Department of Health and Social Care

Seamus Logan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

I rise to set the record straight in Scotland when it comes to the much-vaunted but false largesse of this spin-doctoring Labour Government.

After the autumn statement, the Government spent much time and energy telling the Scottish people how generous they were—the largest settlement in the history of devolution, they said. However, what they did not tell the people of Scotland was that when their inflationary policies were taken into account, driven by their eye-watering borrowing—when we consider pay and prices rises and the punitive employer national insurance increases —the settlement that looked big in cash terms was not so big in real terms. If Scottish Labour Members would spend as much time dealing with the things they were elected to deal with as they spend attacking the Holyrood Government, they might locate the spine that some Labour Back Benchers seem to have found recently in regard to the welfare Bill.

Turning to the estimates, under the Barnett formula, Scotland’s taxpayers depend on the generosity of the Westminster Treasury, even though it is our money—and do not give me the usual nonsense about higher per capita spend. If the Treasury did its sums correctly to include all our produce, if our needs were properly calculated and our geographic size and rurality compared to our population and demography accounted for, the numbers would be very different.

The results of the spending review and these estimates are not good. The UK Government’s spin on the spending review was so misleading that the independent and well-respected Fraser of Allander Institute said, “We have seen Labour MPs and MSPs describing the spending review event as increasing the block grant by £9.1 billion over the spending review period, but this is a figure that is neither transparent nor helpful”—not my words but those of the institute. Its conclusion, based on the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecast, is that rather than representing a £9.1 billion uplift, Labour’s spending review actually brought in a £700 million cut to Scotland’s funding against May’s central estimate.

Our health service depends not only on our excellent NHS workers but on our infrastructure. That is why it is so disappointing that in the spending review the UK Government imposed a real-terms cut on Scotland’s capital spending in the latter half of the spending review period. In effect, Scotland has been short-changed by more than a billion pounds.

Despite Labour’s continuing austerity in Scotland, the Scottish Government is investing heavily in our health service. Over the past year there has been a significant fall in long waits and an increased amount of GP appointments and surgical procedures—for example, there has been a 50% increase in hip and knee replacements. The SNP will continue to fight for our NHS and against successive Westminster Governments who do not have Scotland’s interests at heart.