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		</div><p>Nicola Sturgeon has defended her plans to stage a second referendum on independence, insisting she has a &#8220;duty&#8221; to offer Scots an alternative to a &#8220;disastrous&#8221; hard Tory Brexit.</p>
<p>The Scottish First Minister came under fire at Holyrood after Monday&#8217;s bombshell announcement, with the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats joining forces to condemn her plans at First Minister&#8217;s Questions.</p>
<p>Sturgeon has already outlined proposals to hold a second referendum sometime between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019. She said: &#8220;The reality here is quite simple, I want to give people in Scotland a choice over their own future.</p>
<p>&#8220;We know that change is coming, the EU referendum last year made that change inevitable. We know that the Tories want to lead us off a hard Brexit cliff-edge.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think the people of Scotland should not simply have to accept being told what their future should be by a Conservative Government that we don&#8217;t support. We should have the choice to choose a better future, and that&#8217;s a choice I intend to give to the people of Scotland.&#8221;</p>
<p>While Ruth Davidson campaigned to stay part of the European Union in 2016, the First Minister said the Tory now &#8220;tells us we&#8217;ve simply got to accept Brexit &#8211; not just Brexit but a hard Brexit &#8211; regardless of the consequences&#8221;.</p>
<p>Ms Sturgeon continued: &#8220;We know that the path the Tories are trying to take this country down could cost every household in this country more than £5,000. &#8220;The impact of Brexit on everybody in our country is going to be disastrous and that&#8217;s why I have a duty to allow people the choice to opt for something better.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ms Davidson insisted: &#8220;The truth is a referendum won&#8217;t help pupils in Scotland and it won&#8217;t help patients come off waiting lists and it won&#8217;t help solve the GP crisis and it won&#8217;t cut violent crime.<br />
&#8220;It will just take this Government away from the day job which is supposed to be its focus.&#8221;</p>
<p>She told MSPs reports had suggested &#8220;an independent Scotland would be £11bn in the red and would need higher taxes, lower spending and increased borrowing&#8221;.</p>
<p>But Ms Sturgeon argued a deficit had been built up by Labour and Conservative administrations in London.<br />
&#8220;That is a deficit created on Westminster&#8217;s watch and it is about time we had the tools and the ability to work our way out of deficits that Tory and Labour governments have created in Scotland,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think Scotland deserves a choice and that choice is this &#8211; take control of our own finances to build, grow and innovate our way to a better future or allow Tories to make the same mistakes over and over again, and make the situation worse.&#8221;</p>
<p>After the Tories challenged her mandate to hold a fresh independence referendum, Ms Sturgeon said: &#8220;I was elected as First Minister a year ago with the highest constituency share of the vote in the history of devolution on a manifesto commitment that says this Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if the Tories tried to drag us out of Europe against our will.</p>
<p>&#8220;That 46% share of the vote is 10 percentage points higher than the 36% share that the Tories used to have the EU referendum in the first place. &#8220;This Parliament has an independence majority in it as well.<br />
&#8220;So Ruth Davidson says she wants to put this Parliament first &#8211; let me issue this direct challenge to Ruth Davidson and the Conservative Party.</p>
<p>&#8220;If on Wednesday next week this Parliament votes for an independence referendum to give the people of Scotland a choice over their own future, will the Conservatives respect the will of this Parliament or are the Conservatives are running scared?&#8221;</p>
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