Alex Cole-Hamilton's speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat conference

Conference, Sanne was selected to fight the new seat of Edinburgh Northern just a few short weeks ago and she is already setting a phenomenal work rate.

It is a seat that takes in a huge chunk of my old constituency. It also envelops communities like Trinity and Stockbridge, places that already know what Liberal service looks like, that are well served by Lib Dem councillors.

Conference, this is one of the top target seats we are looking to win next May and, if we put in a shift, knock doors, show people what it means to have a local champion, then Sanne Djikstra-Downie is going to Parliament.

And it’s not just Sanne, the same is true for David Green in Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, Alan Reid in Argyll and Bute, and Andrew Baxter, who this very week became our candidate in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.

There’s no secret as to why we’ve booked our conference in this picturesque capital of the Highlands.

We are at home here. In these streets, among the lochs and glens, we walk the footsteps of Russell Johnston, Ray Michie, and of course Charles Kennedy.

Those names are given back to us with warmth on the doorsteps.

Yet here in Inverness, for the General Election, we were so far behind the SNP, almost everyone thought it was an impossible ask to win back Charles’ seat.

Almost everyone.

Because when I travelled north and met a prospective councillor called Angus MacDonald, I knew we were in with a shot.

Because he was so switched on, so full of ideas on how to help people; to create good jobs, revitalise high streets, and tackle fuel poverty and the housing crisis.

I knew we had to make it happen. To show people what it means to have a local champion.

I kept going back. Month after month I could see what his team were building, it was a path to the unlikeliest of victories.

Angus’ result gives proof positive to the words behind me. We are winning here in Inverness. What’s more Conference, right across the Highlands we are winning everywhere.

As we look towards the Scottish Parliament elections, the belief is back.

People in the Highlands know that Lib Dems are focused relentlessly on the issues that matter to them.

People in the Highlands know we are best placed to beat the SNP.

They know we can win.

And I can reveal to you today, our analysis of the general election results.

If the Westminster election of last year was transferred over to Holyrood’s boundaries, we would have won all three seats: Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch; Caithness, Sutherland and Ross; AND Inverness and Nairn.

Such was the size of the swing to the Scottish Liberal Democrats last year.

Kate Forbes, Maree Todd, Fergus Ewing. Three current and former SNP ministers.

We are coming.

We can win those seats.

And Conference, that would be the story of the night.

Scottish Liberal Democrats winning back the Highlands.

Highland voices in our Parliaments are always strongest when they are liberal voices.

On your side. Backing your families, backing your businesses.

Because we are the party that knows the family farm tax will make it harder to feed our country.

The party that’s working to deliver real community benefits from the green industrial revolution.

And the party that secured funding to progress the replacement for the Belford Hospital in Lochaber.

Conference, Ed, Angus, and I visited a care home this morning in Fortrose.

Across the Highlands, the sector is on its knees.

Care home closures mean there are huge areas without available beds.

Residents are being moved miles away from friends and family.

There are 120 unfilled job vacancies in Highland care homes, and a chronic lack of affordable housing for these key workers to live in.

When people can’t get the care they need close to home, it piles pressure on already overstretched hospitals.

It goes to show that you can’t fix the NHS unless you fix care.

And Liberal Democrats are the party of care and carers. Young and old, paid and unpaid.

Angus MacDonald, putting in the hard yards of public service here in the Highlands to fix social care.

Wendy Chamberlain, passing the Carer’s Leave Act giving new rights to 2.4 million unpaid carers.

And in the Scottish Parliament we got rid of the SNP’s wasteful centralisation;

• Secured millions more for social care through our budget negotiations;

• Created a new pipeline for care workers through our colleges;

• And won the right for family carers to earn more, make life a bit easier, without the fear of having their support withdrawn.

Scottish Liberal Democrats delivering for our nation’s carers.

And for Ed, its personal.

Telling his own story, because it is the story of millions more families like his.

Having cared and nursed his mum during her long battle against bone cancer, when he was barely in his teens.

It’s exhausting, overwhelming. A huge struggle to balance school with your caring responsibilities.

That’s why we’ve today committed to giving every one of those pupils the benefit of a Young Carers Lead – a member of staff who knows them, who understands the challenges they face, and can offer practical support to balance their education with caring for their loved one.

Because no young carer should fall behind the rest of the class.

They deserve breaks from caring too.

Every one of these young people does an incredible job, and they deserve to fulfil every inch of their potential.

And that’s why the Scottish Liberal Democrats will put carers like them at the very heart of our manifesto next year.

It's time to give carers the support they deserve.

Conference, before politics I was a youthworker.

Helping children trafficked to Scotland, enslaved by drug gangs.

Those kids who had been let down by the care system.

