Scotland 2050 Conference: First Minister's speech - 17 June 2025

Thank you very much for the welcome and thank you all for the opportunity to reflect on the future of Scotland. And to take part in a conversation amongst us all who are invested in the future of our country.

I express at the outset of my contribution my willingness and my enthusiasm to work with people in Scotland to build the best future for our country.

We all have a perspective on Scotland’s future and it will be formed by different experiences.

I am up here speaking as a father, a grandfather, and also as First Minister.  My perspective is influenced by all of those experiences. This, for me, is about the world we build for Scotland’s next generation.  And how we make our nation - and our world – as best as it possibly can be.

But first, before turning to the Scotland that we seek, I want to share some details of a new analysis the government has published, Future Trends for Scotland.

Drawing on a wide range of practitioner and other expert views, and shaped also by insights from young Scots, it sets out the trends that, it appears from that research, that we think are most likely to shape Scotland in the next 10 to 20 years. And I hope that it can shape your thinking, as it certainly will shape the thinking of the Scottish Government.

With the Future Trends horizon scan, we have the best available Scotland specific analysis to inform our decisions, both now and for the future. 

You will recognise some of the trends that the work has identified.

A growing risk to our democracy because of mis- and disinformation, with trust in institutions falling.

Conflicts more frequent. Climate change impacting soil quality, biodiversity, food supply. Global progress on inequality stalling.

And, as a result of these and other global trends, increasing voluntary and involuntary migration.

No guarantee that living standards will increase, but a real risk of ongoing wealth and income inequality and significant budgetary pressures as we struggle to meet the demands of an aging population.

But also, growing success for Scotland in fields such as space and life sciences, new opportunities in energy, and widespread adoption of AI alongside the work on quantum technology.

A combination of hurdles, yes, and new horizons for our society and economy. Warnings where we need to change, or up the pace, but also doors opening, if we have the courage to walk through them with confidence, with boldness and self-belief.

And it is by shaping strategy and policy towards achieving long-term outcomes that we will be ready for these challenges and for the new world as it evolves. 

That is one of the reasons why the government is looking afresh at the National Performance Framework, so that it can provide us with a clear north star. A means of aligning our policy interventions to make the most of the opportunities that Scotland faces, but also to deal with the challenges that will come our way in the ensuing period.

So, a reformed National Performance Framework will help reshape government in Scotland. It will enable us to better focus budgets, to reduce the compartmentalisation that is a scourge of modern government, encourage collaboration between spheres of government, and with partners in the third sector and the business community which lies at the heart of the approach to government that I embody.

It is one part, but an important part of focusing government on delivering on the priorities of the people of Scotland as we build towards our vision of a Scotland that is more vibrant, more successful, more ambitious even than the Scotland of today.

But before looking forward, I wish to look back for a moment.

As others have observed, the Scotland of 2050 is as far removed from us today as the Scotland into which our parliament was born in 1999.

Over the past quarter century, much has changed but the Scotland of today is not some alien land compared to the Scotland of then.

We can see clearly the threads connecting our reality now with choices made in the years between.

Yes, day-to-day life in Scotland has been fundamentally altered by technology – from the iPhone and the internet to emergent AI – and by geopolitics - from the rise of China to the impact of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. By climate change, globalisation, and by deindustrialisation.

Changed also as a direct result of our disastrous withdrawal from the EU and by the wholly negative impacts of austerity in the UK on the vitality of our public services or on people’s living standards and quality of life.

But it has also been shaped, and changed for the better, by the interventions of the Scottish Parliament. By Parliament’s ban on smoking in public places, by minimum unit pricing of alcohol, or by the decisions to rapidly expand early learning and childcare, or the introduction of the HPV vaccination and the modernisation of our school estate – just to select a number of significant examples of improvement.

Yes, the Scotland of 2050 will be shaped by a series of unpredictable forces, by new technologies we have only half-imagined in the pages of science fiction, by conflicts now only simmering, by people who are only just born.

But it will also be shaped by us. By the decisions we take, the policy choices we implement, the vision and the path forward that we set out.

That is a great responsibility, but for me it is also exciting, inspiring, and a privilege to shape it as First Minister.

So how do we get from where we are to where we want to be?

A big part of the answer is ensuring that we are in charge of our own destiny. That we have our hands on all the levers we need to make the biggest difference.

A fiscal squeeze, better dealt with if we are fully in charge of our nation’s finances.

The complexities of navigating climate change, much easier if we are in charge of energy policy and our vast energy resources.

Making sure we have a big enough working population to meet the demands of an aging population. More options, more solutions possible, if we are in charge of our immigration policy, or members once again of the EU.

As we look around our land in 2050, my hope is that we see a modern, dynamic Scotland, a compassionate, enterprising, forward-looking nation state, back where it belongs at the very heart of Europe.

