Humza Yousaf ‘needs to give assurances’ on rights of women and ‘competent governance’ to win confidence vote – UK politics live

Ash Regan, former SNP MSP, writes to Yousaf with items needed to secure her vote and says SNP has ‘lost its focus’ over the years

Good morning. A week today many of the results from the local elections will be in, the Conservatives are expected to be doing very badly and Rishi Sunak’s leadership will be on the line. Many Tory think Sunak could be facing a no confidence vote within days.

And so it must be some relief in Downing Street that there is another political leader in the UK in even more trouble than Sunak. Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, is facing an actual no confidence vote next week, not just a hypothetical one, and, as Severin Carrell explains in our overnight story, there is a real chance he could be out of his job within days.

I have written to the first minister today with a number of issues that I’ve raised with him on progress made towards independence, on how he will defend the rights of women and children and a return to competent governance.

My vote will depend on really what Humza comes back with in response to my letter.

Unfortunately it has lost its focus over the last few years, it has gone down pursuing some policies that are not popular with the public, many of those were policies that really stemmed from the coalition agreement with the Green party.