Left-wing big state not working for Scottish taxpayers

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay delivers his latest keynote speech at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh earlier this month (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

Are you getting value for money from the Scottish Government? That’s the question increasingly being asked by voters and political parties both during the passage of the recent Scottish Government budget, and as we all come to terms with the ever growing tax burden.

For the last 25 years, the public sector in Scotland has increased its reach thanks to the twin agendas of both Labour and the SNP.

Whilst the left-wing consensus parties in the Scottish Parliament are more than happy to keep asking you to pay more of your hard-earned money to the all-knowing state, I believe that what Scots truly want is value for money from our public services and to be able to keep more of their money, with less wasted on frivolous SNP Government pet projects. After all, who knows how to spend your money more wisely, you or SNP ministers who have presided over the ferries scandal and hospital buildings scandals.

With the SNP in government at Holyrood and Labour in government at Westminster, things are bleak for Scots with taxes and energy bills on the rise. That is already at a time when Scots are the most taxed anywhere in the UK.

It is painfully obvious that what Scotland needs is not a larger state, with an ever-increasing deficit between revenue and expenditure, but a state that is more focused on outcome and delivering value for money. One that serves the people and not the other way around.

It is the duty of my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament and I to front-up and acknowledge that this cannot continue. The deficit between revenue and expenditure in Scotland is more than double what it is in the rest of the UK. This is unsustainable, and if we want to pull ourselves out of the current cost-of-living crisis, it is vital that we begin to live within our means.

Frankly, the more the state gets involved in the daily life of Scots the more things seem to go wrong. After 25 years we have seen a sea of poor legislation which focuses on process and not outcomes – that is why Scottish Conservatives are leading the debate on how we must make our public services more affordable and deliver value for money for you, the taxpayer.

As we approach the Holyrood elections in 2026, it is near impossible to defend the SNP’s record. Nowhere is the nationalist government’s ineptitude more apparent than when looking at the stats on education in Scotland which show that once again the attainment gap between Scotland’s most and least deprived students has grown.

Scotland currently has around 550,000 devolved public sector workers, and the wages bill stands at £27 billion. Whilst many of these roles are important frontline public services that add great value to the country, it is time to acknowledge that we do not require a great number of the quangos and bureaucrats.

As the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Russell Findlay, rightly pointed out in a speech in Edinburgh last week – the SNP has created a steroid state, which hoovers up record sums of cash without doing any better for families, workers and businesses. It is self-serving, rather than serving the people.

The people of the Lothians and the people of Scotland deserve better. Over the last 25 years the left-wing Labour-Liberal Democrat, SNP-Green consensus has failed us. It’s time for common sense for a change.

Miles Briggs is a Conservative MSP for Lothian