Spending priorities

Your leader “Covid’s damging legacy for our children” (16 August) raises the important question about prioritising finances in the public sector. Given we are repeatedly told by the SNP government that there is no new money to finance pay deals this results in a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario with key services losing out.

To assist the education wage settlement there was a £46m cut in funding for colleges and universities. The inflationbusting 17.5 per cent increase over two years for junior doctors is set to cost Scottish taxpayers a cool £61m in lost services from an already ailing NHS which was on its knees last winter with several health boards warning that they were at breaking point.

In his statement the Health Secretary was quick to draw comparison with the rest of the UK where settlements have still to be negotiated. He did not, however, leave us any the wiser on where the NHS cuts will fall. Liz Smith, the Tory shadow Finance and Economy minister, while welcoming the settlement, declined to draw parallels with the position in England where negotiations are still to get started between unions and the Tory government. By omitting to challenge where the extra money is coming from she let the SNP off the hook.

While Jenny Gilruth is right to be really worried about the impact on youngsters’ education as a result of Covid, surely the overriding priority is getting our less resilient healthcare system back to at least pre-covid levels of performance, otherwise our life expectancy will continue to fall and more will fall victim to long-term illnesses.

Neil Anderson

Edinburgh