Politicians react to FM speech

FOLLOWING the First Minister’s announcement that the Scottish Child Payment will be doubled in April next year, Scottish political leaders weighed in on the conversation.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said the increase to the payment needed to go further, calling for it to be upped to £40 a week.

Baillie said: “As it stands, this welcome development will not be enough to ensure we meet the statutory child poverty targets that the Scottish Parliament has passed.

“That’s why the Scottish Child Payment must be doubled again next year to meet these targets.”

She also claimed in the speech the “SNP’s obsession with separation dominated”, saying: “It is deeply disappointing and irresponsible, in the face of a deepening public health crisis, that the focus of the First Minister is once more on sowing division between Scotland and the rest of the UK.”

The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, said that Scots “will have sighed with dismay – but not disbelief – that Nicola Sturgeon’s response to the serious new Covid strain is to reaffirm her commitment to holding another divisive independence referendum within two years”.

The Tory stated: “It’s a disgrace that on the same day as the First Minister is talking about the possibility of introducing new restrictions to combat the Omicron variant, her focus is once again on breaking up the UK.

“But, as usual with the SNP, independence trumps every other priority, even when opinion poll after opinion poll tells them the public want them to get on with the day job.”

The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said: “Nicola Sturgeon’s speech had almost twice as many references to independence as it did to the health service.

“If only the energy that she and her party put into trying to leave the UK was poured into health, education and the climate emergency.”