It is the only way out of this paradoxical impasse whereby we keep hurtling forwards yet make no progress. If we don't have progress on this matter, and soon, it will have been a missed opportunity. 'A missed opportunity'. We use that phrase a lot. So often, in fact, that I think we've lost sight of what it actually means, its sense of urgency, of loss. Over the past two and a half years, opportunities have gone. Positive improvements that might have happened, have not happened. And that, for me, is the crux of Brexit.

In economics, we talk about opportunity cost—that whatever action is taken has a cost in actions not taken. Every area of public spending a Government chooses to allocate money towards means other areas get less. But how do you quantify this opportunity cost: of all the things not done; of prevarication; of promises not delivered; all the reams of legislation; the funding we might have raised; operations that haven't happened; the drugs we haven't been able to purchase; the lives of European friends who might have lived among us; the kinship, friendships and relationships we might have developed with people who either have left these islands or have chosen never to come; the could and would and should; and the might-have-beens that have not been, because Brexit has taken all our attention?

So yes, it will be a missed opportunity if Westminster does not act on the back of this debate and that being held by our Scottish partners. And the cost of that opportunity is more catastrophic than any hackneyed phrases —'missed opportunities'—can ever convey. If threats of no deal were nothing more than a parlour game for the Conservative leadership in Westminster, shame on them. They've cost us more in resources, time, strain and loss of faith and goodwill than can ever be quantified. 

That is why this Parliament should reaffirm today its commitment to holding a people’s vote as soon as is practical. If we don't, we won't have progressed at all, and what signal will that send? We should do that to put this issue to bed once and for all, and so that we can actually begin the work of dealing with the underlying reasons why this vote actually happened, securing economic regeneration and justice for people living in areas that have been left behind by the decisions of consecutive Westminster Governments. Diolch.