CONSERVATIVE - SHARON DOWEY

We have had a year like no other, but the light is beginning to shine at the end of the tunnel and restrictions are starting to be eased.

Our vaccination programme is well underway and the number of hospitalisations due to Covid are falling.

It is now time to focus on our recovery from the pandemic.

The full effects of the lockdown remain to be seen on mental health, undiagnosed illnesses, jobs, businesses, the economy etc, but we can’t waste any time and need to start tackling them now.

Throughout this pandemic, Scotland’s NHS has performed incredible feats and every single frontline worker deserves our utmost thanks.

Without their dedication and commitment our loss could have been much worse.

Now we need to call on them again to catch up with all the delayed surgeries, appointments and treatments.

The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party have committed to spending at least £2billion extra for Scotland’s NHS by the end of the next Parliament as part of our plans for a‘double lock’to protect health spending.

We have also pledged £600 million over and above that to tackle the treatment backlog that had built up under the SNP and has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic.

Now is not the time to take our eye off the ball.

In 14 years, with their focus being on division, the SNP have squandered more than £4.5 billion of taxpayers’money.

£147 million from delays to the Sick Kids hospital (still not open), £99 million on ferry overspends (still not built), £76 million on the CAP IT system, to name just a few.

Now is the time to end the division, pull together as one, and rebuild Scotland.

The only way to stop an SNP majority again, and get the Scottish Parliament 100 per cent focused on rebuilding Scotland, is to vote Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party with both votes.