Shona Robison’s remarks to Conference #SNP24

Conference, there is no doubt that these are the most challenging times we have known in Scotland since our Parliament was reconvened in 1999.

One of the last acts of a failed Tory government was to impose a budget on us in the Spring that utterly failed to deliver the funding Scotland needs this year.

The last 14 years of Tory Westminster rule have seen austerity, resulting in less funding for Scotland’s public services.

We have repeatedly called for increased capital funding to support investment in our vital infrastructure, to help our NHS and fund the delivery of more affordable housing.

But our block grant for capital is now expected to reduce in real terms by 8.7% by 2027/-28. – a cumulative loss of over £1.3bn.

Conference, we might have expected a different approach from the new UK Labour government. We might have expected six weeks into their term some hope, some sign that things might indeed, get better.

Instead, we have had the new Chancellor trying to express surprise at discovering that there’s an overspend of over £22 billion in the public finances.

Which begs the question – where did she spend the UK election?

Because it was made very clear time and again that their and the Tory spending plans created a great big black hole of £22 billion in the public finances.

And at every opportunity, SNP Ministers and election candidates pointed it out. Shame Labour wasn’t listening.

Just this week, conference, the new Chancellor showed just how little anyone in Labour appears to understand Scotland and indeed, how devolution works.

She tried to claim that the Scottish Government was spending more than it was bringing in and that was now leading to the difficult financial situation we have.

So let me offer Rachel Reeves a wee lesson in fiscal policy. The Scottish Government has balanced its budget every single year and lived within the resources available to us.

It is the decisions that Labour has made in the eight short weeks since coming to power that will fundamentally damage our ability to deliver public services in Scotland,

If Labour actually wanted to help Scotland invest more in public services, then give us the borrowing and fiscal powers to allow that to happen!

The Chancellor has done one thing that we welcome. In deciding to accept the findings of independent pay reviews for health staff and teachers, at long last, the UK Government is prepared to acknowledge what the SNP in government has long promoted and practised – that public sector workers are entitled to fair pay.

That is why so many of our workers – including teachers, nurses and police officers – have the highest starting salary level in the UK.

So as welcome as this acknowledgement of the value and worth of public sector workers is, much less welcome is that Labour has not committed to funding the awards in full with more resources, but instead effectively through cuts.

Because of how public financing works under devolution this ties our hands.

Conference, for as long as we don’t have our independence and the powers of a normal country, our public services will be beholden to the whims of Westminster. As the UK Health Secretary said during the election – all roads lead to Westminster.

Perhaps worst of all, conference, was the sight just this week of a Labour Prime Minister telling us all that things are going to get worse, and that the autumn budget is going to be painful.

No wonder, after just six weeks, a majority of Scots now see that Starmer doesn’t understand Scotland and that less than half who voted Labour in July feel better off.

Conference, the political headwinds show that with Westminster in control of Scotland’s budget, no matter whether Tories or Labour are in charge, Scotland will be worse off.

With limited fiscal powers under devolution, that leaves our government with few places to go.

And let me assure you – despite what Scottish Labour like to pretend, we do not have a magic money tree at Holyrood.

So the priority for me and my colleagues – particularly my Cabinet colleagues Jenny Gilruth in Education, Neil Gray in Health and Angela Constance in Justice – and the challenge we are all wrestling with is this.

How do we protect and enhance the public services everyone in Scotland needs and deserves with less money available to provide them.

It means we also need to look again at how and what we do, to make our money work harder and smarter.

And we need to learn from the innovation in services going on around the country, especially in SNP run councils.

In my own city, Dundee, there’s what’s known as a Pathfinder project which has public agencies working together to support families into work and out of poverty.

And in Glasgow, there is creative work to reduce the number of children going into care.

Because what Labour appears to have forgotten in its headlong rush to out Tory the Tories is that there is more to government than slashing and burning.

Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing will see you put out the door by voters at the next opportunity.

Conference, I know that people sent us a strong message at the last election.

We need to earn the right to be heard by delivering on people’s priorities. That includes improving public services, so people get the service they need when they need it.

But we also need to be better – as a party and as a government – at telling our own story of what we do well.

In Scotland, we have more teachers per head of population; more nurses and midwives; more police officers; more dentists and GPs.

Only in Scotland does every young person under 22 get free bus travel.

Only in Scotland does every family expecting a newborn receive a baby box.

Only in Scotland do low-income families get £26.70 for every child as part of our actions to lift children out of poverty.

Only in Scotland does every person who needs it get free personal care.

And only in Scotland does every Scottish student at university get free tuition.

And it is only because it is the SNP in government here in Scotland that any of this is still in place and will remain in place so long as we are in power.

That, conference, is a story worth telling.

But there is no doubt that continued Westminster austerity threatens all that we have achieved to date and our plans for the future.

It prevents us from delivering the kind of country we believe that people want to live in.

And it demonstrates that the need for Scotland to become independent has never been greater.

Not least because of Brexit.

You might think that Labour, having discovered the £22 billion black hole at the heart of the UK finances, would be looking for obvious solutions to that problem.

So when we are being told that Brexit has resulted in £40 billion in lost tax revenue, you might think that Labour could see that rejoining the EU would be one such solution.

But Labour doesn’t want the better future for Scotland that we want.

If they did, they would want to create a future of hope and ambition, where Scotland gets the powers – including fiscal ones – it needs to achieve the higher living standards and fairer societies that are enjoyed by independent European nations just like us.

Conference, the SNP will always stay true to our values amid Westminster austerity.

And by working together as a party, by focusing outwards, not inwards.

By prioritising what matters to the people of Scotland, and setting out how we might use the powers of independence that we improve the issues people care about, including the NHS, education and justice –

then we will convince a clear majority of the people of Scotland that independence is the best future for their country.