Spending Review 2025: Scotland

Debate between Harriet Cross and Graeme Downie

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Graeme Downie]

I think the Government are already moving towards a focus on outcomes for budgeting, and I would like to see more of that.

As my constituency contains a large number of former coalfields, I have been working closely with colleagues on the replacement of the shared prosperity fund and how we can ensure that it delivers skills and investment for young people and opportunities in all parts of the United Kingdom. I can assure the Minister that I will be working with local stakeholders in Dunfermline and Dollar to ensure that our area secures a fair share of the funding that has been allocated for the many great projects that stand to deliver real benefits to my constituents.

Over the next three years, this Labour Government will provide the Scottish Government with an additional £9.1 billion for Scottish public services. That is the largest settlement in real terms since devolution began, and a historic opportunity for the Scottish Government to invest in the NHS, police, housing and schools—services that are the bedrock of our society, yet are the root cause of much of the correspondence I receive from constituents who are being failed by the current Scottish Government in Holyrood.

One year on from a housing emergency being declared, house building is down in Scotland, and 10,000 children remain in temporary accommodation, with no home to call their own. Indeed, as a former Fife councillor, I know that Fife council is still in the unenviable position of knowing that it breaks the law every single day when it comes to housing, because of the salami-slicing of local government budgets by the Scottish Government. That the SNP Scottish Government knowingly preside over such a situation is unfathomable, having taken their eye off multiple balls during their disastrous time in power.

I must also express my concern that, no matter how much funding is made available, the Government in Holyrood continue to fall back on a familiar pattern of whingeing and wasting. We have seen this time and again, from the mismanagement of ferry contracts to the establishment of overseas embassies that serve little practical purpose beyond a vanity project and a residence for the Minister to have a very nice time on holidays funded by the public purse.

This morning I looked over the caseload in my office, and a third of cases received are from people with problems relating to devolved policy areas. So fed up are the people of Dunfermline and Dollar by the myriad failures of the SNP that they know the best place to come for help is Scottish Labour MPs and a UK Labour Government. This morning, we learned that more Scottish public money will be spent on defending the former chief executive of the SNP in a court case about a caravan found in my constituency.

In England, the UK Labour Government have recruited more than 1,500 GPs since 1 October thanks to Government action and the digitisation of the health service in England progressing more quickly. Meanwhile, in this place I have had to raise issues including access for little boys to timely medical help for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a lack of local dentists, and care and support for those with Parkinson’s. I am also aware of the case of Vicki Tocher, a constituent of mine who has been battling for almost a year to get her eight-year-old son, Issac, in front of doctors after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while at school.

In Scotland we see delays to national treatment centres. One in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list, there are 50,000 fewer operations than before the pandemic, and a record number have been forced to turn to private healthcare. In February, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said that the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E in Scotland is 99 times higher than it was 14 years ago.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

The Scottish Conservatives have suggested that we should be prioritising Scottish-based students for medical places at university, because they are much more likely to stay in the UK and therefore contribute to our workforce. Would the hon. Gentleman support that to help the backlog and health services in Scotland?

[Graeme Downie]

We have actually seen announcements from the UK Health Secretary about prioritising UK students.

In my constituency, a new GP surgery in Kincardine has been promised for well over a decade, but is still awaiting Government funding. That village in the west of my constituency is growing, and its current GP surgery, which is little more than a cottage that used to be a police station, has been there for more than 120 years.

On digitisation, there has been better news in Scotland in the past couple of weeks. The NHS Scotland digital app will launch later this year; however, it will work only in dermatology and one NHS board. I am sure I could make jokes about rash decisions and the SNP getting under people’s skin, but these critical issues are having a real impact across the country. There is a real risk that as football clubs across Scotland begin pre-season training, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care might stop visiting hospitals and go back to last season’s failed tactics of being driven to the pub and between football grounds.

The spending review, driven by the UK Labour Government, rightly puts faith in our young people and the future. It includes investment in AI and the nuclear and defence sectors, alongside £1.2 billion for training and apprenticeships, designed to equip the next generation with skills and give them the opportunities they deserve. Yet in my constituency, Fife college has warned of cuts to courses and campus closures due to the mismanagement of the Scottish budget by the SNP. That is a betrayal of our young people’s potential, and takes money away from the working class kids of Fife to prop up its own failures in higher and further education elsewhere in the country.

While the UK Labour Government are investing in regional transport across England, in Scotland rail fares have increased three times since March 2024 and we have lost 1,400 bus routes since the SNP came to power—something my constituents feel strongly and keenly because of the rural nature of the constituency, including Dollar, Muckhart and the west Fife villages. That is not progress but regression, and is particularly challenging for the rural parts of my constituency.

Moreover, the ideological objection in Scotland to nuclear power and the refusal to embrace new small modular reactors will cost Scotland dearly. We are losing out on jobs, investment and the opportunity to secure our energy future. That is not just short-sighted but a dereliction of duty.