Exclusive:Kate Forbes: Why the SNP needs to 'change tack' as she makes independence admission

The SNP needs to "change tack" and listen to the public after an "extremely difficult" general election result, Kate Forbes has said.

The Deputy First Minister told The Steamie, The Scotsman's politics podcast, that her party must restore trust and inspire confidence, while investing in priority areas.

She said John Swinney, the First Minister and SNP leader, had led a "programme of listening to our members" over the summer to "learn the lessons" of the election. 

Kate Forbes | Getty Images

The SNP is gathering for its annual conference in Edinburgh just weeks after it lost dozens of MPs, dropping from 48 in 2019 to just nine.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government is due to announce painful public spending cuts in the coming days as it grapples with a financial headache. The recent Scottish Social Attitudes Survey showed trust in the Government at an all-time low.

Ms Forbes told The Scotsman: "If you couple our extremely difficult election result - extremely difficult election result - with that survey, that says we need to change tack, and we need to listen, and we need to make sure that our priorities reflect the public's priorities.”

On independence, she said: "The ballot box is always true to the wishes of the public, and there's no value in ignoring that, dismissing it or suggesting it was wrong in some way."

She said Mr Swinney had been very clear the SNP needs to "listen and take away what people were telling us about priorities and about independence". 

John Swinney | Michael Boyd/Getty Images

Ms Forbes added: "We know what the task is, and that is to restore trust, to inspire confidence and ultimately to demonstrate that we are listening by investing in the areas the public want to see us invest in."

Asked about the 2026 Holyrood election, Ms Forbes said: "I feel a lot more confident than I did in the early hours of that first week in July, because over the summer there has been a huge amount of work listening, and next week after our conference we'll launch our Programme for Government. And it will be a Programme for Government that directly builds on what we hear from the public in terms of their priorities.

"So it won't be a long document full of maybes and wish lists. It will be clear, it will be punchy and it will be directed at what we hear to be the public's priorities. And then we have 18 months to really build on that, to deliver it, to implement it."

You can listen to the full interview with Ms Forbes on The Steamie now.