4th September 2018

Today the SNP government outlines a Programme for Government for the next year.  Here are some of the key things we want to see in it…

Economy and Finance
• An anti-austerity budget which stops the cuts and invests in public services by making the richest pay their fair share.
• An industrial strategy which delivers high wage, high skill jobs.
• A review of procurement, including the private finance deals signed off by the SNP government.

Education
• Suspend standardised testing, indefinitely for Primary 1 pupils and with a review for the rest of the age groups.
• Deliver a fair deal for teachers, who have seen their pay eroded and their workload soar under the SNP.
• Review with a view to raising the cap on student numbers in higher education.
• Ensure the Pupil Equity Fund is truly additional to core budgets by delivering proper funding for education.

Health
• An NHS safe staffing bill that addresses the NHS workforce crisis.
• Legislate to ensure agency fees for private health staff are capped in law, allowing more money to be invested in the NHS.
• Guarantee access to school-based counselling for every pupil.
• Implement a workforce plan to finally end the NHS staffing crisis.
• Ensuring a health inequality assessment of every government policy.

Poverty and inequality
• Fund the roll out of North Lanarkshire’s successful Food 365 pilot across Scotland.
• Tackle the housing crisis by reviewing help to buy, building more council homes and developing rent controls for the private rented sector.
• Increase Child Benefit by £260 per year to lift 30,000 children out of poverty.

Communities
• A Planning Bill which equalises the appeals system.
• The power for local communities to introduce a Tourist Tax and a Land Value Tax.
• Finally making progress on the reform of local government finance.

Justice
• Scrapping the British Transport Police merger with Police Scotland.
• Ending the cuts to local policing which has seen than 200 officers have been taken out of local divisions and moved into central police functions.
• A review of policing at football matches.

Transport and climate change
• A Transport Bill that delivers greater public ownership of local bus services.
• A commitment to returning the railways to public ownership.
• Back Labour’s target for net zero emissions by 2050.

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