Or who lived in poverty. Or who lacked self-esteem and confidence.

And then there were the babies who had been born addicted to drugs.

I vividly remember the first occasion that I was shown a medical device known as a Tummy Tub.

They are essentially buckets filled with body temperature water which simulate the mother’s womb to comfort babies, because those babies have been born addicted to drugs.

Hundreds of babies a year, suffering uncontrollable trembling, hyperactivity and distressed crying.

A tougher start to life you would be hard pressed to find.

The SNP intended to cut the drugs budget. But because I took the plight of these families into the negotiations, there will be new services for the newborns spending the first days of their lives withdrawing from drugs.

A baby step towards the world leading drugs services that Scotland desperately needs.

I got into politics to help people and for so long we’ve been held back by tribal, partisan lines. But sometimes you’ve just got to get around the table and talk if you want to get things done.

And by so doing, our priorities are now backed by hundreds of millions of pounds of government investment. It means:

Reinstatement of a winter fuel payment,

More money to make it easier to see your GP or an NHS dentist,

Funding to build more affordable homes,

Replacing Edinburgh’s Eye Pavilion.

There was extra funding for hospices, for the hospitality sector, for the communities that depend on ferries, for councils, for the young people attending Corseford College, and for long Covid sufferers.

Shaping the budget, unpicking some of the damage the SNP have done, with just four MSPs.

Imagine what we could do with more.

That’s our job over the next 12 months: to make sure there are more, many more, Liberal Democrat MSPs. Getting things done. Focused on what really matters. Being the local champions our communities deserve.

So that whatever the makeup of the next Parliament, of the next Scottish Government, we’ll be making a difference. Getting things done.

But for all the new MSPs who will swell our ranks, I want to reflect on one person who has taken the decision to step down.

The people of Shetland have put their faith in Beatrice Wishart – not once, but twice.

Remember, during the by-election the SNP threw everything at her.

Cabinet ministers were constantly getting shipped in.

The SNP spent more money trying to stop Beatrice than they spent trying to Stop Brexit.

But Beatrice had other ideas.

The first woman ever to represent Shetland at Parliament. Beatrice has made history. But more than that, she has made a difference.

Through increased ferry funding, leading the opposition to the SNP’s top-down HPMAs, through her work on pregnancy loss, and to pave the way for inter-island tunnels.

And there was no way Beatrice was going to leave Parliament without securing progress towards a new Gilbert Bain Hospital.

Beatrice - for everything you have done - for our party, for me personally, and for the people you have served so well, thank you.

Conference, our newest member Jamie Greene and I have something in common. As well as being proud Scots, we are both Canadian citizens.

My mother left Vancouver Island to take up a place at Edinburgh in the 1960s and never went back, but she made sure to obtain citizenship for me and my siblings.

Famously Canadians don’t anger easily, going to great lengths to avoid conflict, but they won’t back down from a fight. Donald Trump is about to learn that the hard way.

Conference, there’s a Canadian expression you’re going to hear more often,

“Elbows up.”

It’s used in ice hockey and conjures the image of someone poised to stand their ground, ready to stick up for themselves when under threat. That pretty much sums up the whole of Canada right now.

Our sister Liberal party in Canada is standing up to Trump, just like Ed Davey is doing here in the UK.

I am proud that Liberal Democrats have led the charge of British voices stating unequivocally that Canada is not for sale.

We are desperately trying to keep America in the mix. I understand that.

But the echoes of the early twentieth century grow more unavoidable with every passing day, with economic upheaval and American isolationism.

I have found myself thinking of that speech in 1940, when on the day after the evacuation of Dunkirk, on the floor of the House of Commons, Winston Churchill sent a coded appeal to America. He expressed his hope “that in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, would step forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

But right now Conference, the power and might of the new world seems set to be withdrawn from the hands of Ukrainian defenders in one of the most shocking betrayals in the history of modern warfare.

I’ve said many times that Liberals will always care about those people facing injustice or oppression half a world a way that we may never meet.

Well, this time we’re going out to meet them.

When we leave this conference hall, Angus MacDonald and I will begin a 2,000-mile journey. Driving overland through Europe, through the night.

Together we will deliver a convoy of five ambulances to the people of Ukraine.

The American President may abandon Ukraine, but we as liberals will not.

My family hosted a Ukrainian refugee for nine months. She told us of her own family’s sacrifice, on the front line, in the cities bombarded with drones and missiles. It underscored for me why the Ukrainian people need all the medical supplies and aid we can muster.

Because for these past three years it is only their courage that has held back the menace of Russian expansionist tyranny.

In that same speech in 1940, Churchill vowed that Britain would continue

“to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”

Conference, the fighting men and women of Ukraine have ridden the storm of war for years, but they are not alone.

