Minto gave a statement to the Holyrood chamber this afternoon which succeeded in satisfying practically nobody.
The Greens – who will soon vote on whether to continue the Bute House Agreement with the SNP after members were aghast at last week’s ditching of climate targets – said that young people’s rights had been treated “like a political football” while Labour said the statement “lacked substance” and was “a sop to the Greens”.
Minto didn’t tell MSPs much they didn’t know already: the recommendations of the Cass review will be carefully considered by a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians, who will report back before summer recess; the Scottish government is already working with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, where the current Sandyford gender service is based, on a nationally commissioned youth gender service; they are funding research at Glasgow University into the long term outcomes of gender healthcare.
But a number of MSPs cross-party expressed frustration that Minto could not simply accept the Cass recommendations. She countered that the review applied to NHS England and there were parts that could not simply read across – and she refused to engage with questions about Green co-leader Patrick Harvie, who has suggested the review is “not a valid scientific document”.
Conservatives have been in power.
The Prime Minister’s pledge on defence spending is just more Tory spin.
The last time the UK spent 2.5% of GDP on defence was in 2010, under a Labour Government.
After 14 years of the Tories, the defence budget is now 7% smaller than it was in 2010.
2.55pm and 2.58pm with more direct quotes from the speech. You may need to refresh the page to get the updates to appear.the full text of Rishi Sunak’s opening statement.Nato about expanding the sharing of nuclear weapons?
Stoltenberg says there are not plans for this.
And that is the end of the press conference.
Nato, both on defence spending, and in support for Ukraine.Nato members to spend 2% of GDP on defence?
Stoltenberg says there is a long history of US presidents urging Nato countries to spend more on defence. This has been “a consistent US message”, he says. And he says it has been a British message too.
Ahead of the Nato summit in July, he expects to be able to say two thirds of Nato countries are spending 2% of GDP on defence.
And even those countries not hitting that target are increasing defence spending.
Sunak says the UK is leading by example.
Q: How do you encourage more people to join the army? There is a recruitment problem.
Sunak says there are military bases in his Richmond constituency in Yorkshire. He hears nothing but praise for the UK armed forces.
He says MoD accommodation has not always been of the right standard. But the government is determined to fix that, he says.
In January the MoD had the highest number of applications to join the army for six or seven years, he says.
And he stresses that the government will support veterans too.
used that phrase to describe the situation Europe is in.)
Sunak says we are in a more dangerous place than we have been since the end of the cold war.
12pm.)
Q: [To Stoltenberg] How assured are you by Sunak’s defence announcement when polls suggest he will lose the election? Have you been talking to Labour?
Sunak says he does not want Stoltenberg to answer that, because it would not be right to draw him into domestic politics.
(This comes across as patronising. Stoltenberg, who was PM of Norway for eight years, is more than capable of deciding what is and is not appropriate for him to say about another country’s domestic politics.)
Instead Sunak uses this a chance to take a pop at Labour, saying at the election it will be a choice between him and someone who campaigned to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister.
Corbyn “wanted to leave Nato, get rid of our nuclear deterrent and turn the army into the peace corps”, Sunak says, quoting policies that were never advocated by Corbyn when he was Labour leader.
Sunak also says multiple members of the shadow cabinet voted to get rid of Trident.
Source: theguardian.com
