Nicola Sturgeon defends record and offers advice to MSPs at final first minister’s questions – UK politics live

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Scottish opposition leaders pay tribute to Sturgeon

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has followed Sturgeon’s concluding remarks by paying tribute to the precedent setting political career of “a working class girl from Ayrshire”.

“While the Scottish Minister and I see each other as adversaries more than allies, and probably the final session reiterated that impression, let me add a little balance,” he said.

When Sturgeon leaves office, she will bring to a close a political career that few – if any – can match in its length, added Ross.

She had been a formidable campaigner and no one could deny that Sturgeon has left – “for better or worse” – a mark on her country.

Ross said that he recognised the positive message sent by the fact that a “working class girl from Ayrshire” could reach the heights they dreamed of.

The Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, paid tribute to Sturgeon’s public service over the course of 20 years.

“While we have disagreed about what is best for the people I have never for a moment doubted her love for Scotland,” he said.

Her election as First Minister was a sig to women and girls that regardless of their politics, there should be no limit to their ambition.

Updated at 09.17 EDT

Sturgeon defends record at final first minister’s questions

Nicola Sturgeon’s final FMQs have started off in a bad-tempered way with both she and the Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, trading barbs.

While Ross presses her on the controversy around SNP membership figures, which las led to resignations at a high level in her party and threatened to overshadow its leadership race, she replies: “On this my last appearance here, Douglas Ross is not asking me about the NHS, or education or economy or climate justice, but this is the topic he has chosen … party membership figures.”

Ross also attacks Sturgeon on her past record, singling out Scottish drug deaths – the highest in Europe – as well as the gender recognition bill. The SNP leader had failed Scottish voters due to her “obsession with Scottish independence”.

“She divided our country and failed on every other mission,” he adds.

Sturgeon replies that she does not care for the verdict of Ross on her record.

“Eight election victories in eight years, that is the verdict that matters to me,” she says, listing various Scottish government policies and actions.

They included, in her words: “Closing the attainment gap, leading the way on climate change, abolishing prescription charges, the best performing accident and emergency departments anywhere in the UK, free period products, expanded and doubled childcare.”

Updated at 08.26 EDT

Nicola Sturgeon starts her FMQs by wishing Ramadan mubarak to muslims in Scotland and in her constituency.

She then turns to the first question, from Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, who presses her on the issue of SNP membership.

Sturgeon refers to her previous statements on this. She has denied that she knew SNP membership dropped more than 30,000 in the past two years. Sturgeon asks Ross how many members the Conservative party has in Scotland.

“Nicola Sturgeon is treating the Scottish public like idiots with this embarrassing defence,” says Ross, who is reprimanded by the speaker.

He presses on “Everyone has accepted that the SNP has lied over these figures.”

The chief executive of the Scottish National party resigned earlier this month with immediate effect as an escalating row over party membership figures engulfs the party’s senior echelons, prompting demands for an overhaul of how it carries out its internal business.

Peter Murrell, who has been chief executive since 2000 and married Nicola Sturgeon in 2010, said he had planned to step down after the leadership contest to replace his wife had concluded, but was doing so now because “my future has become a distraction from the campaign”.