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In taking all reasonable steps to ensure that customers are no worse off, should there be a discount on the bill if, to use my example, white metering means that customers will pay more than they paid under the old metering system? Should there be a discount on their bill, once it has been compared with previous bills?

The target arises.

I will begin with Brexit, but I am not lingering there, because Stephen Kerr is too easy a target and, indeed, delights in being a target. Not only did 62 per cent of Scots reject Brexit at the EU referendum almost 10 years ago, but the percentage who reject it has risen throughout the rest of the UK, so that 55 per cent now think that Brexit was a mistake and only 30 per cent think that it was a good idea. Members do not need a PhD to know why that is the case. We face higher costs and more red tape, and we do not have £375 million extra a week to redirect to the NHS, as was blazoned on the side of a bus—and that is just for starters.

We lost freedom of workforce movement across Europe, which has had an impact across the Scottish economy and particularly in the hospitality, care and horticultural sectors, and is now exacerbated by the UK hike in the cost of employer national insurance, which is a tax on jobs if ever there was one, and by ill-considered comments and policies on legal migration from Sir Keir Starmer. We need migrants here because we know that we have an ageing population and a decreasing available workforce, so we cannot separate Scotland’s domestic needs from what the UK and Europe do or from the world’s wider conflicts.

The member has pre-empted where I am going with this narrative. Entire communities have been destroyed in the West Bank and refugee camps have been depopulated. The world’s press is banned—that is no wonder.

What is Europe saying? On Ukraine, we have the “coalition of the willing”. That is better than nothing but, in the meantime, Russia’s occupation creeps further into, and embeds itself deeper in, Ukraine’s sovereign territory. On Gaza, the European Council has called for

“an immediate return to the full implementation of the ceasefire-hostage release agreement”;

it cites

“the importance of unimpeded access and sustained distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale into and throughout Gaza”

and calls for a “two-state solution”. Is that enough? I do not think so. It is better than nothing, but it is certainly not enough.

Brexit was not just bad for the UK and Scottish economies; it reduced the UK’s and Europe’s status and influence in world affairs. We need a strong European Union, with an independent Scotland as a partner and member state, not simply for economic reasons but as an international political force in order to counterbalance and challenge the new world order. We cannot leave it to contractual politics—to Putin, Netanyahu and Trump, to name but three international villains. It is not just about economics.

Yes, certainly, if I may have my time back.

As the welcome summer months approach, we enter the season of gala days and common ridings across the Borders, Midlothian and throughout rural Scotland. The British Horse Society has launched a “Dead Slow” campaign, which is aimed at motorists, in order to prevent injuries and even deaths for riders and horses.

Will the First Minister encourage drivers—particularly city drivers—to remind themselves of their obligations under the highway code on how to drive when there are horses on the roads in rural areas? I declare an interest as convener of the cross-party group on animal welfare.

First, the member must accept that we have an ageing population and that we do not have enough national births to provide a sufficient workforce. I certainly want people who come from elsewhere to work here to be decently paid and I do not want them to be underpaid, but we simply do not have the right population balance.

I also mourn the loss of European influence not only because we quit the EU but more broadly. It is sadly ironic that, just as the UK commemorated the 80th anniversary of VE day, which was celebrated on 8 May 1945 and marked the end of the second world war in Europe, we see a European nation—Ukraine—still being bombarded by Russia in an illegal occupation that is now in its third year. That is referred to as a war in this new world order, but it is an occupation. It is also being suggested that Ukraine must surrender part of its sovereign territory to Russia and that, in order to secure military aid from the Trump regime, it must surrender some of its minerals to the United States. That is termed “contractual politics” and I want nothing to do with it. That is the new world order for you.

I see President Trump as symbolic of that order, but he is not the cause of it, although he is giving it his blessing with a scratch of his Sharpie. His bizarre, fractious and fluctuating politics has at last woken up Europe and NATO to the chaos and fragility around them.

I move from Putin to Netanyahu, because the issue extends beyond Europe’s boundaries to Gaza. Too many have apparently accepted Netanyahu’s genocide, even if tacitly. I can do no better than refer members to the extraordinary and heartfelt submission that was made just days ago to the United Nations Security Council by the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Tom Fletcher, who said that Israel is

“deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians”

in Gaza and the West Bank. For more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza: no food, medicine, water or tents. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced and confined to ever-shrinking spaces, because 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory is either within Israel’s militarised zones or under displacement orders. Every single one of the 2.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip faces the risk of famine and one in five risk starvation. The few hospitals that have somehow survived bombardment are overwhelmed, and the medics who have somehow survived drone and sniper attacks cannot keep up with the trauma and the spread of disease. Appalling violence is also increasing on the West Bank, where the situation is the worst it has been in decades.

I, too, commend Liam McArthur and all speakers in the debate for their thoughtful, heartfelt and sensitive contributions. I also thank all my constituents who have taken the time to write to me with their views.

I will support the principle of assisted dying for terminally ill adults at stage 1. I first spoke in support of that principle in the debate on Margo MacDonald’s bill on 1 December 2010, and I quote from that:

“I have changed my view on the issue, from being opposed in principle—I stress it is in principle, which is what stage 1 is about—to support in principle.”

“Why have I changed my view? The death of both my much-loved parents in recent years made me focus on my own mortality and the manner of people’s deaths, which is something many of us choose to avoid.”

I reflected on the marked contrast between my mother’s lingering, heavily sedated hospital death—she was too ill to be moved to a hospice—and that of my father, with his digestive biscuit and cup of tea by his side, in his own chair in his own home, among generations of family photographs. I added:

“Incidentally, when my mother was taken as an emergency into hospital for those final weeks, my sister and I were asked out of the blue, little realising then how dire her condition was, who had authority not to resuscitate.”

