John Swinney’s first Budget as leader amounts to the SNP Government’s most positive moment in years. The Nationalists have been in freefall over failures in office, tawdry infighting and the nightmare of Operation Branchform.
But the Budget is evidence the Government has its mojo back.
Swinney has ditched the niche concerns that dogged his predecessors and focused on bread and butter issues that matter to people.
Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ awful means-test of the Winter Fuel Payment? Gone.
The two child cap that has inexplicably been retained by the Labour Government? Gone in 2026, details to be confirmed.
Those two measures alone are progressive policies no Labour MSP should be opposing.
Swinney’s Budget is also politically clever by throwing down the gauntlet for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. Reeves jacked up taxes by £40bn to protect spending on public services last month and the knock on effect was £3.4bn extra for Scotland.
Swinney is using the extra cash to scrap Westminster’s most unpopular policies and drawing a contrast with his own administration. He is now daring Sarwar to vote down a Budget that will benefit low income pensioners and eventually lead to more money for poorer kids.
Extra cash for housing and the NHS has also allowed Swinney to portray himself as a Scottish Santa bearing gifts for hard-pressed Scots.
The tax and spending plan stands in contrast to the dismal fare offered by the SNP Government in the last few Budgets. Tight financial settlements from the previous Tory Government led to SNP Ministers raising income tax and cutting services.
The cry of ‘pay more to get less’ cut through with voters at a time of rising dissatisfaction with the Scottish Government.
Humza Yousaf’s one and only Budget – where he shafted the poor and protected rich householders – was the low point of seventeen years of SNP rule.
The dynamic of Swinney’s first Budget since succeeding Yousaf is more positive for the Nationalists. Labour in London was roasted for raising taxes while Swinney has the fun of spending the proceeds in a way designed to cause maximum embarrassment.
However, although Swinney delivered a decent Budget, it still amounts to him clearing up the mess left behind by his predecessors.
Nicola Sturgeon liked to blame the pandemic for the sorry state of the NHS, but the crisis facing the health service pre-dated covid. The extra funding for housing was also to offset a cut made by Yousaf twelve months earlier.
And scrapping the council tax freeze cannot get SNP Ministers off the hook for the damage done to local authorities over the past seventeen years. Swinney’s Budget is two steps forward after his predecessors took three steps back.
The wider issue for the First Minister is not how much extra money he is putting into public services, but the difference it will make to people’s lives.
Voters have for years been bamboozled by a blizzard of statistics on so-called record increases in funding. Gordon Brown regularly pulled this trick in Government and the baton was handed on to the Tories and SNP.
But it is irrelevant how many extra billions of pounds are raised if the money does not reach the people who rely on public services.
Scotland’s public sector is big and its workforce is paid more than their equivalents south of the border.
A large proportion of the £3.4bn will simply get gobbled up to pay the wages of staff on the public sector payroll.
The SNP’s fatal mistake in the Sturgeon and Yousaf years was losing the trust of people to deliver on their priorities.
Sturgeon promised the educational attainment gap would be eradicated and she failed. NHS waiting times guarantees that she helped set in law were breached on countless occasions.
Swinney’s challenge is ensuring the extra funding mainly benefits patients, pupils and passengers, not teachers, well-off council bosses or civil servants.
He has to demonstrate he has put more money in the pockets of struggling Scots and proven their public services are being repaired.
Swinney has two Budgets left before voters go to the polls in 2026 and every indication is the election will be tight. The SNP has opened up a lead largely as a result of a voter backlash against daft decisions by Labour at Westminster.
But SNP figures privately admit Starmer will get better in Government and Sarwar remains the favourite to be the next First Minister.
The Budget was a successful reset for the SNP after years of drift, decay and scandal.
It was also aimed at making Sarwar squirm by forcing him to vote for the Budget or side with the Tories.
Swinney is a canny politician who has tried to distance himself from the Greens and place the SNP in the mainstream centre-left again.
Holyrood 2026 remains Labour’s to lose, but Swinney holds the purse-strings and he has delivered a Budget of substance.
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