The Scottish Greens’ co-leader Lorna Slater said her party will have “greater influence in Holyrood than ever before” following the party’s best election performance.
Ms Slater said the SNP falling short of an overall majority and the Scottish Greens’ returning eight MSPs was a “good thing for Scotland” because her party offered “positive, practical policies” for the country.
READ MORE: Nationalist supermajority means the centre cannot hold
After she was elected to the Scottish Parliament for the first time as a regional MSP for Lothian, Ms Slater said she will be giving up her job as an engineering manager to take her seat in the Scottish Parliament after the “huge privilege” of being elected on the Lothian list.
Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “I am so excited to be part of the largest-ever green group of MSPs, to know that we have greater influence in Holyrood than ever before at this critical time when we’re tackling climate emergency, coming out of the pandemic and determining what kind of future Scotland’s going to have.
“It’s a huge privilege to be part of that.”
READ MORE: Election 2021: All eyes were on Aberdeenshire as path to SNP majority closed
Asked about the Scottish Greens’ role in the next parliament in light of the SNP falling short of an overall majority, Ms Slater told PA: “I think it’s a strength of the Scottish Parliament that we can have minority governments because actually, I think legislation is better when it’s worked on by more than one party.
“The SNP in the last parliament had to work with different parties on different pieces of legislation, and that means negotiation, it means consensus, it means grown-up politics.
“So I think it’s a good thing for Scotland.”
She added: “We came into this election with a costed manifesto that had practical policies to tackle the climate emergency, create tens of thousands of jobs and help build a wellbeing economy.
“So we will be working to implement what’s in our manifesto.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel