Rachel Reeves will “end the era of austerity” when she delivers her first Budget on Wednesday, Anas Sarwar has insisted.
The Scottish Labour claimed today there would be “more money and new money” for services – and challenged the Scottish Government to ensure any additional cash for Holyrood is not simply used to fill a “black hole” caused by SNP “incompetence”.
Sarwar said: “This will be a Budget that does turn that page on 14 years of Tory chaos, division and decline and does those things that we promised in the election and be a real game changer for Scotland.”
He spoke out as children’s charities, equalities groups and anti-poverty campaigners joined forces to demand the UK Government use the Budget to end the two child limit that exists on some benefits.
Members of the End Child Poverty coalition in Scotland said the controversial policy must be scrapped to “prevent more harm” to youngsters.
The cap, which means families can usually only claim some benefits for their first two children, has pushed 12,500 children across the UK into poverty since Labour won power on July 4, the groups claimed.
Speaking on behalf of members of End Child Poverty in Scotland, John Dickie said: “The two-child limit must be scrapped as a matter of utmost urgency.
“End Child Poverty members across Scotland and the rest of the UK see the terrible damage the policy is doing to families. Children being pulled into poverty really can’t wait any longer.
“We welcome the new UK Government’s commitment to develop a child poverty strategy, but the bottom line is that no strategy can be credible if the two-child limit continues to pull over 100 more children into poverty each and every day.”
Sarwar said Labour had “always been very clear that we can’t fix every problem straight away”.
He added: “People know the scale of the damage done by the Tories in the last 14 years, they know that it will take time to fix every problem.”
However, he said Labour was “choosing to put new investment and new money into our public services”.
The Scottish Labour leader, speaking during a visit to community groups at Easterhouse Parish Church in Glasgow, said the challenge was now for the Scottish Government as to how it spends the funds that will come to Scotland.
While he accepted SNP ministers at Holyrood had the “right to argue for more money” he added that they “also have to get better at how they spend money”.
With Labour “finally ending the financial mismanagement, the incompetence and the waste of the Tories”, Mr Sarwar said that “the SNP have to end their own financial mismanagement, their incompetence and their waste, which is losing opportunities for far too many Scots”.
The Scottish Labour leader added: “We’re choosing to put new investment and new money into our public services.”
But he added: “Any new money that comes to Scotland can’t be wasted on SNP incompetence. It has to instead be spent on those vital public services that people rely on and on growing our economy.”
The Scottish Labour leader continued: “I think people will expect new money for our NHS to be spent on our NHS, people expect new money for our schools to be spent on our schools.
“But what I fear will happen is that the SNP’s own financial mismanagement, their own incompetence and their own waste, means that new money that is meant for Scotland’s public services instead goes to fix their own mess, their own black hole, because of their own incompetence and that would be the wrong thing to happen.”
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