This party stands with them, and so too do the communities we serve.

Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes.

Conference, the old order is changing, our world is changing.

The long peace, that Pax Americana which most of us have only ever known may be coming to an end.

And while we may all grieve its passing, we have to ready ourselves for it too.

If we cannot look west for our security then with urgency we must look to our friends in continental Europe.

The gathering storm of global events demands that we rekindle a common understanding with our nearest neighbours.

With nations from the North Sea to the Baltic, from the Straits of Denmark to the Straits of Gibraltar.

Our time demands a new alliance with Europe.

Putting Britain first, now means embracing Europe. Collaborating on our shared defence.

That shared endeavour is the only way to guarantee our national security. It’s pursuit a new kind of British patriotism. Standing up for Britain, means standing up to bullies.

The rabble-rousers of the right would do well to realise that. But Nigel Farage hitched his wagon to Trump and even to Putin a long time ago.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of hearing about Nigel Farage, he’s given far too much airtime and offers too little substance.

But fear not conference, if you’re tired of his nicotine cracked bar room punditry, there is hope, there is a solution.

Move to his Clacton constituency and you won’t ever see or hear from him again.

In all seriousness, Christine was spot on this morning.

We have to apply our values to people’s problems.

Every SNP failure in government adds grist to Reform’s mill. Every long wait for treatment or a ferry. Every job lost, every drug death, every family stuck in mouldy temporary accommodation.

You persuade nobody by labelling them, dismissing them, or diminishing how they feel.

Conference, it’s our job as Liberal Democrats, every one of us, in every street, ward and region, to prove that we are working for people and can get things done. That we can make their lives a bit easier in some way. That’s how you take on Reform and their like.

Conference yesterday, in one of the bravest and most principled acts I’ve seen in Scottish politics our Liberal family was joined by Jamie Greene.

In his resignation letter to Russell Findlay he spoke of the Conservative’s grotesque dance with Reform. He eulogised the loss of the socially liberal vision once articulated by the likes of Ruth Davidson, and the abandonment of unifying platforms like the pursuit of net zero.

His words speak to a realignment in our politics that has already started.

We are the party that is going places, a party that others are now looking to in this time of uncertainty and change. Conference, we are in the ascendancy.

And while new and diverse voices will begin to join us in greater numbers, let me reassure you that our party’s values, our liberal values, will never change.

The true north of our compass will always point to that central defining mission: to safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

Jamie has found safe harbour in our movement, he is so welcome, and mark my words, others will follow.

We are a liberal family, and for me that’s where all of this begins.

My father Dai – was a chemistry professor, an innovator at the forefront of new breakthroughs, who set up an international society of chemists against the proliferation of chemical weapons in our world.

My mother Liz – was a speech therapist and marine archaeologist. For years she ran a support group for people with profound and complex disabilities.

Round our dinner table, they instilled in my siblings and I a social conscience.

Then there’s my beautiful wife Gill. She leads the additional support for learning department in her school, helping children facing any kind of barriers with empathy and fairness.

My children Finn, Kit, Darcy– already embarking on varied paths, but each of them concerned about the world around them, so ready to embrace our Ukrainian houseguest.

I am not always an easy person for them to live with.

During the pandemic, I couldn’t knock on doors to speak to constituents. We weren’t allowed to campaign. I had so much pent-up energy. I was climbing the walls.

So I decided to make 2,500 calls to constituents who we knew would be shielding, just to check they were ok.

I joined a local charity and delivered 1,700 meals to people who were self-isolating.

I was so inspired by those around me: a host of volunteers looking out for those in their community.

The values of my parents, my family and my community are ones that I believe our party and our country shares.

Community, aspiration, the belief that people deserve better.

And Conference, I’d like to thank someone else who may surprise you.

Someone who has provided us with a quote for the ages.

Speaking about the Liberal Democrats, they said “they are in local communities. A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof.”

For once, Kemi Badenoch is not wrong.

I’m proud we’re known for that. Because that’s what this party is about.

Thousands of seemingly tiny acts of public service, up and down the country, working to make our communities better.

To fix what is broken.

To build anew.

To protect liberal values at home and abroad.

Ours is a vision for Scotland back to its best.

After 18 years of failure, don’t you think the SNP have had long enough?

The other parties have had their chance too – they’ve all let you down.

Meanwhile Liberal Democrats are on the up. People are seeing more of us, and our strong local champions can beat the SNP all across Scotland.

Because we believe Scotland deserves better – that you deserve better - and with the Liberal Democrats, you can vote for better.

So Conference let’s attack the next 12 months with cheerful ferocity.

Those victories lie before us, but they won’t just be handed to us.

So let’s get to it: Elbows up.