Ian Murray: New Year, time for a fresh start in Holyrood

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

While the long nights, dreich weather and the inevitable Hogmanay hangover leave much to be desired, it’s a time of new possibilities and New Year’s resolutions. And it presents the opportunity for a fresh start.

And nowhere do we need a fresh start more than in Holyrood. This year, the SNP will have been in government for 18 years. And what do they have to show for it? Broken promises, worsening public services and a poor record on the economy and public finances. Everything seems to be worse than it was before. In fact, as someone said to me over the Christmas break, “nothing seems to work anymore”.

As Anas Sarwar outlined in his New Year speech, Scots are paying more in taxes but receiving less in declining public services. In nearly every sphere, the SNP are failing, with education, justice and health under severe strain.

My constituency team and I see the real-world results of this all the time. Every day we are contacted by constituents who are languishing on interminable waiting lists, struggling to access social care for their elderly relatives and who see the antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhood go unpunished. There are real life consequences to the SNP’s incompetence.

Despite the best efforts of hardworking NHS staff, the number of patients across Scotland waiting more than eight hours in A&E rose by 25 per cent between January and October 2024 compared to the previous year. In the same period, NHS Lothian recorded 32,439 patients waiting in A&E for over eight hours. That’s an astonishing number and the highest for any health board in Scotland.

The record settlement that the Scottish Government received because of Labour’s austerity- ending budget in October gave the SNP a unique opportunity to deliver much-needed support for Scotland’s public services. But they’ve squandered it.

The main headline was an announcement to scrap the two-child benefit cap, but there was not a single penny attached to this. The fact is that the SNP are not saying they will lift the two-child cap, only that they will explore lifting it.

Ultimately if the SNP wanted to transform Scotland fundamentally for the better, they would have done so by now, and we would not have endured 18 years of missed opportunities. And now they are swithering over their failed budget. John Swinney and the SNP have the numbers to pass their budget, they need to stop the shadowboxing and get on with the job. They’ve no more excuses.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. We have much to be optimistic about in 2025. The new Labour Government at Westminster has hit the ground running by making the tough decisions so that the future can be full of promise and opportunity.

But in Holyrood, John Swinney and the SNP are offering only more of the same failed policies driven by a failed ideology that has been dismissed by Scots.

Scottish Labour is clear that only a new direction and fresh leadership can properly deliver the change the Scotland needs.