We invited all major political parties in Scotland to take part in an interview ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections on May 6. In this instalment – the last of the series – we speak to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP.

Q. What is your party planning to do in the Borders?

A. Obviously for the Borders, as with the whole of the country, recovery from COVID is a top priority.

To get the economy growing again, to support retail, to support tourism.

Central to that, of course, will be infrastructure.

The SNP has already delivered a significant infrastructure project, which is very important to the Borders, in terms of the railway.

Our manifesto will set out plans to build on that and to go further. But to get the economy of the Borders up and running again, and to support growth and the overall wellbeing of people living in the Borders, will be a top priority.

Q. Like many local authorities, Scottish Borders Council has declared a climate emergency. What is your party doing on that front?

A. I think the Scottish Government led the way in declaring a climate emergency.

The Scottish Parliament in the last term of parliament has passed what, by any standards, are considered to be world-leading targets to become a net zero emissions country by 2045. And to achieve by 2030 a 75 per cent reduction in emissions.

That puts us right at the leading edge of ambition in terms of ending our contribution to climate change. Setting the targets is the easy bit.

Delivering that is, obviously, much more challenging. At the end of last year we published an updated climate change plan including about 100 different policies across how we heat our homes, how we travel around, agriculture, reducing emissions in industry, that will be necessary to meet those targets.

Government has a leadership role to play, but to succeed we have to work in partnership with local authorities and, indeed, with the private sector.

Obviously, hosting the COP 26 in Glasgow later this year will be a real catalyst, I think, for the Scottish Government and everybody in Scotland to showcase our ambition, but also to showcase what we are doing and encourage the rest of the world to join with us.

Q. You have said that you would like an independent Scotland to join the EU. Would that mean a potentially damaging hard border between Scotland and the rest of the UK?

A. I don’t want a border. I have never wanted a border. I don’t want a hard border in future.

In terms of the free movement of people, an independent Scotland would continue to be in the common travel area.

So there would be no hard border in terms of people.

Obviously, in terms of goods and services, our priority would be to keep trade flowing.

It is Brexit that has created the issues of borders and many of our exports right now are facing real difficulty and losing a lot of business and a lot of money because of the border difficulties from the UK to the rest of Europe.

Independence gives us the opportunity to become part of the European single market again – seven times the size of the UK market – but to continue to work with the UK and EU to keep trade flowing in both directions between Scotland and England.

Q. What would you say your biggest goal was in an independent Scotland?

A. My biggest goal right now and in an independent Scotland is to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up.

Make it a great country for children to learn in, to grow up in, to make sure we can eradicate child poverty and for Scotland to be a confident, prosperous, fair and equal country.

We know that is possible because if we look across Europe right now at countries very similar in size to Scotland, but often without the vast natural resources that Scotland has, these are countries that are amongst the wealthiest, the fairest and the happiest countries in the world.

If places like Norway and Denmark can do that, there is absolutely no reason why Scotland can’t as well.

Q. Why do you think Scotland voted ‘no’ in 2014?

A. There is no doubt a variety of reasons.

Scotland came closer to voting ‘yes’ than many people would ever have predicted.

For people like me, we have to continue to build support, trust and confidence and persuade people. In 2014, 45 per cent of people voted ‘yes’. Most opinion polls right now, including one just published in the last hour [the Border Telegraph spoke to Ms Sturgeon on April 7], show that independence is now supported by a majority of people in Scotland. So already we have moved on significantly from 2014.

Once the COVID pandemic is over, I think people in Scotland should have the right to consider that again and make their choice.

Readers’ questions

Q. Scotland’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results in science and maths have dropped under SNP governments. Why has education got worse under the SNP?

A. We look at the data for exam results in Scotland, we see both attainment rising and the attainment gap closing.

We have still got more work to do.

That is why we are investing heavily in education and in education recovery, in more teachers.

We have invested, over the last parliament, three quarters of a billion pounds specifically closing the attainment gap.

When we publish our manifesto next week, we will set out our plans for the next parliament. Scottish education is high quality.

There is work to do to make sure it continues to improve and that we close the poverty-related attainment gap. Part, of course, closing the poverty-related attainment gap is not just focusing on attainment in schools, but focusing on poverty.

And we have already taken more action than any previous government in Scotland – establishing the Scottish Child Payment, for example, and we’ve put forward plans in this election to double that in the next parliament.

A key part in raising educational attainment is to lift children out of poverty.

Q. Would there be an Indyref 3, if you were to lose a second independence referendum?

A. I don’t intend for that to be the situation, so it is a completely hypothetical question.