John Swinney has been urged to ‘cut out the nonsense’ and focus on what matters to ordinary Scots when he unveils his legislative plans for the next year.
The First Minister will today publish his programme for government – the Holyrood equivalent of the King’s Speech – for the 12 months to the next Holyrood elections.
Ahead of his statement to MSPs, the Scottish Conservatives urged him to finally move the SNP away from its ‘fringe obsession’ with gender policies, end wasteful spending and cut bureaucracy.
Scottish Labour also published a list of 100 key SNP broken promises and said Mr Swinney has been at the heart of a failing government for 18 years.
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: ‘The SNP must cut out the nonsense and finally focus on the priorities of ordinary Scots, who rightly feel ignored by the left-wing consensus at Holyrood.
‘That means dropping the Nationalists’ fringe obsession with gender self-ID once and for all and concentrating on tackling classroom violence and mending Scotland’s crumbling roads. It means restoring winter fuel payments to all Scottish pensioners, instead of funding free bus travel for asylum seekers.
It means reducing spending on NHS managers, so that more can be spent on frontline care, to tackle the GP shortages and the deadly waiting times in A&E and cancer treatment.
‘Scotland is the highest taxed part of the UK. We’re paying more and getting less from our essential services. That’s a damning reflection of SNP failure – and it must be reversed.
‘When every penny of taxpayers’ cash is a prisoner, John Swinney must cut out the wasteful, self-indulgent spending and have a laser-like focus on the priorities of mainstream Scotland.’
Ahead of delivering the programme for government, Mr Swinney has promised to provide commitments to provide a ‘renewed and stronger’ NHS over the next 12 months and take ‘serious action’ to put it on track.
But 100 key broken promises by the SNP Government published by Scottish Labour included failing to increase GP numbers by 800, missing targets to end long waiting times, missing a 12-week legal guarantee for inpatient and day case treatment 789,000 times since 2012, and failing to eradicate delayed discharge.
Broken promises highlighted in other areas included failing to close the attainment gap in schools, failing to reform council tax, ditching key climate targets, allowing police officer numbers to decline and abandoning plans for a publicly-owned energy company.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: ‘From health to education to the environment, this SNP government’s record is defined by broken promises.
‘Like clockwork, headline-grabbing plans are made and abandoned, and ambitious targets are set and missed.
‘For 18 years John Swinney has been at the heart of this failing government and he cannot pretend otherwise.
‘John Swinney was the Education Secretary who failed to close the attainment gap, he was the Finance Secretary who refused to reform council tax, and he is the First Minister responsible for the last year’s u-turns.
‘John Swinney was the man who broke it and now wants to pretend he is the one to fix it.
‘As the election approaches, the SNP will ramp up the empty promises once again but Scotland will not forget the record of failure that hangs over John Swinney and his government.
‘The truth is, if the SNP had the answers to Scotland’s problems we would have seen them by now.’
Friends of the Earth Scotland also highlighted 10 major climate policies which have ‘vanished or been scrapped’ in Mr Swinney’s first year as First Minister, including targets to cut emissions, increasing the costs of train travel, and failing to help oil workers transition to green jobs.
Rosie Hampton, Friends of the Earth Scotland’s oil and gas campaigns manager, said: ‘John Swinney’s year as First Minister has been one of no progress to reduce climate pollution or deliver on a fair transition.
‘His ministerial team have been allowed to pay lip service to climate action whilst key policies that could improve lives have vanished or been scrapped.’
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said: ‘John Swinney needs to be ambitious and ensure that Scotland is taking meaningful action to cut child poverty and tackle the climate emergency.’
Ahead of his programme for government, Mr Swinney pledged a ‘sustained focus’ on child poverty but claimed the actions of the Labour government will make it more difficult.
He said: ‘In our journey on eradicating child poverty, the journey is not one without its headwinds, and one of the headwinds that’s coming our way is the fact that the UK Government is now undertaking a programme of welfare reform which on their own estimation is likely to increase levels of child poverty.
‘That presents me with a problem because, essentially, the measures we’re trying to take forward in Scotland will have to work harder because the UK Government is making our task ever more difficult.
‘I almost find this inconceivable that I’m having to contemplate measures to deal with rising child poverty because of a Labour government.’