Powersharing deal with SNP gives Greens chance to ‘show party can deliver’

A powersharing deal which has put the Greens into government for the first time in the UK gives the party the chance to “show we can deliver”, one of its co-leaders has said.

Lorna Slater has joined the Scottish Government under a co-operation deal agreed between her party and the SNP.

It gives the Greens two junior ministerial positions in Nicola Sturgeon’s administration, but Ms Slater said the party’s five remaining MSPS would still be able to act as if they were in opposition.

She said: “The Scottish Greens are in a very fortunate position here, the co-operation agreement we have negotiated, based on the model of the New Zealand Greens with Jacinda Ardern’s government, there is a mix of in and out.

“We’ve got two Government ministers now with broad portfolios, on very key areas to do with climate and social justice, but at the same time we have still five MSPS who are able to speak as opposition MSPS, and I think this is a powerful position for us to be in.”

Ms Slater, a Lothian MSP, has become the new minister for green skills, the circular economy and biodiversity.

The Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie is now the minister for zero carbon buildings, active travel and tenants’ rights.

With the party now in Government, Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone has ruled the Greens are no longer entitled to a leaders’ question at the weekly First Minister’s Questions. The Greens’ short money – the funds paid to parties in order to carry out parliamentary duties – is also being reduced.

Ms Slater said the deal gives the Scottish Greens an “opportunity to show we can deliver, that we can as part of a Government deliver a successful programme”.

She also told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the agreement set out “clear deliverables” for investing in railways, creating a new national park and upgrading homes to make them more energy efficient.

She added there were various mechanisms included in the new arrangement for managing disagreements between the two parties.

Ms Slater said: “What we really want to do is engage in grown-up politics, and the agreement itself has this ‘agree to disagree’ section, so we know there are things on which we are not going to agree with the Scottish Government, but we have agreed to put those aside and focus on the areas where we do agree, and I think that is what voters want to see.

“They want to see practical actions, they want to see their town centres transformed so that kids can safely cycle to school, they want to see apprentices in jobs in renewable energy.

“These are the things we are going to work together to deliver and if points come up we disagree on, we’ve got mechanisms in that agreement to work through them.”

Ms Sturgeon has called the deal genuinely ground breaking.