My mother’s life or death was for us, and not her, to decide. She was resuscitated. The family were then told by the charge nurse that,

“with increased levels of morphine to kill the pain, her death would surely be accelerated.”—[Official Report, 1 December 2010; c 31071-2.]

We thanked him.

Fifteen years on, my support has never wavered. I am nearly 81 and am therefore probably more aware of my mortality than most of us here. At this age, many of my friends have gone. For some, death was kind; for others, it was really cruel. For Margo—bless her courage—who was supported by Macmillan nurses, it was Parkinson’s that finally ended her life. She did not need assisted dying; she simply wanted choice.

I say to Pam Duncan-Glancy and others that if I thought for one moment that the bill’s provisions would inevitably put pressure on the disabled, the vulnerable and the elderly, I would not vote for it even at stage 1. If protections need strengthening, let us try to do that.

There should be choice by Christine Grahame for Christine Grahame. No one else has that right for me, nor do I have it for anyone else. Throughout my adult life, I have been able to choose which medicines and treatments to take. I already do that. I can even sign an advance DNR—do not resuscitate—form. Until death itself, I have the final say. I am in charge of my own body. I therefore find it bizarre that I cannot choose, in closely defined circumstances and in the knowledge that I am terminally ill, the time and manner of my death, with capacity, consent, compassion and, I hope, my family. For me, that is a backstop; it is a choice only—an option that is not compulsory for the individual or the professionals.

I will support the bill and I hope that those who have yet to make up their mind will vote for it to pass tonight, so that, at the very least, we have the opportunity and time as it progresses through stages 2 and 3 to rigorously test it further and to take on the legitimate concerns that others have raised.

The minister has alluded to the fact that, two weeks ago, the First Minister said that the Government was reviewing the guidance. Given that Conservative-led Scottish Borders Council has already made decisions on nurseries—although it has compromised and does not intend to go ahead with what it originally decided to do—can the minister provide a timeline for when the revised guidance will be available to the public? If she cannot do so today, I ask her to do so as soon as is practicable.

I will, in a moment.

The elephant in the room is the hike in employer national insurance. That tax on jobs, which one employer estimated would cost an extra £400,000 per annum on his wage bill, will also cost jobs. The Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted that 60 per cent of those increased costs will be passed to consumers.

The impact on the voluntary sector is also devastating. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations estimates an additional cost to the sector of £75 million. If we add in winter fuel allowance cuts and farm inheritance tax, which threatens the very basis of our food sustainability—none of which was in Labour’s manifesto—no wonder Labour had a kicking in the recent council elections.

To go back to what the Scottish taxpayer gets for their money, Murdo Fraser can take it as read that I know and recognise that we need a thriving economy to fund social justice, and that will be my focus. As my old history teacher, Tar Macadam, used to say, what better way to assess than by comparing and contrasting? In this instance, I will compare and contrast Scotland under the SNP with England under the Tories and now Labour.

I will give examples. University tuition is free in Scotland; in England, it is £9,535 per annum, and students have after three years a debt of around £28,000 just for fees.

Contrast the delivery in Scotland of 1,140 hours of childcare for all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds with England, where, broadly, provision is only for all three and four-year-olds, for 570 hours.

Keeping 40,000 children out of poverty by providing the Scottish child payment at £27.15 per week for every child under 16 in a qualifying household can be contrasted with an absence of child payment under UK Labour and, instead, the punitive and disgraceful two-child benefit cap.

For the older generation, all pensioners in Scotland will receive at least £100 in winter fuel payment; those who receive the UK-run pension credit will get £300. If we contrast that with England, we see that only those on pension credit get anything, and the majority are left out in the cold.

We are investing in a fairer social security system and helping people into work, and we have 16 more benefits than are available in England. By contrast, the Labour Government is intent on restricting disability payments. It euphemistically says that that is about

“re-evaluating the personal independence payment eligibility criteria”—

that is cuts to you and me.

Here, we are providing free bus travel for 2.3 million people, including older and disabled people and all children and young people under 22. In England, free bus travel is available only for those with certain disabilities or on reaching state pension age, which is currently 66; in Scotland, people get their bus pass at 60.

Prescriptions here are free, and eye examinations are free for everyone, every two years. Prescription charges in England are £9.90 per item. In England, eye tests are free, but only for certain groups—for people who are under 16 or aged 60 or over, or who have specific medical conditions.

We are reducing the cost of the school day for families through free school meals for pupils in primary 1 to P5. In England, free meals are only for pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2.

The majority of Scottish taxpayers pay less tax than those in England, and we provide a compassionate and fair distribution of that tax.

I very much endorse the Scottish Government’s statement that it has

“targeted engagement with investors to secure investments from our new National Project Pipeline”,

which is a bit of official gobbledegook, but I hope that that means research and development. We have missed out on that in Scotland, so I want to hear more about the new proof of concept fund and an improved system of grants to increase the scale and quality of the Scottish start-up ecosystem. For Scotland, while tied to the UK, there has been a lack of vision and investment in manufacturing and in universities.

In a previous debate—I am apparently in a compare-and-contrast mode—I noted how Taiwan, with little or no natural resources, unlike energy-rich and food-rich Scotland, invests in research and development and protects intellectual property and patents internationally, which is essential in this fast-moving world.

For me, comparing and contrasting demonstrates without a scintilla of doubt the benefits, even with the constrictions of devolution, of living in Scotland under this SNP Government, but think how much more we could achieve with full economic independence.