That we have taken the climate challenge and seen it as an opportunity for a complete redesign of our ways of living. For example, district heating schemes in every community, an everyday part of life, delivering low-cost heating, and significantly lower energy bills.

More liveable communities, full of climate positive, modern, affordable homes, with rethought and rediscovered High Streets. More of our food grown locally, and technology enabling more of what we use every day to be produced locally.

We are a clean energy nation, with the vast amounts of low-cost renewable energy that we produce fuelling a host of new business opportunities. Data centres, research centres, energy intensive manufacturing industries. Low-energy costs making it cheaper to produce food. Low-energy costs making it cheaper to heat our homes. Scotland: a clean energy powerhouse. An energy rich Scotland finally meaning also energy rich Scots.

We are a high-tech, clean tech country, with our public realm digitally transformed, high-tech solutions delivering more effective, more personalised health interventions, the right systems in place to manage the acute and support us more effectively as we enter old age.

We have seen too-high levels of child poverty not in terms of handouts, but as a handbrake on our potential, as a limit on the success our nation and what we can achieve together. And we have acted decisively to eradicate child poverty in our land. As a result, we have released the potential of tens of thousands of ambitious, eager and talented young Scots, young men and women who are playing a crucial role, a fundamental role, in building our nation anew.

That we have looked at our place in this world and decided that the greatest opportunity, for us, and an approach that provides the greatest security, is the European Union.

Now, how do we get there?

In part, through the necessary reality of good government. That has been my focus since I became First Minister. Interventions in that vein like a realistic medium-term finance strategy, an effective population health strategy and a clear-eyed and mobilising programme of public sector reform – all initiatives being launched in this coming week.

By having a government focused on a clear set of priorities, and producing policy that is determined by the real-world, real-life needs of people rather than what might best suit the system.

Eradicating child poverty. Boosting economic growth. Delivering climate action. Improving public services, especially the NHS. This prioritisation of government action on those things that matter most to people, those things that will deliver the most for people, is at the very heart of what I am trying to achieve as First Minister. Listening to the public and addressing the strain they feel over the cost of living is an essential part of that agenda.

It is also about collectively owning the vision and uniting in our determination to get there. It is about focusing our efforts behind a sharp and clear set of national outcomes and ambitious short-, medium- and longer-term national goals.

However for me, most importantly, it is about deciding to take Scotland’s future into our own hands.

It is only - in my view -  by taking charge of our own destiny, with our own hand on the tiller, that we are better able to ride the waves of change, that we are better able to shape our own future.

That does not mean a Scotland standing alone, but rather a nation that has worked out its place in the world, and the contribution it wants to make to the world. An ongoing deep and rich partnership with the other nations of these isles, absolutely, but ultimately as a nation state in our own right, as a Member State of the world’s largest trading block, the world’s biggest single social and economic community, the European Union.

I have long believed that Scotland is an afterthought to successive UK governments. Scotland is not on Westminster’s radar in the same way as, say, London, or the Midlands or the Southwest. From a UK perspective that is completely understandable, but from a Scottish perspective, to accept it is total folly.

It holds us back in ways big and small, leaving us waiting and praying, hoping that decisions taken at Westminster are not too damaging.

We are prey to a broken system and a failing economic model – a system that delivers for a very few at the very top, while living standards stagnate and real wages are squeezed for the vast majority.

It means, as a nation, that we must try to thrive on what amounts, at worst, to poison pills and, at best, policy scraps from the UK table.

All this when we have the capacity to stand and to flourish on our own two feet.

I know there are many in this room who are not yet persuaded by the case for independence, and others who will never be. I respect that.

But independence is the defining choice for this generation, have no doubt about that. Because the UK status quo has proved itself incapable of delivering on the hopes and ambitions of the people of Scotland.

That is why, like a clear majority of Scots, I believe that our nation should have the right to choose our future.

If this is a voluntary union, as Westminster politicians insist, then it is completely untenable that there is no mechanism for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, if it so wishes.

Whether it is Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage, no Westminster politician should have the ability to deny Scotland her right to national self-determination.

I want to close today with a piece of poetry that I think perfectly captures this moment in time for our nation. It was written by Liz Lochhead, Scotland’s Makar from 2011 to 2016. It has just been given pride of place, alongside many other inspirational lines of poetry and prose, on the Canongate wall of the Scottish Parliament.

Liz Lochhead wrote:

this

our one small country . . .

our one, wondrous, spinning, dear green place.

What shall we build of it together

in this our one small time and space?

Today, you have heard something of my answer, something of my ambition for Scotland. It is a vision of a country that is fairer, wealthier, more at peace with itself than the Scotland of today.

A Scotland that is modern, dynamic and forward-looking, living in anticipation of what more can be done, what else can be achieved. Moving forward as one, moving forward with hope and with self-belief.

Such a Scotland is within reach, I have no doubt. But if we want it, we have to work for it, we have to vote for it.

We have to actively, purposefully, and I hope also joyfully, make it happen.