Budget: Scotland
Debate between Gregor Poynton and Dave Doogan(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Gregor Poynton
The largest settlement ever received by the Scottish Government in the history of devolution is driving up additional funding that can be spent in Scotland. The SNP has nowhere to hide; it has no more excuses. It cannot continue to blame others for its economic and financial incompetence, because the problems in Scottish public services are not solved by simply having more money to spend. The Scottish Government need to get much, much better at spending it.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I apologise for chuntering from a sedentary position earlier; that was not very polite of me. He says that we need to see an end to the SNP’s “buy now and pay later” approach. Of course, he will be familiar with the fact that the SNP Government, or any other Scottish Government, must have a balanced budget every year, so what does he mean by “buy now and pay later”?
Gregor Poynton
You can borrow to invest. Also, the hon. Gentleman’s party has announced that it is ending the two-child cap but with no money to pay for it—that, to me, is “buy now and pay later”.
Scots can see that the SNP has lost its way and is out of ideas, and that its Ministers are incompetent and wasteful with public money. Scots earning over £29,000 a year pay more in tax in Scotland than people in the rest of the UK, which Scottish Labour will look at if we win the next election. What do Scots get for those higher taxes? They get a Government who waste millions on delayed discharge and agency staff in our NHS, ferries that do not sail and pet projects that do not deliver for Scotland, all while decimating local community funding, which means that vital services are lost.
Where, for example, is the vision for reform of Scotland’s NHS, which lurches from crisis to crisis? What was once an annual winter crisis now stretches further and further into other seasons. Our heroic NHS staff do a fantastic job under the most difficult circumstances, but they and the Scottish public are being badly let down by their political leadership, who waste millions on delayed discharge and agency staff.
This week, we have seen the UK Labour Government commit to a plan to get waiting times down from 18 months to 18 weeks, and to put in place the firm foundations to deliver proper social care services. Where is the SNP’s ambition on either of those two issues?