There is little doubt that the next session of the Scottish Parliament will be the most challenging since devolution. The proximate cause is the gap between spending commitments and revenues, which is forecast to be £4.7bn by 2029-30. The consequences of a political culture that shuns hard decisions, trade-offs and the grind of effective policy implementation are becoming manifest.
It will surprise no one who follows Scottish politics closely that manifestos from all parties have failed to engage seriously with this reality. Instead, ranging from the managerially dull to the risibly Panglossian, they offered little of real substance in response to immediate fiscal pressures or the great demographic, environmental, technological and distributional challenges that will define this and coming decades.
Not one manifesto seriously engaged with the demographic trends that year by year are intensifying the pressures on public services. Compared to the 2021 election, many of them also reflected a stark drop in the salience of climate change as a priority issue for the next administration. There were no compelling ideas on turning the much vaunted “just transition” from oil and gas to renewables into a reality for those people and geographies at risk of being displaced.
Reform UK published a manifesto founded on the voodoo economics of assuming tax cuts will increase revenues. Voters are expected to believe that the best way to reduce the fiscal gap is to slash the one large tax under devolved control—income tax. Given the scale and immediacy of the challenge, the proposed solution is as offensive as it is preposterous. There is no magic sauce: if taxes are cut, revenues will fall. Yet Reform will almost certainly have a significant presence in the next parliament and could form the official opposition.
The fundamental unseriousness of current Scottish politics is also exposed in the progressive parties’ manifestos.
Among the many measures with almost no chance of being successfully delivered, the most eye-catching was the SNP’s proposal to establish “statutory price ceilings on a basket of 20 to 50 essential food items at large supermarkets such as bread, milk and eggs.” It is entirely understandable that SNP leader John Swinney should wish to send a strong signal that his party is on the side of struggling households. But, even assuming that devolved powers are sufficient to deliver this policy, the chances of it tangibly relieving the pressure on household budgets in the short-term would be somewhere close to zero, given that the market in everyday items is highly competitive—with many of these items sold as loss leaders.
Labour’s manifesto claimed that relatively small supply-side reforms can rapidly achieve a relatively huge increase in GDP. The Scottish Greens’ manifesto stretched to more than 160 pages, containing numerous costly proposals. In presenting it, Ross Greer, co-leader, argued that the concept of a costed manifesto was “misleading”.
None of this is credible. Proposing policies and outcomes that simply can’t be delivered or pretending that real fiscal constraints are some kind of dastardly fiction is the worst response to the populist right.
Despite polls showing that a majority of voters believe the SNP is failing on key issues it seems almost certain that it will once again be the largest party, and probably by some distance. It would be nice to think that a renewed mandate will see the SNP fundamentally reassess the prevailing, rather incongruous, model of Scottish social democracy.
The first minister regularly promotes Scotland’s “social contract”: a bargain comprising “free” university tuition, prescriptions and concessionary bus travel, which are really paid for by higher income tax contributions from those earning over £33,000 (and, lest we forget, a substantial fiscal transfer from the rest of the United Kingdom).
But the SNP has failed to level with the Scottish electorate that true social democracy requires higher tax contributions from all, not just those with the “broadest shoulders”. The Scottish government’s own tax fact sheet confirms that the median earner in Scotland pays fully 9 per cent less in personal taxes than the median earner in Nordic and Benelux countries; the very countries the SNP consistently flags as exemplars for Scotland.
It’s difficult to envisage a result that puts the parliament on a sound footing to address Scotland’s pressing challenges. Indeed, with an even more fragmented opposition, and little prospect of a stable, formal coalition, the likelihood is that the parliament continues to do what it does best: muddling along while avoiding difficult decisions and trade-offs. If a majority of seats are won by pro-independence parties—as looks very possible—the constitutional question could once again dominate to the detriment of more immediate priorities.
Devolution provides substantial powers to improve lives. Scotland’s lower rate of child poverty is at least partially explained by devolved policies such as the Scottish Child Payment. The next parliament must demonstrate that it can use its powers judiciously to start navigating the immediate and longer-term challenges it has long avoided. If not, trust will continue to fall, and the legitimacy of devolved government may come under pressure. The social, economic and democratic renewal that Scotland so desperately needs will remain a distant prospect.
