Cole-Hamilton: People need change, not relentless independence navel-gazing

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has challenged would-be SNP leadership contenders to look crisis-hit public services and families in the eye and recognise the harm that “relentless navel-gazing on independence” is causing.

The party has urged potential candidates to “focus on what really matters to people” and recognise where timeworn SNP policies have failed to deliver for the NHS, schools, the economy and the efforts to reduce Scotland’s emissions. Specifically, it is challenging candidates to commit to:

1. Withdraw the National Care Service Bill, putting money into frontline services and staff instead of a billion-pound bureaucracy and ministerial takeover of social care.
2. Replace the failing NHS Recovery Plan which has only delivered spiralling waits and vacancies, and also launch an urgent inquiry into the hundreds of deaths connected to the emergency care crisis, a burnout prevention strategy and a health and social care staff assembly.
3. Scrap national testing of children as young as four and five and instead focus on boosting in-class support and teachers’ pay and conditions.
4. Establish a public inquiry into the ferries fiasco, to get islanders the answers they deserve about why they and their businesses have been left without lifeline ferries after horrendous delays and costs, and helping create a pipeline of work for the future.
5. Launch an emergency nationwide insulation programme to bring down bills, create jobs and put a stop to Scotland missing its climate change targets.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

“Nicola Sturgeon’s launched ferries with painted on windows and failed to close the attainment gap in our schools. Drug deaths many times worse than anywhere else in Europe and a stagnant economy are the consequence of years of ministerial disinterest. The delivery rarely lived up to the hype.

“I’m challenging the leadership contenders to recognise where timeworn SNP policies have failed to deliver for the NHS, schools, the economy and the efforts to reduce Scotland’s emissions.

“I’ve set out positive policies for the would-be candidates today because being open to ideas from the opposition benches is a sign of good government. With three years until the next scheduled Holyrood election, people have the right to see change, not more of the same.

“We will work hard to move the debate on from the divisions of the past because people can’t wait for years behind yet more arguments and navel-gazing about independence. All of the good things we want to do can’t play second fiddle any longer. Scotland needs new hope, right now.

“When it comes to breaking up the UK, no price is too high and no amount of disruption too painful for the nationalists. Scottish Liberal Democrats will stand up for communities around the country being totally taken for granted by this SNP Government.”