Iain Gray: SNP must grow up and seek solutions not scapegoats

Published on Saturday 25 April 2009 20:00

WHAT is clearer than ever after last week's Budget is it is time for Alex Salmond to stand up and be counted as First Minister.

It is not so much that Alex Salmond has been posted missing during the economic crisis as he has been guilty of carping from the sidelines. As Benjamin Franklin said: "Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain and most fools do." The SNP have to grow up as a party, accept the responsibility that comes with government and start playing their part in getting Scotland through the recession.

They cannot be allowed to continue to behave like opposition politicians, forever seeking scapegoats not solutions, with their claim of "500m cuts" from Westminster now the excuse for every failure on their part.

To claim victim status at a time like this for Scotland is ridiculous. The UK Government acted with speed and determination to reduce the effects of this global economic crisis in Scotland. Labour invested 50bn to save our major banks otherwise the Scottish economy would have been destroyed. This was an amount greater than the total annual Scottish budget – the equivalent of 10,000 for every man, woman and child in Scotland.

Scotland also benefited from the fiscal stimulus package initiated in November – to the tune of 2bn. It is ridiculous to think Scotland should not play its part in rebalancing the budget at a time like this.

Last week's Budget was a tough one, to no one's surprise. But the Scottish Government's cries of "apocalypse now" do not bear examination. The Holyrood budget has increased year on year, every year, since the introduction of devolution. Next year will be no different. The SNP will have more than double the amount to spend that Donald Dewar had in 1999.

The budget will increase next year both in cash and real terms with 700m more to spend. Alex Salmond can try and fiddle the figures as much as he likes but the facts are the Scottish budget will increase by 2.2bn over the next two years. Despite these difficult times there will be a real-terms increase next year.

The SNP have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide this fact. If they put as much effort into governing as they do spinning the figures, we might be further forward in getting out of the recession.

The budget also included nearly 400m of extra spending in Scotland through UK departments, and an additional 100m of Barnett consequentials as a result of increased spending for departments devolved to Holyrood. There was support too, potentially hundreds of millions of pounds for Scotland's oil and gas industry and renewable energy projects. The SNP showed no interest in this, presumably because they cannot channel it into headline grabbing ministerial announcements of their own.

Of course the Scottish Government is being asked to make government more efficient – to the tune of 367m in 2010/11. But they have always claimed they are good at efficient government.

These recommendations are not about cutting front-line services. Labour at Westminster have promised to safeguard frontline services and budget increases in health of 5% and, in education 4%. The First Minister must make the same promise for Scotland.

The SNP should drop their plans for a referendum now. No-one but the Nationalists want such a distraction when everyone's efforts should be focused on recovery.

This would save 5.5m. The Scottish Futures Trust has been an abject failure costing 25m yet not one new school or hospital built under it. Dropping it now would save 23m, and allow stalled projects to finally go ahead.

Another immediate saving would be to wind up the SNP's National Conversation which is now a national joke at the taxpayer's expense.

The First Minister has to take responsibility that comes with the title and get on with the job. With every passing day it becomes clearer that he simply does not have what it takes.