Budget Resolutions

Joani Reid Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)]

Nobody is more pessimistic about Scotland’s future than the SNP. John Swinney has been working extremely hard the past couple of days to ensure that no inappropriate celebrations are held. One of his complaints, covered in the press today, is that Labour is cutting energy bills by only £150, with that doubling for the poorest households. But we on the Government Benches are not pessimistic when it comes to Scotland’s future—we are optimistic, and we are backing that optimism with cold, hard cash.

Some £10 billion of additional funding for Scotland has been announced since the Labour party took office last July. That money is available because in the United Kingdom, we pool resources and we share strength. That money could be used to improve our schools—once our greatest pride, they have slid down the international league tables. That money, coming from a Labour Budget, could be used to deliver significant improvements in the NHS, and yet under the SNP, waiting times keep on rising. That money could be used to tackle crime, something that is needed given the alarming rise in violence.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Further to the remarks of the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) about Scotland, where pregnant mothers in my constituency have to make a 200-mile round trip to give birth, would it not be great if some of this money was spent to make the maternity service fair for mums?

[Joani Reid]

I could not agree more. More than that, the SNP needs to deliver on promise after promise that it has made about the NHS while absolutely failing to deliver any improvements, despite the fact that Scotland has been given a record settlement. The money is out there, but under the tired and wired SNP, the ideas to use it effectively are not.

It is my belief that Labour’s victory in Scotland’s general election rested on the support of three core groups. The first were young families and couples paying their first mortgage. I have met hundreds of such families on the doorstep in East Kilbride, Strathaven and across our villages. I know that the past 18 months have been tough, but we are now delivering for those families; mortgage costs are down and wages are up, and the Budget brings new action to cut fuel bills by between £150 and £300 a year.

Our second key group of supporters were people who are in work but rely on benefits to help to pay their bills. For 14 years, they were soft targets for austerity and denounced by right wingers as scroungers. Despite many of them working every hour they could, they increasingly struggled to support themselves and their families, and many were desperate for help to arrive—and help has now arrived. I am proud to support this redistributive Budget and proud to back a Government who do things like twice announcing substantial increases in the minimum wage, abolishing the two-child benefit cap, with the despicable rape clause, and legislating for a real-terms increase in universal credit. The last measure alone will directly benefit 450,000 households in Scotland.

The third group who voted for us back in July last year were those aged between 18 and 24—the hundreds of thousands of young people whom the SNP Government have completely ignored. They are not the ones living in Glasgow’s west end or Edinburgh’s Morningside, who do not look to further education colleges to give them the training and skills that they need to get on in life. Here I admit that the news is mixed, because yes, a UK Government can invest directly in Grangemouth to lead the way in bringing in the skills needed for the clean energy future, or back Inchgreen dry dock to help access to defence-related jobs—both are happening thanks to this Budget—but no Budget can change the SNP’s policy of starving FE colleges of money or doing everything it can to block the renewal of Scotland’s nuclear fleet. To change any of that, we need to get Anas Sarwar into Bute House as the First Minister next May, and it is our belief that we can see that happen. That is our final piece of optimism for Scotland.