and conflict only to be blamed by those who have cut services and plunged families into poverty.

We stand with the trans community who have been the focus of a relentless campaign of demonisation from MPs and MSPs from all the other parties.

Trans rights are human rights. Our Party stands with you today, tomorrow and always.

We stand with the people of Palestine who are suffering a genocide that has been armed, and supported and enabled by the UK government.

The crisis there is getting worse and so is the human cost. 

Babies are being killed long before they have the chance to mark their first birthdays.

And yet the response from Downing Street has been to continue supporting the carnage.

If Labour is to have any moral authority then it must end arms sales to Israel.

It's not just them. It’s time for the SNP to finally end the grants that are bolstering Israel’s arms dealers.

For all of us working towards a greener, fairer world, it can feel like we’re losing ground. 

Sometimes it’s hard to keep hold of hope that we can build something better. 

The future can be brilliant. We just have to decide to make it so. 

By working together the Scottish Greens have already taken big steps into that better future. 

We have taxed high earners to raise billions of pounds for public services; 

We’ve given free bus travel to everyone under 22;

We’ve made sure that every organisation in Scotland that receives public money, pays the living wage. 

We’ve delivered free school meals to more hungry children than ever before; 

Our rent freeze and eviction protections for renters across Scotland saved tenants thousands of pounds and protected many from being made homeless.

We have made a big difference to people’s lives. 

Our work has helped people and planet, and made our country a fairer and better place. 

All of this has happened because of the work of the people in this room - our volunteers around the country, and our work with campaigners and activists. 

Among the hardest working people in our movement are the Green Councillors who are transforming local communities for the better. 

Green Councillors in Glasgow have secured free public transport pilots and extra funding for safer parks and streets. 

In Edinburgh, our Green councillors stopped council venues and services running advertising from climate wreckers and arms dealers.

Day in and day out, our councillors across Scotland are supporting their constituents and standing up for their communities. 

That’s what Councillor Bryan Quinn did when he protected crucial library services and Community Access Points in Clackmannanshire. 

It’s what Councillor Kris Leask did when he secured an Offshore Energy Strategy for Orkney - something which he’s now leading on delivering. 

After years of campaigning, our Dunblane and Bridge of Allan councillor Alasdair Tollemache - working with my MSP colleague Mark Ruskell - has successfully protected a vital local green space, Park of Keir, from expensive luxury housing and a tennis centre with unaffordable and inaccessible facilities.

These are the kind of things we achieve when we put our values into action. 

It’s what we achieve when we work together to get greens elected. 

We will be able to achieve even more by getting more Greens elected.

Can we please all show our appreciation for our councillors.

The last few years have been difficult for most people, but they haven't been difficult for everyone. 

The wealth of billionaires has more than tripled since 2010. They’ve made out like bandits in the last few years, cashing in every step of the way.

Through austerity, COVID, global market turmoil - the super-rich have been able to enlarge their wealth whilst ordinary people and families have suffered. 

It is not right that as billionaires are getting richer and richer, household bills are getting higher and higher for everybody else.

It is not right that fossil fuel companies have raked in huge profits, whilst abandoning any significant investment in green renewables. 

It is not right that some of the wealthiest people in our society are telling us that we cannot afford to provide public services for people.

It’s not that we can’t afford good public services, it’s that we can’t afford billionaires.

Billionaires should not exist.

It is thanks to the Scottish Greens that the highest earners in Scotland, and people who own more than one home, have to pay more.

When I see headlines in the right-wing press whining about Scotland’s fairer tax system - it makes me proud. 

We need to tax the rich. 

We need to think beyond income tax, we need to tax wealth, we need to tax carbon emissions, we need to tax the big polluters to put money back into people’s pockets, back into public services and to build a fairer, greener country. 

Nowhere is this injustice more prevalent than when it comes to housing.

Over the past decade, the cost of renting has skyrocketed. Landlords have been charging more than ever before.

Right now, private landlords have too much power and renters are suffering.

The Scottish Greens have made big steps to protect tenants.

We froze rents and banned evictions in the aftermath of COVID.

We wrote the Bill to introduce rent controls. 

