Meeting of the Parliament 11 September 2024
I absolutely agree with that—it is a good point well made. The amendment is as predictable as it is shameful and, indeed, ignorant.
On 5 September, in this chamber, in a rare moment of self-awareness, John Swinney said:
“We will not be able, in this parliamentary session, to roll out universal eligibility across primary 6 and primary 7 pupils, because our budget has been eroded by ... fiscal mismanagement”. —[Official Report, 5 September 2024; c12.]
Hasn’t it just? The Government is sitting on the largest cash-terms block grant in devolution history and, as Monica Lennon says, it makes choices about how it spends that budget. We should never forget that the Scottish Fiscal Commission said just last week that the SNP’s financial woes are largely the result of its own spending incontinence.
Nowhere can I find an official costing for the extension of free school meals. To assist, I have done a very rough calculation. I think that the cost to deliver free school meals for P6 and P7 pupils would be, at worst, around £110 million. In breaking its promise, the Government chooses not to cover that.
What choices has the Government made instead? It chose to spend £400 million on ferries, of course. However, no one will forget the figures that were released in July that show that Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP spent more than £180 million on spin doctors, foreign trips and hospitality. By total coincidence, £110 million of that was spent on press officers, social media and internal communications. Just last week, we also heard about the special advisers that have cost millions. There are then the more than 120 ministerial overseas trips that have been made in the past two years alone to more than 30 different destinations, despite foreign affairs being reserved to Westminster. Maybe those trips were made to visit the nine Scottish Government overseas offices, which cost £9 million, or to get away from the £16 million in losses and special payments that have been made by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Perhaps they were made to get away from the £82.95 million in last year’s consolidated accounts for losses and special payments.
If it is priorities that we are after, some may have missed that Angus Robertson’s budget of £347 million—for the portfolio that covers such things as external affairs and the constitution, which are not actually devolved—was spared the axe in last week’s cull by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. Interestingly for those who worry that £110 million is a lot of money for the Government to find, when Shona Robison was asked why she had not cut that £347 million budget, she said:
“It is a small budget by comparison”.
By axing the universal roll-out of free school meals in primary schools, the SNP has shamefully betrayed Scotland’s poorest pupils. It has abandoned any pretence that it knows how to eradicate the attainment gap and/or child poverty, and it has played fast and loose with the trust that the people of Scotland invested in it.
When, in September 2020, the Scottish Conservatives first pledged to introduce free school meals for all primary school pupils, we were supported by all parties across Parliament, because some things are just more important than party politics. Two months later, John Swinney, who was then the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, announced that that would be SNP policy. I therefore call on MSPs from all parties to put party politics aside today and send the strongest possible message to the SNP that it cannot—it must not—abandon the young people of Scotland. Let us in this Parliament back the roll-out of free school meals for all primary pupils by voting for the motion in my name.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that free school lunches should be provided for all primary school children, including provision in the school holidays, in this parliamentary session, as promised by the Scottish Government.