Sturgeon urged to put focus on education and not independence vote
NICOLA STURGEON has been urged to ditch any plans for a second independence referendum and instead focus on improving Scotland’s education system.
Tory leader Ruth Davidson said another vote on the future of the UK would only “distract” the First Minister from her stated priority of closing the attainment gap in Scotland’s schools.
Ms Davidson told the SNP leader that “Scotland’s children won’t get a second chance”.
The Conservative will use a speech at the London School of Economics today to urge Ms Sturgeon to make a choice.
Ms Davidson will say that since the SNP came to power in 2007 ministers have been “asleep at the wheel on education” and that “constitutional division has taken precedence over education reform”.
The Scottish Government has outlined “ambitious and farreaching” reforms to education, she will add. But Ms Davidson will say: “If the First Minister now says she wants an ‘absolute focus’ on education, why is she considering another referendum campaign which will inevitably distract her from that goal?
“How can education be ‘the priority” for her, if she plunges us back into another all-consuming fight over Scotland’s place in the UK? If she spends the next two years fighting over a second referendum, how will her government have the time to deliver the changes in education she says she wants?”
School reforms “only really work with a committed and focused government at the centre, driving change forward”, the Tory will argue. She will say: “So I believe the First Minister now faces a choice. Either to focus on her own priority, and ensure our schools are turned around.”