Cole-Hamilton delivers speech to Autumn party conference.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today delivered a speech to his party’s autumn conference in Edinburgh in which he set out plans for a Clean Water Act, pledged to treble the Digital Services Tax on social media giants to invest in mental health and pledged to rescue the health service from 16 years of nationalist disinterest.

Mr Cole-Hamilton was introduced by Gloria Adebo, the party’s recent by-election candidate.

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Thank you so much Gloria.

Conference, Gloria had never run for Parliament before, but you wouldn’t know it from the warmth and reception she receives on the doors.

She is a natural campaigner. A community campaigner.

And she well deserves her place in our forward-looking Future Leaders Programme.

Thank you Gloria.

Gloria, like so many of you, is in politics because she is determined to change the lives of the people around her. To fight for her town and to change this country for the better.

And she demonstrated how we do that in this party. Door by door. Street by street.

And you know what conference, we are going to need to do a lot more of that.

Because this may be the last time we meet like this before polling day.

There is a jar of tamarind sauce in my fridge that actually goes off after the last possible date for the General Election.

It really is that close. At most it’s 9 Liz Truss’ away.

It’s game time.

So I need all of you firing on all cylinders.

Because this is an election the likes of which we haven’t had for more than a decade.

A change election – one of real opportunity for our party, and a rare opportunity for our country.

Conference, you can change a nation and the course of history in the vote you cast. And my goodness don’t we need that change right now.

It's hard to overstate the damage that the Conservative Government has done to our politics, our institutions and our way of life.

Brexit, Liz Truss, skyrocketing mortgages.

They gleefully rush to marginalise the vulnerable and the powerless.

They have demonised refugees and sought to sow division with small-minded culture wars.

They have demolished trust in the great offices of state.

Last month, in the early hours of the morning, muffled by the gales of Storm Agnes, a chainsaw felled one of the most iconic trees in Britain.

The Sycamore Gap tree had grown in the lee of Hadrian’s Wall since the 19th century. Its loss feels like a poignant motif for the state of our country.

There is a dark poetry here. The felling of that mighty tree happened on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference. Think of their logo. Not dissimilar to that tree. And they know a lot about wanton acts of vandalism as well.

Constitutional vandalism, economic vandalism, the vandalism of honesty and common human decency.

Conference, we will tear the Tory Party up by the roots.

Following our record by-election victories, John Curtice said the Liberal Democrats “have been making the spectacular look routine”. Well, there’s more to come. We are second to the Conservatives in 80 seats.

In those historic victories we started even further behind and look what we achieved.

It's not just the Blue Wall of the Conservatives in the South we will be taking down. We have our grappling hooks in the acid yellow wall of the SNP.

Only the Liberal Democrats can beat the nationalists in huge swathes of Scotland. From Milngavie to Mallaig. Cupar to Cape Wrath.

Because if you are looking for change you won’t find it in the SNP. They have been in power longer than the Tories.

A government that has failed Scotland for 16 years has no part to play in what Britain needs to become.

A party for which good headlines matter more than good public services has no part to play in what Britain needs to become.

Ministers who conspired to erase pandemic WhatsApps which they knew an inquiry and grieving families would want to see. They have no part to play in what Britain needs to become.

It's time we were rid of them.

Millions of decent, honest, liberally-minded people right across this country are fed up with the pair of them.

They are crying out for representation which embodies the values they hold dear. For someone who will put the interests of their communities first. Who will carry themselves with integrity and lead by example.

Like Ed Davey, who lost both his parents to cancer as a child, now determined to end unacceptable treatment delays and drive up cancer survival rates.

Like Wendy Chamberlain who saw the best and worst of society as a police officer. Now at Westminster she is one of the very best at holding the powerful to account - at exposing the worst of government sleaze.

And we are so proud that Wendy has brought into law her landmark Carer’s Leave Act, creating a new right that will help 2.4 million carers across the United Kingdom better balance work and care. What a difference that will make.

Thank you Wendy.

Before politics, I spent more than a decade as a youth worker with disadvantaged young people. I understand what life is like at the hard edge of our communities. I carry their stories with me every day when I walk through the doors of the Scottish Parliament.

Now is the time when we need leaders to rise and draw on the experiences they bring, reach out beyond the divisions and put country before party.

It is honest and selfless community leadership that defines us as Liberal Democrats.

That is the kind of leadership the country has been starved of for far too long.

Conference, the way is open. Now is our time.

Standing up for our communities is at the heart of our party.

But it’s not just about those vital health centres, schools or broken pavements. It’s about the natural environment of those communities as well.

