Scottish Government plough on with constitutional matters

June 19, 2023 12:01 am

The Scottish Government is launching a prospectus paper “Building a New Scotland” this week.

This is the fourth in a series of proposals for a new constitution to be developed by the people of Scotland and its elected parliament in an independent country. The drafting of a new constitution is regarded as pivotal with rights to healthcare, strikes and an adequate standard of living paramount.

The Scottish Government favours a constitution which would include:

recognition of the NHS in Scotland, giving the right to access a system of health care, available free at the point of need
stronger protections for human rights and equality, including upholding and fulfilling the right to an adequate standard of living as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
the right for workers to take industrial action
a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons being based in Scotland

First Minister Humza Yousaf said: “Our proposals would provide an opportunity for people in Scotland to shape the newly independent country and create a permanent, modern, written constitution to describe the type of country Scotland would be and how it would be governed. Successive UK Governments have taken Scotland in the wrong direction and with independence we would radically shift where power lies and put it back in the hands of the people who live in Scotland.

“The constitution would set out how democracy, rights and equality would be at the heart of everything we do as an independent nation. It will see the introduction of a constitutional right to heath care available at the point of need, a right to an adequate standard of living as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protection for workers to take industrial action. And, what we will not see under these proposals, are nuclear weapons on the Clyde. This proposed constitution would ban nuclear weapons from an Independent Scotland.

“With rights in Scotland under threat as never before, because of the actions of the UK Government, and the Scottish Parliament being undermined, independence has never been more urgent or essential.”