Willie Rennie rejects 3rd option for Indyref2
The Scottish Lib Dem leader's been taking your calls on our election phone-in
The Scottish Lib Dem leader is rejecting the idea of putting a third question on any future referendum on Scottish independence.
Willie Rennie's been taking your calls in the second of a series of Scottish party leader phone-in programmes on {{stationName2}} in the run up to the Holyrood election on 6th May.
He told the programme, hosted by John Collins and our political correspondent Alan Smith, that he's in favour of more powers for Scotland as part of a federal UK, but doesn't want to put that on a ballot paper.
"No I'm not because I think we need to get federalism done through negotiations across the United Kingdom," he said. "It is not a matter for a referendum and I don't think we should have one anyway because it divides the country.
"We are going to need the skills and talents of everyone in the country to get through the massive challenges we face with a mountain of mental health waits. We have a problem with the backlog in education making sure children get the education they have missed out on in the last year.
"There are millions of people who will be waiting for jobs and we need to create the opportunities for them with the young person job guarantee.
"We need to make sure we have a revolution with the energy production in people's homes. All of that needs to happen as well as the climate emergency. This is enough for any government to deal with.
"To add independence on top of it would be catastrophic and that is why I think we should not go there."
School catch-up?
Peter called into the show on {{stationName2}} to ask whether school pupils who spend much of 2020 and the early months of 2021 learning at home should repeat the year, or whether the summer holidays should be cut short?
Mr Rennie replied: "We are not in favour of shortening the summer holidays. We want to employ more teachers, cut class sizes provide more in-class support so that their experience makes up for the lost education over the last year.
"There may be some cases where children are looking to resit but I hope the system can actually make sure that children do bounce back to make sure that they get the best start in lige through their education.
"If that is what they want and the school agrees that this is the best future for the child then of course we can look at that, but I don't think we want to set back a whole year because we have got an awful lot of children to teach."
No plans to stand down
Mr Rennie was asked about his future after ten years as Scottish party leader with polls indicating the Lib Dems could finish behind the Scottish Greens, and even Alex Salmond's Alba party, on the regional vote share.
"I love this job far too much to give it up." he replied.
"It's one of the best jobs in the world, I get to influence the way the country works. I want to make sure that I get to help people for longer. That's why I'm determined to continue to do this job."
Still to come...
Scottish Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie will be appearing on Sunday 25th April and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on Sunday 2nd May.
A programme featuring SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was postponed during the suspension of campaigning following the death of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and a new date is being arranged.