Neil Cardwell, Labour’s candidate in Gordon, has condemned an £8 billion blackhole exposed at the heart of the SNP uncosted spending plans if they are elected to the Scottish Parliament in May.
Cardwell says a reckless list of promises made by senior politicians like Alex Samond are just not deliverable without major cuts in local services or costing local tax payers £1000 more per year.
Scottish Labour have published “Can’t Count, Won’t Count”, a document analysing the SNP’s spending plans.
The nationalists spending commitments so far include:
1 Higher education - £2.379 billion
2 Pre-school education - £292.8 million
3 Free school meals for primary 1, 2, 3 - £160 million
4a Micro renewables for homes - £1.5 billion
4b Micro renewables for schools - £327 million
5 First time buyers grant - £272 million
6 Writing of Dundee’s housing debt - £120 million
7a New entrants to farming - £10 million
7b International aid - £5 million
7c Edinburgh Festival Expo Fund - £8 million
8 Local Income Tax - £2.2 billion
9 Freezing council tax - £55 million
10 Small businesses - £708 million
TOTAL - £8.037 billion
Speaking about the cost of these promises to people in Gordon Neil Cardwell said:
“The SNP for too long have got away with making all sorts of promises like scrapping student debt, introduce free school meals and freezing council tax. Unfortunately these promises come at a cost and the SNP’s sums just don’t add up. £8 billion on just 10 commitments represents an additional £1000 straight from the pocket of every taxpayer in Gordon each year.
“The SNP must come clean and let Gordon residents know exactly how they will fund these promises – will they cut local services, increase taxes, or both to balance their books?
Labour’s Allan Wilson said: “This is the longest betting slip in history. But the Nationalists are gambling with other people’s money, money that they don’t have, and with the future prosperity and jobs of the nation.”
Labour’s Wendy Alexander accused the SNP of repeatedly refusing to take the opportunity afforded by Holyrood procedure to put forward their own alternatives to Executive spending plans.
She said: “What really makes this reprehensible is that we have not seen an alternative budget ever brought forward by the SNP to Parliament…. we have created the opportunity in Scotland to do that - it doesn’t exist for the rest of the UK. They have never done it because they simply know their figures don’t add up.”
