Labour to publish dossier highlighting ‘cost of SNP incompetence’

Scottish Labour have accused the SNP of forcing Scots to foot the bill for its “financial mismanagement” and called for it to “take responsibility for fixing the mess it has made of public finances”. 

The party will publish a dossier later today which it says will detail the current financial situation facing the SNP-led Scottish Government.  

Anas Sarwar has highlighted what he has described as the “cost of SNP incompetence”, pointing to areas such as tax, rail fares and healthcare.  

The Scottish Labour leader criticised the SNP’s the decision to tax Scots that earn over £29,000 at a higher rate than the rest of the UK, whilst freezing income tax bands, which he says has resulted in “more people are being caught in the SNP’s tax hikes”. 

He criticised the recent announcement to reinstate peak rail fares, which will cause prices on key routes to nearly double during common commuting times, as well as the 8.7 per cent fares increase in April this year. 

Sarwar accused the SNP of creating a two-tier healthcare system, which he says forced some Scots to pay for private healthcare whilst on long NHS waiting lists. He pointed to statistics from Public Health Scotland which show a third of the knee and hip operations carried out in Scotland last year were paid for privately.  

He has also warned that cutting council budgets through the council tax freeze could result in sharp council tax hikes or rising charges for services such as parking and leisure. 

Sarwar said: “For too long the SNP has forced working Scots to foot the bill for government failure. 

“As families struggle to make ends meet during a cost-of-living crisis, they shouldn’t have to deal with the added cost of SNP incompetence. Taxes keep spiralling while services crumble – but we cannot keep paying more and getting less in return. 

“The current budget crisis is the result of years of economic decline and financial mismanagement by the SNP government. The SNP must drop the excuses and spin and take responsibility for fixing the mess it has made of public finances.” 

Asked yesterday by LBC News about the recent Scottish Government cuts having been a result of the recent Labour-led UK Government cuts, Sarwar described it as “frankly embarrassing” that the SNP “who have been in government for 17 years wants to blame a party that has been in government for around seven weeks”. 

He added that his party is “clearing up the mess left by the Tories – a mess that the SNP want to downplay”.  

The SNP say Labour must “share some of the culpability” for the state of the UK economy. 

This comes ahead of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's speech tomorrow, in which he is expected to tell the country it will have to endure even worse economic and social ­pressures in the coming months as his government takes “unpopular decisions” to rebuild the country from “rubble and ruin” left by the Conservatives.

The SNP has accused Labour of having backed many of Tory policies which it says severely undermined the economy, living standards and public services – such as Brexit, attacks on the welfare state and years of public spending cuts.

SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown said: “The Tory government have left behind an incredible mess – but Labour must share some of the culpability for the situation the UK now finds itself in.

“Keir Starmer cannot just wipe away the fact that, during the long years of Tory rule, Labour refused to stand up to them on some of the most damaging policies.

“The Labour Party were signed up to the austerity agenda, they backed attacks on the welfare state, and they are refusing to reverse Brexit.

“Governing is about choices, and be in no doubt: the programme of austerity measures set to be announced today is a choice - one which the SNP has been warning about since before the election."