 The SNP and Scottish Greens have announced details of a power-sharing agreement in Hollywood. Two green MSPs will be appointed as ministers in the Scottish government, which will obviously be led by the SNP. It's the first time anywhere in the UK that the Greens have gained power in a national government. Patrick Harvey and Lorna Slater are co-leaders of the Scottish Greens, and they have this to say on the deal. This is indeed a historic moment. This deal would see the Greens entering government for the first time ever in Scotland or anywhere in the UK, and it couldn't come at a more important time. The last 18 months have been an incredibly difficult time for us all, and as we seek to rebuild our lives and our economy, we really must seek to do things differently. We must build a fairer, compassionate country, and we must do everything in our power to tackle the climate and nature emergencies and deliver a just transition for all of Scotland. And that's what this deal will do. And with the COP26 climate conference coming to Scotland, we are in a position to show real leadership on climate. We need to cut Scotland's emissions fast. Here are three ways that this deal would do that. One, we would deliver a radical shift in transport spending. 10% of all transport spend would go towards making cycling, walking, and wheeling safe and accessible for all. And we would invest £5 billion over this parliament in Scotland's rail network. Two, we cannot tackle the climate emergency without improving Scotland's homes and buildings. We have therefore agreed an accelerated and expanded £2.8 billion programme that would support everyone to make the changes that we need over the coming decade. Three, we would accelerate the rollout of renewables and double the size of the onshore wind industry, creating thousands of good quality jobs. Together, we would deliver a new deal for tenants, giving tenants more rights, introducing rent controls to help tackle Scotland's housing crisis. We would make bus travel free for young people, create a new national park, and much more. That was the green co-leaders underlining the policies that they've managed to get into this deal. Some pretty progressive stuff there. The arrangement also underlines both party support for Scottish independence with a commitment to hold a referendum in the next five years. This is what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the deal represents for the Scottish independence movement. I am determined that there will be an independence referendum in this parliament. I said in the election this agreement reiterates that COVID permitting that will be in the first half of this parliamentary term. I don't want that as an end in itself or as some abstract ambition. I believe Scotland should be independent so that we can better equip ourselves to recover from COVID in the way that I think a majority of people across our country wishes to do towards a greener, fairer Scotland and one that learns the lessons of the past 18 months and more. And of course, a Scotland that looks outward to Europe and the world, not one that is forced to look inward by the Brexit-obsessed government of the UK. This agreement, I think, it's not about making it more likely. I think it makes it harder and indeed impossible on any democratic basis for a UK government to resist the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future. The three of us standing here and our respective parties want that future to be an independent one. But the core principle of democracy is that it should not be us or any other politician who decides the future that should be and will be, in my view, a matter for the Scottish people. That was Nicola Sturgeon reiterating she really does want a second independence referendum. Earlier today, I spoke to Laurie McFarlane about some of the finer details of the power-sharing agreement and what it means for the future of Scotland. We've seen two documents published, basically, which is the outcome of months of negotiations between the S&P and the Greens since the election took place in May. So the first thing is the draft cooperation agreement, and this basically sets out the formalities of how this is actually going to work, how the two parties are going to work together. And so it's not a formal coalition. What it is, is more of a confidence and supply type arrangement, whereby the Greens basically have been offered two junior minister positions in the government, one for climate and one for something else. And they basically said that they will support the government in confidence votes, and they've agreed to support them on a range of broad areas. So it's not a formal coalition government, but it's certainly the closest thing. It's certainly close to that, closer to that than perhaps people might have expected a couple of months ago when we saw their election result. The S&P having a minority in Hollywood and relying on green votes, that's been the case in, I think, multiple parliaments, or at least one, and they didn't go into a formal agreement like this. What's the motivation on both sides for a formal agreement? Yeah, so in May, the S&P won 64 votes, which is the same as all the opposition parties. It's actually more than they got in the last parliament. And obviously in the last parliament, there wasn't any kind of formal agreement. The S&P governed as a minority government and often relied on the Greens to get legislation through. So it's