And thanks to protections brought in by the Scottish Greens, thousands of people have been protected from eye watering rent hikes. 

But without us in the room, the SNP are turning their backs on renters. 

They are buckling under pressure from vested interests who want to water down our rent controls. 

They want landlords to be able to raise rents higher than inflation.  

If people aren’t getting a big pay rise, why should landlords? 

Homes should be for living in - not for profiteering. 

It’s time to raise tenants rights and lower rents. 

We’re campaigning to bring in a permanent ban on winter evictions, and we’ve got plans to help local communities force absentee landlords and landowners to sell or rent derelict land for housing. 

It isn’t just housing where the SNP is coming up short. 

It’s the same story when it comes to transport.

If we want to reduce emissions and build happier, healthier communities - public transport is key. 

Thanks to the Scottish Greens, hundreds of thousands of young people can now get a bus for free - saving families thousands of pounds, and opening up opportunities for Scotland’s young people. 

Thanks to the Scottish Greens, people seeking asylum in Scotland will soon get free bus passes

Thanks to the Scottish Greens, thousands of young islanders can now jump on inter-island ferries for free.

We did that. 

But the SNP has failed to deliver the scale of investment needed to make public transport a reliable, affordable and accessible option for all. 

We need more publicly owned bus networks across the whole of Scotland - and capped bus fares. A cap of £2 for every local journey.

Private bus companies should not be able to hike fares at the same time as cutting lifeline services. 

It should not be cheaper to travel between Scotland’s two biggest cities by car than by rail.

The Scottish Government should not be pouring funds into dualling the A9, increasing traffic, pollution and noise, instead of investing in buses and trains. 

It is far too late in the climate emergency to be building new roads. 

What we need is cheaper rail for all - that means ending peak time rail fares for good. 

Cheaper buses, ferries and trains - a win-win for people and planet. 

Our planet needs us. 

I know I’m not the only one who has been really shocked by the wildfires that we are seeing across Scotland right now.

Not the only one who has been horrified by the devastation to people’s homes, businesses and farms that has been done by floods and storms.

This is the climate catastrophe accelerating. Governments around the world have let us down. They didn’t listen to science, they didn’t cut carbon emissions, they didn’t stop their destruction of our eco-systems.

What we are seeing now in Scotland, will only get worse, if governments continue to prevaricate, unsure of how to politically manage the cost of moving to an economy that isn’t dependent on fossil fuels. 

Well anyone who was flooded out or who’s land is burning can see the cost of not making the change.

So much of what needs to change: insulating homes, building better public transport, building 20 minute neighbourhoods, moving to lower impact agriculture, will actually make life better for everyone. 

For the kids who will be able to safely cycle to school. For the farmers who can improve their profits by buying fewer expensive fertilisers and pesticides.

In just over a year’s time, we’ll be heading into the 2026 Holyrood election and this is the story that we are going to tell. 

Just like free bus travel for under 22’s, the things we need the Scottish Government to do on climate will improve life opportunities for Scots, and will put money back in their pockets.

Green policies will make life better in practical ways. Warm homes. Clean air. Affordable trains. More buses.

We know what change is needed. That’s why we exist. 

The power of our shared vision. So many new possibilities, so much potential. 

Some say it’s the hope that kills you. I don’t believe that. 

I think it’s the hope that keeps us all here. It’s certainly what’s kept me here. 

Everything you do as volunteers in this party matters. Without all of you there would be no Greens in Councils or in Holyrood. There would be no free bus travel for asylum seekers or any of the other changes that we have achieved.

Whether it’s the all important knocking on doors, taking meeting minutes, delivering leaflets, everything you do matters and it all adds up. It adds up to growing a Green movement in Scotland, it adds to how much we can get done.

Thank you for all the work you do

Thank you, in advance for the many miles of pavement you’ll be walking and wheeling in the next 14 months listening to voters on their doorsteps, delivering leaflets, supporting your candidates. We are so grateful for all of it.

Now is the time to stand together. To be brave and bold. Our vision for a greener, fairer Scotland could never be more important. 

Let’s show them that the Scottish Greens are the ones who deliver.