Conference, our rivers, lochs and beaches are amongst the most beautiful in the world. From Loch Ness, to the Solway Firth. From the banks of the River Spey to the Sound of Bute. We are blessed with a rich natural heritage.

And yet Conference, government has been dumping sewage in our country’s arteries. For years. Places where children paddle, dogs play and people fish.

SNP ministers have become little more than spin doctors for the failing, government-owned water company and its outdated standards.

More than half of Scotland’s bathing waters breached safety limits for faecal matter this summer. In Lower Largo, just across the Forth Estuary, bacteria was found to be 50 times the legal limit.

The system is designed to release sewage when rain is torrential, but it’s happening on dry days too. Conference, that’s illegal.

And yet there never seem to be any consequences for those in power.

That is why today I’m announcing that our manifesto for the next Scottish Parliament election will contain provision for a new Clean Water Act.

It will see:

• Scotland’s Victorian sewage network updated
• Every sewage dump monitored and published with binding targets for their reduction.
• A blue flag system for Scotland’s rivers.
• And a complete ban on the release of sewage in protected areas such as bathing waters.

Our rivers and estuaries are the lifeblood of our country. It’s time we gave them the protection they deserve.

As Liberals we act as guardians, not just for our local environment, but for our planet in its entirety.

Look across the world, from Greece to Hawaii, Canada to our own Scottish Highlands, wildfires raged this summer – at their worst destroying homes and businesses and claiming lives.

But when it comes to vital net zero targets, the SNP and Greens are missing them.

And the Tories are shattering the hard-won consensus behind them.

Ignoring the science, tilting on a few hundred votes in Uxbridge in the hope of short-term political gain.

While others may abandon our shared climate commitments, Scottish Liberal Democrats will not.

We need to destroy the illusion that there is a tension between the vital policies that save our planet and our efforts to help people struggling to pay the bills.

By insulating every home in Scotland we will save people money and reduce our carbon footprint.

By switching people away from volatile and expensive fossil fuels, we can guarantee secure and cheap renewable energy.

Conference, if the Tory party want to play games with the future of our planet, they underestimate how much this actually matters to people, how much they care, and the Conservatives will deservedly lose.

Conference, the National Health Service is a liberal invention, one of our family of nation’s proudest achievements.

But it is in peril like never before in its 75-year history.

This is personal. It has saved the lives of two of my children. At one point or another, it has been there for all of us. At moments of joy, but in many more cases moments of profound distress.

But it has been cut off at the knees by 16 years of nationalist disinterest.

There is an intrinsic connection between the health of our NHS, the health of our country, and the health of our economy.

Our businesses and our public finances only thrive when our population is as well as it can be.

But we can’t build the economy Scotland needs when people living in more deprived areas miss out on 25 years of good health.

We can’t build the economy Scotland needs when the equivalent of 1 in 7 Scots are on a waiting list.

And we can’t grow the economy Scotland needs when there are hundreds of thousands of people locked out of work by long covid, physical and mental ill health.

If people can’t get help fast then they can’t get back to work and get on in life.

That’s why every Liberal Democrat elected to Parliament will be a champion for local health services.

There isn’t a moment to lose if we are to stop the NHS crisis from spiralling out of all control.

There is a cigarette-style warning that deserves to be affixed to every nationalist leaflet in Scotland: Voting SNP is bad for your health.

Conference, it’s easy to criticise. It’s harder to come up with a plan. But we’ve got one.

We would:

• Scrap the SNP’s billion-pound takeover of social care
• Establish specialist clinics and in-home support for long Covid sufferers
• Save NHS dentistry
• Bring down waits, retain staff and tackle burnout.

Every vote for the Liberal Democrats will be a vote to rescue the NHS, fix our broken care system and give staff a fair deal for doing the job they love.

Back us and we will be agents of change for a brighter future for our health service, for our economy, and for you.

And today I want to tell you about another part of our plan.

Conference, half of parents say their child has experienced mental ill health. It is a national crisis.

I have met countless families trying to get their child seen.

I’m really worried about how much social media is a part of this.

As a political leader I’ve seen my fair share of its dark side, of online abuse.

But for young people it can feel like there is no escape.

97% of them are now on social media, and for big chunks of the day.

It’s shattering their mental health. It can impact their sense of self-worth and cause them to hate their own appearance.

When they tell us it is doing them harm, and they are, we should listen.

Clamping down on harmful content is essential.

But we need to look deeper at the damage the social media giants have wrought, at the shattered pieces of childhood that lie in the margins of their profits.

It’s time for them to pay.

The Digital Services Tax is paid by the largest social media sites.

This should be the vehicle to exact proper recompense for the harm they are doing.

Liberal Democrats would treble that tax to raise £1.5 billion next year alone.