interesting, this time around, what's changed? Well, I think on both sides. So on the S&P side, I think Nicola Sturgeon probably sees something in having the Greens inside the tent. Now that part of that might be the sort of kudos of having a green party in government. You know, COP26 has come into Scotland in just a couple of months. Nicola Sturgeon is keen to sort of polish up our green credentials and having the Greens in government, whether or at least in a formal arrangement, whether we'll help that. A more cynical view might say that this is an attempt to kind of neutralize the Greens. So the Greens were in quite a powerful position in the last parliament because although the S&P relied on them to get legislation through, they had that power to wield because they could actually say, actually, no, we're going to side with the opposition parties to block things that we don't like. And so they were in that quite powerful position and did act as a bit of a thorn in the side of the S&P in the last parliament. And so by bringing them into the tent from an S&P perspective, you know, it might be a way of sort of trying to neutralize that sort of power from, at least in one sense. On the Greens side, you know, clearly there is some status to be gained by being a party that has, you know, in not a formal sense, but will be seen to be a party of government moving from the sort of fringes of the political landscape. This is the first time that the Greens have come anywhere near governing in the UK. You know, they'll see that as a major breakthrough. So what's just pointing out, important point to make though, is that this is not being finalized yet because the proposals need to be voted on by Scottish Green Party members this weekend. Green Party, obviously quite a democratic party. So this has to be put to the members and the members will decide this weekend whether they want to back this or not. So that's a big unknown question as to whether that's going to happen or not. It's not being put to SNP members. That's just been decided by the leadership, but it has been put to Green members for a Green Party member, considering they are, as you say, very relevant in this situation, what can they look at in this deal and say, yes, this is a real victory for us. I'm imagining these people are slightly to the left of the SNP. What would they look at in this document and say, this is brilliant. This is going to be implemented. Well, the other document that was published today was a draft shared policy program, which sets out a whole range of policy proposals, policy areas, policy agenda where there's common ground, or at least on paper, there's common ground between the SNP and the Greens, and this is what they're going to be pursuing to implement this parliament. There's lots of pretty good stuff in there. I mean, on housing, commitment to national rent controls, much stronger tenant protection, things like that, which is quite a big step forward. As you'd expect, quite good on climate, land reform, national care service, scaling up community wealth building. So there's lots of stuff in there that, you know, if you're looking at to try and get things done to improve the way that Scotland is operating at the moment, if the Greens can be part of making that happen and can help to push the SNP that little bit further, then you can see that that might be tempting. One interesting part, though, there's also in the documents an explicit annex which sets out policy areas that are excluded, specifically excluded from the cooperation agreement. And it's really interesting to see what they are. One of them is the role of GDP as a measure and the sort of idea of economic growth as a goal. So the Greens are quite a bit skeptical about the sort of growth growth paradigm and pushing against that and the role of GDP as a measure of progress. The SNP have said we don't want to basically we don't want to cooperate with the Greens on this area because we don't agree. Another one is financial support to defence and aerospace companies, which again, I think there's a fundamental disagreement there. And so they're not going to be cooperating on that NATO membership, which obviously isn't relevant just now, but is relevant in a post independence context. It explicitly said there weren't there's not that's not within the cooperation agreement because there's a big divide there. The SNP pro NATO Greens, anti NATO field sports, which is a very innocent name for what's essentially shooting sports. So deer stalking, grouse shooting, all that kind of stuff. Again, big divide there at sex work. The legality of sex work is another one. The final one is private schools, fee paying schools. So none of that stuff is in the agreement. So there's basically there's a there's basically agreement that they're not going to agree on this stuff. And so the Greens don't have to agree with them on this. And that's been set out at the beginning. And I think the key unknown question for for me and probably for Green Party members right now is they're thinking, well, where's our leverage? Where's our leverage best used? Is it actually in this formal agreement with the SNP? What leverage do we have there to actually change things? Or is it actually outside of that with the threat to be able to side with the opposition parties in order to block the SNP stuff? And it's a very tricky situation. It's a good position to be in for the Scottish Greens. It's a powerful