SNP is guilty of 50 key failures, claims damning Labour dossier
ANAS Sarwar has condemned the SNP over 50 key failures – including poverty rates, fewer teachers and millions wasted on mismanaged projects.
The Scottish Labour leader yesterday published a dossier highlighting dozens of areas in which the SNP had broken manifesto pledges, failed and fallen into crisis.
This includes major problems during the pandemic – such as the hundreds of care home deaths and the fiasco around the cancellation of school exams.
Mr Sarwar said that while the First Minister had admitted to taking her ‘eye off the ball’ in relation to the drug death crisis – Scotland has the highest rate in
Europe – many other failures had been identified.
Labour published the dossier only hours before Nicola Sturgeon set out her manifesto ahead of next month’s Holyrood election.
Mr Sarwar highlighted a series of promises made by the SNP in 2016 – which the party failed to meet.
These included failing to close the poverty-related attainment gap in schools and delivering superfast broadband to every home and business.
Mr Sarwar claimed that as well as failing to meet manifesto pledges, Nationalist ministers had also left a long list of ‘cumulative’ issues over the party’s 14 years in government.
The former health spokesman highlighted particular issues with services, revealing that the SNP had broken the law by missing a treatment time guarantee – that patients would treated within 12 weeks of diagnosis – more than 380,000 times.
Mr Sarwar said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon confessed she’d taken her eye off the ball on drug deaths, leading to the loss of thousands of lives – but SNP failures go well beyond this travesty. We had the second-highest number of Covid deaths in care homes in Europe.
‘Young people were judged by an algorithm in the exams fiasco.
‘Six years after it opened, we still don’t have answers on child deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.’
A recent report into the Glasgow hospital found that ‘the water supply was not safe and at high risk of infection’.
Mr Sarwar said this had led to the death of two children, with 40 young cancer patients catching infections.
He added: ‘Scotland can’t afford for the scandal-hit Government’s failures – sky-high child poverty rates, fewer teachers, fewer police officers and millions wasted on mismanaged projects – to continue. Scotland deserves better.
‘We can’t afford to have an “eye off the ball” during the [Covid] recovery – we need a better government and better opposition.’
It comes as Mr Sarwar failed to rule out backing an independence referendum in the future – but he insisted a divisive vote cannot take place in the next five years
He also argued that such a vote must not be held in the term of the next Scottish parliament, when the country is seeking to recover from the pandemic.
The Glasgow Southside candidate said the SNP and Greens are ‘wrong’ to seek a vote on separation within the next five years.
He added: ‘I don’t believe in independence, in a referendum.’
Asked on the BBC’s Mornings with Kaye Adams show if he had ‘closed the door’ to a referendum in the future, Mr Sarwar said: ‘No, what we are talking about is the next five years. A lot can happen in the next five years.’
Last night, Scottish Tory candidate Annie Wells said pro-Union voters would be ‘stuck in a nightmare’ after hearing Mr Sarwar’s
‘Taken her eye off the ball’ ‘Scandal-hit Government’
comments, adding: ‘It’s clear Labour would rather cosy up to the SNP than stand up to them.
‘By their leader’s admission, Labour won’t rule out opening the door to another referendum.’
SNP deputy leader Keith Brown said: ‘Labour have absolutely nothing to offer at this election.
‘The SNP has an excellent record of delivery in government.
‘We are in a better place than under the previous Labour government. If Labour had won the last election our NHS would be £1.8billion worse off.’