SNP’S 100 DAYS OF BROKEN PROMISES
Election campaign pledge on Government targets in tatters as deadline looms
NICOLA Sturgeon stands accused of breaking a string of promises she made to voters before the May election.
During the campaign, the First Minister drew up a list of priorities for her Government in its first 100 days – from tackling Covid to fixing the health service.
However, with the deadline looming, the SNP is set to fall short on more than a dozen key commitments, including the publication of an NHS recovery plan and steps towards launching an inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed nearly 10,400 lives.
Saturday will mark 100 days since the election when Ms Sturgeon was returned to power, and yesterday the Tories said her 100-day pledge ‘looks like another set of broken promises in the making’.
Labour said the list of missed targets was a ‘dereliction of duty’.
Ms Sturgeon is also accused of breaking several promises on tackling the pandemic, from vaccination targets to dates on relaxing restrictions.
Annie Wells, Scottish Conservative health spokesman, said: ‘It’s clear the SNP
‘The delay to publishing a recovery plan is inexcusable’
are miles off target on meeting the pledges in their 100-days document.
‘Once again, there’s an enormous gap between what the SNP say and what they do. They just don’t deliver.
‘The delay to publishing an NHS recovery plan is inexcusable.’
Humza Yousaf, the Health Secretary, came in for particularly stinging criticism.
Ms Wells said: ‘It’s apparent that most of the inaction and missed targets are down to Humza Yousaf’s lousy performance as Health Secretary. So far his most notable action is misleading parents about Covid rates in children
‘Instead of focusing on meeting these pledges, the SNP broke their promise to set Indyref 2 aside and prioritise Scotland’s recovery.
‘Just this week we heard they are shamelessly planning to ramp up their push for Indyref 2 at their party conference. It’s more of the same from this distracted, divisive SNP Government.’
The Covid inquiry will look at some of the Scottish Government’s most controversial decisions during the pandemic, such as allowing patients who had tested positive for Covid to be discharged from hospitals to care homes, where thousands of deaths took place.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour deputy leader, said: ‘The SNP has only a week to make good on some of the most important promises they made for their first 100 days in power.
‘To fail to deliver an NHS recovery plan and to fail to pledge a Scotland-specific inquiry as promised shows a party utterly out of touch with the people of Scotland.’ Doctors warned the ongoing wait for a plan to fix the NHS risks pushing medics ‘beyond breaking point’. Dr Lewis Morrison, chairman of BMA Scotland, said: ‘Staff are exhausted and burnt out from the past 18 months. If we don’t build in rest and recuperation for staff, we risk pushing them beyond breaking point and undermining any plan for NHS recovery.’
Alex Cole-Hamilton, Scots Lib Dem health spokesman, added: ‘The forthcoming recovery plan needs to acknowledge that our health service doesn’t just need a post-Covid recovery plan, it needs a recovery plan from 14 years of SNP rule. There is only one chance to get this right. The recovery plan will need to hold the answer for staff and patients alike.’
Last night, the Scottish Government insisted the 100 days only started when Ms Sturgeon was officially sworn in as First Minister on May 18, not when she was reelected on May 6 – giving it an extra 12 days to hit its targets.
A spokesman for John Swinney, the Covid Recovery Secretary, said: ‘It says it all about Scotland’s Unionist parties that they can’t bring themselves to say a single positive thing about the fantastic achievements of the SNP Government over the last few months – whether that’s agreeing a 4 per
‘It shows a party out of touch with the people’
cent pay rise for our hard-working NHS staff, announcing the abolition of charges for school music tuition or dental charges for 18 to 25-year-olds or much more.
‘We have always been clear that our plans were to be implemented 100 days from forming the new Government – not from the date of the election, which would be nonsensical, given that at that time there were not even MSPs to vote in the new Government.’