dilemma to have, but it is a tricky one because they also can leave it, I suppose if it turns out that they have a disagreement with the SNP on one of those areas which isn't protected, they can say, well, we'll leave this formal agreement and we will still vote against your your budget. I presume no no agreement can commit them in the future against doing that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, politics things can change very quickly. And, you know, if the if the members this weekend do decide to back this agreement in good faith and are optimistic about it, you know, we'll see how it goes. It could well be the case that further down the line, it proves that it's not working and and and the Greens pull out. I mean, that's that's a possibility. But yeah, we just need to wait and see how it pans out. One policy area I wanted to ask about was the cambo oil fields. So at the moment, the SNP, I think are still supporting it or at least remaining very ambiguous. I would presume the Greens are going to oppose that. You're saying having the Greens and government is going to make Nicola Sturgeon look good at COP 26. Is there a possibility that this is something that's going to blow up over the next few months, whether or not Nicola Sturgeon will back new oil fields in the North Sea? Oil in the North Sea, sorry. Well, it's interesting because this is actually a reserved area. So the Scottish government actually doesn't have any power. Now, and there are some areas that are reserved with the SNP are very keen to talk about the very keen to say, you know, we would do this differently, you know, we would do that. Nicola Sturgeon actually did. I mean, following a meeting with I think it was Green New Deal rising a couple of weeks ago, did actually come out and say, actually, you know, I've listened and sort of acknowledged that further opening up new new oil and gas fields isn't the right thing to do. So she did kind of acknowledge that. However, in this case, in this specific deal, this is a reserved area. And so, you know, there's a bit of, you know, it's not really mentioned, basically, here, it's a bit of a fudge in this agreement because it's saying, actually, well, you know, this is an agenda for the Scottish Parliament and basically oil and gas is a reserved matter. And therefore, we're not going to say anything about it. But clearly, there is differing views, particularly between the two parties here. You know, the Greens obviously very, very much opposed to it. Some within the SNP, not so much opposed to it. So this is one of these tensions that's kind of bubbling underneath the surface. But there's a convenient sort of convenient reason not to explicitly talk about it here. And that's simply, oh, it's a reserved matter. We don't have competence over at the moment. And that's kind of what we've done. I understand in the deal they have committed to an indie ref, to within five years, ideally, in the first half of Parliament. That's another area where they don't have complete control because the government in Westminster can refuse to allow them to have that referendum. Does it say in the deal what would happen if the Westminster government does refuse? Would they have an unauthorized referendum, for example? It doesn't. It doesn't say that it doesn't say anything about that. I mean, this is another reason, potentially, why we were talking earlier about why would the SNP try and do this deal? One of the reasons could be to try and that it bolsters the case, the mandate for an independent referendum, because there is this view that prevails, I think, certainly in Westminster, that Green votes are not quite real independence votes, and that the SNP is the real independence vote. And because the SNP fell slightly short of a majority, then somehow that mandate is not really legitimate because the other majority, the other that makes a majority is the Greens and the Greens don't really come. And I think by bringing the Greens into the fold as a sort of formal partner, they're sort of, in a sense, strengthening the Greens as a sort of legitimate political actor as an equal partner, certainly when it comes to independence. And so I think the SNP will be hoping that if this partnership does materialise, if it does get the votes this weekend by the members, that this will put forward a stronger front, provide a stronger mandate to the UK government, say, look, we now have a government, a majority government here that has an unquestionable mandate for independence, and you really don't have any right to refuse. Of course, there's a big question. You know, the UK, the reality is the UK does can just refuse. And Boris Johnson, when you think about it, does you really have an incentive to grant a referendum? What's he got to gain from it? He doesn't rely on Scottish votes. He's got enough headaches on his plate at the moment. Does he really want to do that? So I think it's going to be a really interesting battle playing out. And of course, the question is, if it is refused, what what cards does the Scottish government hold? Could it hold a sort of a wildcat referendum? Does it want to go down that route? That sort of Catalonia route? You know, well, wait, there's been various sort of threats being put forward, but it'd be really interesting to see how that plays out in practice. I'm sure this is the kind of key question that some of the strategists will be thinking about just now and over the coming months.