The last thing the SNP needed, given its profound electoral travails, was a spending crisis. But a spending crisis is what it’s got.
In recent years the management of the public finances has been radical, messy and often incoherent. Income tax rates have risen above those paid elsewhere in the UK. Expensive new benefits have been introduced. Councils have been bullied into austerity. Westminster has been blamed for all difficulties.
This has coincided with voters shedding their illusions about the SNP. Polls show that they no longer regard the Nats as progressive angels saving Scotland from a stingy, right-wing London. If taxes have gone up, where have been the commensurate improvements in public services? Why is the NHS on the verge of collapse? Why are our schools performing so poorly, especially when compared to England’s triumphant A-level results this week? What is the SNP up to? What is it for?
The truth is that the Scottish government has wanted to have it both ways. It has spent, spent, spent, behaving as if the nation was already independent, while carefully avoiding any of the difficult reforms that might cause it problems with the public sector workforce.
Now they have collided with reality. Finance Secretary Shona Robison has announced a recruitment freeze across the public sector, as the administration prepares for above-inflation pay settlements. Ministers are horrified that they have to do this, but they have in the past proved a soft touch on pay deals, in part because it made them look more generous – “on your side” – than their Westminster equivalents.
Robison’s “emergency controls” on spending are likely to lead to a series of cuts and delays when she makes an urgent financial statement after the Holyrood recess. It has been suggested that the rollout of free school meals to Primary 7 pupils could be shelved, and peak-time rail fares re-imposed. Winter fuel payments will be means-tested, in line with Labour’s plans for England and Wales. There will be more.
It might be possible to have some sympathy with the SNP’s predicament, had it behaved differently in the past. But it has continually hosed money at one pet project or another. And nothing was ever enough – Scotland was always being held back by its London paymasters. Just imagine the luscious, well-resourced public sector we’d have if only Scotland was independent, we were asked to believe.
There were areas where Scotland could have tightened its belt – should have tightened its belt – if ministers wanted to spend on their own priorities, such as tackling child poverty. The “free stuff”, such as GP prescriptions and university tuition, are simply unaffordable in an era where demands are growing across the NHS and welfare state. The pursuit of economic growth was hindered by the doomed partnership with the anti-growth Scottish Greens.
There has long been a strong case for reprioritisation, which has been utterly ignored by the SNP. Instead, it has taxed more and spent more, growing ever more boastful while its record has looked ever-more threadbare.
A variety of independent experts, from the Scottish Fiscal Commission to Audit Scotland, have pointed out that Scotland has been on course for a stiff reckoning, due to the lack of careful planning. Earlier this year, John-Paul Marks, the Scottish government’s permanent secretary, said he had warned First Minister John Swinney of the “risk” facing spending plans. “I have been very open that I consider fiscal sustainability to be a significant risk that needs active mitigation now,” he told Holyrood’s finance and public administration committee.
In response to Robison’s announcement of emergency controls, Joao Sousa of the Fraser of Allander Institute criticised ministers for their “lack of prudent planning”. With no set pay policy, they had placed themselves “at the mercy of labour market conditions”.
That all this could be foreseen, and indeed was foreseen, is a damning indictment of the approach taken by the SNP to governance, its constant advance of politics above good policy, its timidity in reforming services, and its arrogant dismissal of its critics.
And the idea that independence would solve any of these problems, rather than exacerbate them, doesn’t stand up to analysis. Earlier this week the latest Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures, which look at taxes compared to spending in Scotland, were released, and showed last year’s public spending deficit surged by £3.6bn to £22.7bn. The deficit amounted to 10.4 per cent of GDP, compared to the UK equivalent of 4.5 per cent. North Sea oil and gas revenues have halved to £4bn.
All of which combines to raise some pretty awkward questions for an already imperilled party. The Nats have based their credibility and purpose on an active state that intervenes everywhere and always. Without cash to throw around, they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to cut – not an unusual position for governments, but anathema to the big-spending SNP. Tough conversations lie ahead with the unions and public-sector workers, who will be furious at this austerity, and determined to protect their largely unreformed working conditions.
That there is no public appetite for independence, or any kind of referendum, leaves the Nats politically naked. In basic terms, they were elected to run the country, and they have not done it very well. There has been an amateurishness to their strategy in too many important areas, and they have created a sizeable rod for their own back. As Holyrood 2026 approaches, it looks increasingly like voters will use that rod to whack the SNP all the way out of government.
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