That could unlock up to £150 million for the Scottish Budget in Barnett consequentials.

That could help boost mental health support in schools, get more professionals close to where you live, and guarantee that whenever a young person needs help it will come fast.

This is an opportunity to build world-class mental health services for Scotland.

Conference, this could save lives.

I’ve told you before, that I am a member of this party, because unlike any other, Liberals care passionately about the welfare of people half a world away that we may never meet.

It's why I’m so glad we heard from Nazanin and Richard today. They reminded us that there are people toiling in the forgotten corners of the world at this very moment, for equality, for human rights, for their very survival.

Nazanin, Richard, this party will not forget your words, we will not forget the example you have shown us and we will not forget our commitment to the oppressed people of this world.

Thank you for being with us today.

Because Liberal Democrats want our country to embrace the world, not to hide from it. Throughout our history we’ve stood up for international law and spoken out for the oppressed.

Paddy’s efforts to secure passports for Hongkongers.

Charles’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

Wherever there is trouble in our world, Liberals care.

And nowhere Conference is that trouble more evident than Israel Palestine.

What happened, on the 7th of October was an atrocity. On Monday, at a parliamentary briefing, I was shown an uncensored video of those attacks. Those scenes of murder and mutilation are burned into my brain.

Hamas are terrorists and they have brought a bloody reckoning on those innocent people of Gaza they now hide behind in cowardice.

I am heartsore at the loss and kidnap of so many innocent Israeli children, just as I am heartsore at the catastrophe now being visited on the children of Gaza.

Israel has the right to defend itself within international law, of course it does, but we need the bombs to stop – a temporary humanitarian ceasefire - so we can get hostages out and food, medicine and fuel in to civilians on the ground.

The idea that hope and history could rhyme amidst the chaos and the slaughter of that beleaguered land seems beyond the realms of possibility right now.

But that path to peace, to a two-state solution, is a path we can and must re-join.

Conference, our movement is rooted in an understanding that cooperation across borders is the only guarantor of peace our world has ever known.

And nowhere is that clearer than Europe.

Conference the European project represents the most important plan for peace in the whole of human history. It ended centuries of war.

And while, by slim majority, the citizens of these islands chose to turn their backs on that, we, the Liberal Democrats, will never turn away from it.

We will never let go of the inescapable reality that our country was simply better off as a full member of the European Union.

The Tories have set fire to all the goodwill and understanding that existed with our European neighbours. They have made our road back to Europe all the longer, all the harder.

But it is a road we have already started out upon.

Conference, be in no doubt of our commitment to that aim. Realistic, pragmatic, remorseless.

We are already building bridges, re-establishing connections amid the seeds of common understanding in the British people of the hideous calamity of Brexit.

Mark my words, it may not be this coming General Election, but one day an election will come where a chance to reclaim our European membership is on the ballot paper. We will be at the heart of that.

My commitment to you is this. I have spent the vast majority of my life a citizen of both the United Kingdom and of the European Union. It is my intention to leave this life a citizen of both as well.

Change is coming. The election is coming. And we will fight it, door by door, street by street.

To return Alistair, Christine, Jamie and Wendy so they can continue their excellent work on the green benches of the House of Commons, and to see them joined by Susan Murray, Angus Macdonald and more.

When I was out knocking doors recently in Inverness, people already thought Angus was their MP – that’s how hard he is working. Susan and her team are within touching distance of a full canvass, knocking every door in mid-Dunbartonshire. It’s so inspiring.

And being part of what’s next is more than just a soundbite. It’s a reality check that we need to take ourselves seriously.

Conference, for years elections have been dominated by the constitution, being best placed to defeat the SNP. On the day I became the leader of our party, I told you that I was tired of fighting elections based on who we are not.

Our mission now is to show people who we are, what we stand for.

So here it is.

If you want a party that will bring people together – put Scotland at the heart of Britain, Britain at the heart of Europe - come with us.

If you want a dynamic economy with opportunity for all and wellbeing at its heart, look no further.

If you are looking for candidates that believe immigration is a benefit and diversity makes our country stronger, here we are.

For government to help you when you fall behind, but resist absolutely the urge to intrude in your life, that is us.

If you believe in federalism and localism, that power should always sit as close as possible to the people it serves, we’re right here.

If you care about protecting our climate, in world-beating education, in a fair voting system.

If you want all of that, then you are a Liberal Democrat, accept your diagnosis and come with us.

Conference be proud of our story, embrace the hope that fires our movement, serve your communities with passion and knock those doors with confidence.

The election is coming. Change is coming. And we represent so much of what Britain needs to become.

So let’s get out there.

Thank you.