SNP manifesto to call for £1bn NHS spending boost
John Swinney to unveil the SNP's election offer to voters
SNP leader John Swinney will launch the SNP’s election manifesto with a call for the next UK Government to generate an additional £1 billion a year for Scotland's health service.
The First Minister claims Labour and the Conservatives present a "clear and present danger" to the future of the NHS.
Mr Swinney urged whichever party wins the General Election to commit to spending at least £10 billion extra annually on health across the UK, which would see around £1 billion granted to Scotland through Barnett consequentials.
Mr Swinney said: "The SNP manifesto will set out a different approach in line with Scotland's centre-left values - with an end to Westminster cuts and a major new investment in our health service.
"Our NHS staff were rightly hailed as heroes during the pandemic, but since then the Tory Government has treated them with complete contempt, leading to the junior doctor strike which has England's NHS on its knees.
Waiting times
"In Scotland we negotiated in good faith and secured a fair deal for junior doctors and nurses.
However, Mr Swinney will face criticism for focusing on the NHS as his political opponents repeatedly condemn the Scottish Government for missing targets on A&E performance and cancer waiting times.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: "The SNP sold off our country's future with years of chaos and decline. After 17 years of broken promises, missed targets and abandoned manifesto commitments, their pledges aren't worth the paper they are written on.
"The future of our NHS is under threat with lives lost due to A&E chaos and almost one in six stuck on an NHS waiting list. It's time for change.
Labour's Scottish manifesto
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar escribed change in Scotland as a "two-stage process" as he published his party's manifesto on Tuesday.
Mr Sarwar took the unusual step of using the launch of his party's plans ahead of the July 4 General Election to also look to 2026, when Scots will next go to the polls in a Holyrood election.
The 135-page document largely echoes the proposals laid out in the UK-wide Labour manifesto published last week, but in it Mr Sarwar also commits to some measures to be implemented if his party wins the keys to Bute House.
He said: “We know change for Scotland is a two-stage process, it begins in just 17 days when we can finally get rid of this lying, corrupt, incompetent Tory Government - but that is just the start.
"In 2026, we need a change of direction at Holyrood as much as we need one at Westminster today.
"The SNP has failed the people of Scotland - breaking our NHS, ruining our once world-leading education system, and tarnishing our politics by wasting and misusing your money."
Scottish Labour, he said, will improve policing, reform the planning system, ban second jobs for MSPs and bring in a recall mechanism at Holyrood, and reduce the poverty-related attainment gap in education, if it forms the government in 2026.
'No real change' - says SNP
But SNP candidate for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh Tommy Sheppard said Labour "offer no real change at all".
"This copy-paste job reminds us of how little influence the branch office has, because even when it differs from the version produced by their London bosses, we know Scottish Labour MPs will always take their marching orders from whips in Westminster."
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said Labour's plans would mean "super-charged austerity".
Tories' North Sea job fears
Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy compared the Labour manifesto to that of the SNP for being "against any new oil and gas licences", which Tories claim will lead to thousands of potential job losses in north-east Scotland.
He added: "The Scottish Conservatives are the only party standing up for oil and gas workers, while the SNP and Labour are committed to turning off the taps, a reckless step which would decimate north-east communities and endanger our energy security.
"In key seats up and down Scotland at this General Election, only the Scottish Conservatives can beat the SNP as Labour are simply too far behind to challenge them."