As 2025 begins, it’s clear that at the next election we face a choice: more decline managed by the SNP, or a new direction for Scotland.
Because – bluntly – our country is not the place hardworking people deserve.
If we are to chart a new direction for Scotland, we must face the challenges holding us back. The harsh truth is that in 2025, Scotland is a nation where the SNP has weakened every institution.
Every public service is straining under almost two decades of governmental neglect, and Scots are paying more for less.
In short, our country is stuck. It doesn’t need to be like this.
The questions on everyone’s mind is simple: is the country going in the right direction or the wrong direction? Are things better or worse now than before? Do you feel our public services deliver for you and your family?
The SNP came to power in 2007 promising to improve lives, but instead, we’ve seen services crumble, institutions weaken, and communities left behind.
Today, I’ll set out how I think we get started, but at the core of it all are two simple promises.
First, we must squeeze value out of every penny of taxpayers’ money to deliver public services that work. And second, politicians must stop making excuses and passing the buck. They must take responsibility.
At the heart of both issues is a growing bureaucratic monster – a sprawling network of unelected public bodies that drain public money and deliver little in return.
These so-called quangos were created to manage everything from healthcare to education, but far too often they’ve done more to complicate and obstruct than to improve services.
Scotland boasts a staggering 131 quangos – more than the number of MSPs in our parliament.
These bureaucratic behemoths have swelled, and the cost is astronomical. Scotland spends a jaw-dropping £6.6 billion on these bodies each year. That’s money that could be better spent on improving services for the people of Scotland.
Instead, millions are wasted on board members and middle management. Yet, as the bureaucracy grows, the quality of the services Scots rely on continues to decline.
It means that when something goes wrong, the SNP government tries to dodge responsibility by blaming someone you’ve never heard of. There is always another committee to blame, another working group to defer action to.
Ministers, it seems, never bear responsibility for the failures in our public services. The result? A country where the government serves itself, not the people.
Our police forces are underfunded, schools are overcrowded, and our public sector is stretched to breaking point.
The SNP hides behind this bureaucratic maze. It’s easier to create another quango than to tackle the real issues that affect our lives.
But we don’t need more committees – we need action. We need a government that’s focused on delivering for the people, not a self-serving political class focused on creating jobs for the boys.
That’s why a Scottish Labour Government will end Scotland’s quango culture and better spend your money. As First Minister, I would commit to cutting the red tape, reducing the number of health boards, and streamlining public bodies and pushing power and resources out to your community.
The buck would stop with me. Public services must work for the people – not for an expanding army of administrators.
It’s time to take Scotland in a new direction. A direction where government serves the people, not the other way around.
NHS improvement can’t be driven by broken promises
Perhaps nowhere is the failure to fix our public services clearer than the failure to get out health and social care systems to work together properly.
That failure leaves thousands of Scots in hospital who do not need to be there – piling pressure on an already struggling system.
But that impact isn’t just felt in patients waiting longer for care, or to get home to loved ones. It means we spend money that could be spent improving our NHS in papering over the cracks.
Delayed discharge has cost Scottish taxpayers nearly £1.5 billion and led to five million wasted bed days in the last decade.
In 2015, then SNP Health Secretary Shona Robison vowed to eradicate delayed discharge. It has become another broken promise with devastating consequences.
Add to that the £30 million on a failed National Care Service Bill that provided no extra care. The UK Labour government’s recent budget delivered a record funding settlement for Scotland. That is part of the solution.
But it will also require a new direction and a focus on delivering for patients that the SNP lack. Our NHS cannot continue to run on promises that never materialise.
Patients deserve better, and it’s time for a government that will get our healthcare system working again.
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