SNP “out of ideas and out of money”

John Swinney’s first Programme for Government revealed an SNP Government that is out of ideas – and thanks to 17 years of their own financial incompetence – out of money.

The First Minister’s speech on Wednesday was littered with broken promises, and came just 24 hours after his Finance Secretary announced £500million of brutal public spending cuts.

Here are three key takeaways from the First Minister’s gloomy speech 👇

The 2024-25 Programme for Government is bad news for Scotland’s school children

The SNP U-turned on their pledge to provide universal free school meals, instead making the scheme means-tested for P6 and P7 pupils.

John Swinney also watered down the SNP’s promise to ‘completely eradicate’ the poverty-related attainment gap in schools, changing his aim to merely ‘reducing’ it instead.

Despite SNP spin, Scotland’s NHS is losing out

John Swinney promised to improve the NHS and increase health boards’ baseline funding in the Programme for Government – just one day after he slashed the overall health budget by more than £116million as part of spending cuts on Tuesday.

The SNP have once again failed to prioritise tackling Scotland’s drugs deaths crisis

Despite presiding over a drugs and alcohol deaths crisis, the SNP leader didn’t even mention this national emergency in his speech, let alone outline a plan to tackle it.

And, once again, the SNP failed to back the Right to Recovery bill, designed to give everyone suffering drugs or alcohol addiction in Scotland the right to vital recovery treatment.

The Programme for Government was more of the same from this clapped-out SNP administration.

After mismanaging the public finances, they have nothing to offer but savage cuts to essential services. pic.twitter.com/8N1u4fZ23l

— Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) September 5, 2024