The SNP and the Scottish Conservatives: a tale of two manifestos Murdo Fraser
Perhaps we should not be surprised that voters treat political party manifestos with a degree of scepticism.
Those with long memories will recall previous SNP pledges to abolish council tax, reduce class sizes in primary school to no more than 18, and introduce a cash grant for firsttime house buyers – none of which have been delivered in 14 long years of SNP government in Scotland, despite a parliamentary majority at one point which would have enabled them to do just that.
A similarly cynical view might be taken to last week’s launch of the SNP manifesto for this coming election, offering a range of ambitious – and expensive – policy commitments. There are pledges to explore a four-day working week, to pilot a universal basic income for all citizens, new funding for the NHS, free dental care, a free bicycle for every child, and so the list goes on. There is, it seems, something for everyone.
But how, exactly, will all this be paid for? Analysis carried out by the Scottish Conservatives shows that the Scottish budget would need to at least double for the SNP to implement their manifesto in full, given their spending commitments total some £95 billion in a single year.
All this at a time when they are saying that rates of taxation in Scotland would not require to rise (although, of course, they made the same promise back in 2016, and swiftly broke it).
But do not just rely on Conservative criticism of the SNP’S figures. The independent and widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies states: “The manifesto does not provide information on how much these various pledges will cost altogether… but the list of policies included clearly has significant net cost. Paying for this in the context of what will likely be a tight fiscal environment in the coming Parliament would require tricky trade-offs, and potentially either (as yet unspoken) tax rises, or cuts to at least some areas of public spending."
The same IFS has already pointed out that the SNP are utilising one-off Covid money coming in cash grants from the British Treasury to fund ongoing policy commitments. This diversion of vital resources infuriates business owners desperate for support funds, particularly when they see similar enterprises south of the Border able to reopen when they are still closed.
Moreover, it is simply not sustainable in the long run, and will require – as the IFS fairly points out – either future tax rises, cuts elsewhere, or a mixture of both.
Even against that backdrop, the SNP commitment to increasing frontline spending on health by at least 20 per cent over the next Parliament is likely to mean slower growth in support for the NHS than has been promised in England.
The irony of an SNP government reliant upon Barnett consequentials from UK spending to fund policy pledges, and at the same time committed to an independence referendum which would see that lifeline disappear and Scotland left with a massive black hole in its public finances, will not be lost on many observers.
A clear contrast with the SNP’S unrealistic spending plans came on Monday, with the launch of the Scottish Conservative manifesto. Focused on rebuilding Scotland post-covid, this is a comprehensive package of measures to help grow the economy, create jobs, and deliver real improvements in our public services.
There are five key policy commitments: to deliver full-fibre broadband for every household and business by 2027, to increase the NHS budget by at least £2 billion, to give every single person of working age access to a £500-a-year grant for training, to recruit 3,000 more teachers, and to ensure that there is local policing to keep streets safe. A package of 15 bills to be introduced in the first year of the new Parliament underpins the headline policy offers.
Crucially, and in stark contrast to the SNP’S offer, the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto comes with a financial supplement, setting out how each and every one of these measures would be funded – an approach specifically welcomed by the IFS. This starts with a £600 million commitment to the NHS in the financial year 2021-2022 to allow health workers to address the serious backlog of treatment that has built up over the past year.
It does seem remarkable that a party in opposition is able to do the basic work of setting out how its spending commitments could be funded, based on information from the Scottish Government’s own medium-term financial strategy forecast, when the incumbent government has utterly failed to perform a similar exercise.
Anyone looking at these two documents objectively – the SNP manifesto and that from the Scottish Conservatives – will come to the conclusion that there is only one which has a credible set of figures, and therefore only one set of promises that can realistically be delivered. We do, of course, know exactly what is going on here. Fundamentally, the SNP have limited interest in delivering for Scotland as the administration of the devolved Scottish government.
They have a single-minded obsession with pursuing another independence referendum, however reckless that might be in the current economic circumstances.
As a consequence, they have constructed a manifesto full of unaffordable promises, hoping that they will attract as many votes as possible, and that they can pursue their independence dream before reality catches up with them.
I suspect that the Scottish people will not be so easily fooled. Having been betrayed by the SNP with broken promises in the past, I would bet that they won’t be taken in again. Murdo Fraser is the Scottish Conservative candidate for Perthshire North