Anas Sarwar: Labour government would keep free tuition and Scottish Child Payment

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said his party would maintain a range of benefits including free prescriptions and the Scottish Child Payment, if it wins the next election.

Speaking in the run-up to his party’s conference, which takes place in Glasgow later this month, Sarwar said Labour would keep in place a range of entitlements such as free university tuition and free bus passes. He called such policies the “successes of devolution”.

The Labour leader has come under fire in recent months over his party’s decision to scrap the winter fuel payment for most pensioners and not to pay compensation to the so-called Waspi women who lost out under changes to the pension age.

Sarwar said: “Over the 25 years of devolution, successive Scottish Governments of different political parties have introduced a range of measures that symbolise some of the real successes of devolution.

 “When my party was last in Government in Scotland, we introduced the ground-breaking policy of free personal care and the current Government scrapped prescription charges for Scots.

 “A Scottish Labour-led government refused to introduce tuition fees on Scottish students and this has been maintained by following governments.

“Scottish Labour was proud to introduce free bus passes for older and disabled people in Scotland which has since been expanded and now also enables free travel for Scotland’s young people. These polices, alongside others including the Scottish Child Payment, baby box and free school lunches have been a success and would be maintained by a government that I lead.” 

Sarwar has also faced criticism for the Labour government’s failure to protect jobs at the Grangemouth oil refinery. Scotland’s only oil refinery is expected to close in the coming months with the loss of around 400 jobs.

Speaking earlier to BBC Scotland, Sarwar said the response to the closure was “not good enough”.

He said: “Where we are right now is not good enough. We need to see more progress and we need to see a stronger response going into the future.”

However, Sarwar insisted there had been progress made to help workers, citing Project Willow, a feasibility study on building a new, long-term industry at the refinery site.