SNP - MÀIRI MCALLAN

There are few things more important than improving the lives of our children.

We owe them a future in which they can be happy and fulfilled and we must provide the skills, knowledge and support needed.

With the SNP, that support begins from birth with the ‘Baby Box’, containing all supplies a newborn needs.

We’ve also revolutionised nursery care – nearly tripling available hours which are free, high quality and flexible.

In school, we’ve delivered rising teacher numbers and increased teachers’pay by 13 per cent.

We’ve upgraded 958 school buildings and invested record sums in closing the attainment gap – money which has gone directly to teachers and school leaders to spend.

The trend of children leaving school with Highers and Advanced Highers is upwards under the SNP and more kids are completing S6.

We’ve kept university free and always will – while students in England can pay nearly £30,000 in fees.

And we’ve done all of this in a decade of Westminster austerity and welfare‘reform’ which has left nearly one in four of Scotland’s children in poverty. It’s impossible to learn when you’re hungry but this is the reality for many wee ones under the Conservatives’cruel Universal Credit programme.

That’s why, if re-elected, we’ll fight hunger and stigma by doubling the Scottish Child Payment, extending free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary pupil and trial free lunches in secondary.

We’ll also provide an internet connected device to every pupil, building on what we delivered during the pandemic.

I’m proud to have been educated in Clydesdale – at Biggar primary and high school.

And I’m grateful to have had access to free university tuition in law and overseas study as part of the Erasmus scheme.

I’m committed to making sure every one of Clydesdale’s children has those same opportunities.