Despite the rise in Labour’s popularity down south, the SNP are set to win the next Scottish election according to recent polls, so let’s track the record of John Swinney, and if he’s lived up to his promises so far.
Last November, Swinney said he had four priorities as First Minister: “Eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate crisis, and improving public services”, which were also the main aims of the Scottish Budget. How have these pledges done so far?
Starting strong, the Budget was approved, but only with the help of the Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats, as Scottish Labour abstained from the vote. Thanks to this, NHS Scotland is set to receive £200 million to reduce waiting times, hopefully improving public services. Additionally, whilst inflation is set to rise to 2.7% from 2.5% last year, GDP is set to rise from 0.8% to 1.2%, meaning that the gap in between GDP growth and inflation will hopefully only be 1.5%, rather than 1.7% in 2024. On climate change, the SNP are standing by their assumption of no new oil and gas licences being awarded, meaning that whilst oil drilling in the North Sea can continue, it will not increase. These all seem consistent with Swinney’s initial promises.
On eradicating child poverty, Swinney hopes to abolish the Two Child Benefit Cap in Scotland, as set out in the Budget, but this is dependent on whether or not the UK Government cooperates in this effort. Despite this effort, child poverty still sits at 24 per cent in Scotland, a one per cent decrease from the last recorded period, but that was also a one per cent increase from the year before. Effectively, the numbers are going up and down by ones and twos, but generally remaining the same, as child poverty rates in 2007, the year the SNP first came to power, were also 24 per cent. 18 years ago.
Hopefully, the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap will come, and when it does, it will bring some relief to this, but until then, there aren’t reasonable grounds to say that John Swinney has fulfilled this promise. Until there are, Swinney gets a 7/10, as three of the four goals have clear, if not a bit slow, progress, whereas the effort to decrease child poverty, despite being 18 years in the making, has still not succeeded.
Featured Image Credit: Scottish Government
4th year Politics and Journalism student.
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