Labour rivals hit out at 'work-shy' First Minister

Published on Saturday 18 April 2009 20:03

ALEX Salmond was last night accused of being a "work-shy" First Minister by his Labour rivals because his SNP Government had only passed seven pieces of legislation since coming to power in May 2007.

The comment by Michael McMahon, Labour's business manager at the Scottish Parliament, drew a furious response from the SNP, which claimed to be the hardest working administration at Holyrood since the beginning of devolution in 1999.

The minority SNP Government has passed two budget bills, legislation for the abolition of bridge tolls, a Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act, a graduate endowment abolition act, a judiciary and courts act and a public health act.

McMahon claimed this work rate compared unfavourably with that of the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat administrations, which passed 40 Acts in the first parliament and 53 in the second.

McMahon claimed: "The SNP have run out of ideas and stalled. In the past two years they have consistently avoided bringing business to parliament and passed just seven pieces of legislation. This simply isn't good enough. Alex Salmond is a work-shy First Minister leading a group of idle ministers"

The SNP hit back and said it had either met or exceeded 46 of its 94 headline manifesto commitments. Bruce Crawford, the SNP Minister for Parliament, said: "Labour's claims are laughable – and everyone in Scotland knows it.

"The SNP Government are the hardest-working administration there has been since devolution, and we have already delivered 46 key policies despite being a minority government.

"The people of Scotland know that the SNP government have done far, far more in two years than Labour managed in eight."