What a vote for the SNP means
by The next Scottish election is coming this May and there are good reasons to give both your votes to the SNP.
Due to the consequences of Westminster austerity and Brexit – both of which Scotland never voted for – people across Scotland have had to endure an ongoing cost-of-living crisis emphatically made in the ivory towers of power in London.
The SNP, as the Scottish Government, has been shielding people in Scotland from the worst of Westminster.
Independence would allow Scotland to escape the vicious circle of repeated failing Westminster governments imposing unwanted policies on Scotland.
But in the immediate years ahead an SNP Scottish Government is needed more than ever to continue shielding the people of Scotland from failing Westminster governments.
Here are some of our key policies you will get with an SNP Scottish Government …
New GP walk-in clinics and shorter NHS waiting times
We know greater access to your local GP is important to you.
That’s why we are already spending £36 million to rollout of a new network of walk-in GP services, designed to make it easier for people like you to see GPs and other primary care clinicians quickly for urgent health concerns without needing an appointment.
We’re already already opened the first one in Edinburgh with services focused on urgent, on-the-day care needs, similar to the care currently provided by GP out-of-hours services.
Services will be open 12pm-8pm, seven days per week, and will allow people to attend without a prior appointment.
That’s what a vote for the SNP will mean in the coming election – greater access to see a GP.
And after the incredible pressures the coronavirus pandemic put on the NHS the SNP is already bringing down waiting times.
The latest figures show NHS Scotland waiting times fell for the seventh straight month under the SNP.
Those figures are better than those in England and Wales where Labour is the government in control – particularly Wales where Labour has been in power for nearly 30 years.
Scotland’s NHS can’t afford the risk of a return to a Scottish Government run by a Labour party failing the NHS elsewhere in the UK, embroiled in chaos, and prepared to take power with the help of the Tories and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Extra help with the cost of living
Westminster imposed austerity and Brexit have hammered living standards in Scotland for years now.
But with an SNP Scottish Government people in Scotland are shielded from some of their worst effects and which are not available in England and Wales where Labour has power.
We’ve kept council tax and water bills lower than the rest of the UK, scrapped tuition fees, prescription charges and peak rail fares.
We’ve restored winter heating payments for pensioners, expanded free childcare, and ensured free bus travel for 2.3 million pensioners and young people.
This is the SNP’s Cost-of-Living Guarantee.
The SNP Scottish Government is keeping money back in people’s pockets that would be lost in other parts of the UK where Labour has full control.
Our Cost-of-Living Guarantee delivers real savings for hard-pressed households across Scotland and goes further than any package offered in the rest of the UK.
It’s a guarantee you won’t get from the other parties.
We’ve seen what the Tories did with cuts after cuts over fourteen years in power at Westminster and it will be more of the same with their clones in Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
And since the UK general election in 2024 we’ve seen what Labour attempted to do with cuts to winter fuel heating payments for pensioners and disabled benefits.
There’s only one party with a Cost-of-Living Guarantee for you and your family, and that’s the SNP.
More free childcare and new school breakfast clubs
The SNP are committed to building a more accessible and affordable system of childcare in Scotland by supporting parents and carers to access the childcare they need to enter or sustain their employment.
We already provide 1,140 hours per year of funded early learning and childcare to all three-and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds regardless of their parents’ working status.
Families can receive up to 30 hours per week of funded childcare during term time, or 22 hours year-round.
If families were to pay for this themselves, it would cost them around £6,000 per child per year.
And across our school age childcare programme, we are supporting over 5,000 children from low-income families to access services.
To further help children have the best start in life we’re also providing new funding to allow every primary pupil in Scotland to access a breakfast club.
Breakfast clubs not only give children a nutritious meal before school starts, they can also help improve school attendance and confidence in children
The SNP’s support for pre-school childcare and assistance for pupils with breakfast clubs is the best provision in the UK. The other parties can’t be trusted.
Keep that support for Scotland’s children continuing by voting SNP this May.
Lower energy bills with independence
Scotland is an energy rich nation – generating more electricity than it uses. It’s clean energy and it’s generated cheaply.
Yet families and businesses across Scotland continue to face some of the highest energy bills in Europe. It just does not add up.
That stark contradiction exists because the key decisions over Scotland’s energy system are still made in Westminster, not in Scotland.
Westminster sets the pricing regime where high international gas prices can determine price; and it’s Westminster policy that sees cheaply generated Scottish electricity hit with the highest transmission charges in Europe.
Only independence can give Scotland the power to change this system that discriminates against Scotland.
Independence would allow Scotland to build an energy system that works for the people of Scotland using the energy we already produce to cut costs, empower communities, and support businesses.
Labour promised to lower energy bills by £300 yet they have gone up since they were elected to government.
Westminster’s energy policy demonstrates exactly why independence will improve the lives of the people of Scotland.
With control over our own energy future, we can ensure our energy wealth translates into real savings for households.
The SNP is offering a future where we can cut household electricity bills by over a third, ensure communities share directly in the wealth created by our renewables, and where we give Scottish businesses lower energy costs and a competitive advantage.
This is the better future Scotland deserves and this is the future the SNP is determined to deliver.
It’s Scotland’s energy and it should work for the people of Scotland.
It’s time for a fresh start for Scotland with independence and lower energy bills.
Help for renters and first-time buyers
The economic effects of Westminster austerity and Brexit have greatly contributed to the cost-of-living problems many people face.
We know that means many young Scots are struggling to get on the housing ladder, and struggling to find affordable homes to rent or to buy.
We want to give people in the priority groups the same opportunity as other buyers to own their home.
That’s why we’ve ensured the first £175,000 of a property purchased by a first-time buyer will remain tax-free, making it easier for young people to buy their first home.
Our Open Market Shared Equity Scheme is also available to people across Scotland who can’t afford the full price of a home.
Applicants can apply for between 60% and 90% of the property’s value without having to purchase it in full, with the Scottish Government owning the remaining share.
And through our new national housing agency we will deliver record levels of investment to help deliver even more homes – a new generation of affordable, liveable, energy efficient homes.
Since 2007 the SNP has delivered more than 141,000 affordable homes, of which 101,000 have been for social rent.
When Scottish Labour last controlled the Scottish Government, with the LibDems, they only built six council houses in their last four years.
That’s the contrast between an SNP Scottish Government and a Labour one propped up by the Tories and Reform UK.
A government that’s always on Scotland’s side
Fundamentally an SNP Scottish Government will always be on Scotland’s side.
The Westminster parties take their orders from their London bosses in the interests of Westminster power, not the people of Scotland.
Scottish Labour MPs voted to nationalise a steel plant in England whilst allowing Grangemouth’s refinery to close.
The Tories eagerly imposed Brexit on Scotland and all the economic damage that has brought with it.
And Reform UK is so controlled by it’s London leadership that its “leader” in Scotland was appointed by Nigel Farage, not elected by its members.
Only with the SNP can the people of Scotland guarantee that they always have a Scottish Government that’s always on Scotland’s side.