Scottish government slammed over multiple failures in new Programme for Government

Scottish animal welfare charity OneKind has criticised Scotland’s Holyrood government and John Swinney for failing to include any direct animal welfare commitments in its just released Scottish Programme for Government 2024/25. However, this was not the only area lacking.

Scottish Programme for Government

First minister Swinney announced his first Programme for Government on 4 September 2024. The main takeaways of it were commitments on:

• Eradicating child poverty.
• Growing the economy.
• Tackling the climate emergency.
• Ensuring high quality and sustainable public services.

Outlining his first Scottish Programme for Government as first minister, Swinney set out how the Scottish government will deliver commitments that are ‘affordable, impactful and deliverable’.

Swinney highlighted that child poverty is his “first and foremost” priority and that he will reform support for whole family services to make them “easy to access, well-connected and responsive to families’ needs”.

Key announcements include:

• The expansion of Fairer Future Partnerships ensuring services work to help families by maximising their incomes – supporting parents back into work and improving their wellbeing.
• Ensuring the NHS has the resources it needs, today and in the years to come, freeing up 210,000 outpatient appointments and delivering around 20,000 extra orthopaedic, ophthalmology and general surgery procedures annually in Scotland’s new National Treatment Centres.
• Making Scotland more attractive for investment and promoting home-grown entrepreneurs and innovators.
• Delivering faster planning decisions for renewable energy schemes, protecting the planet by speeding up the transition to net zero.

Swinney said:

This Programme for Government will ensure that the people of Scotland have every opportunity to live well, thrive, and see promise in their future.

This year’s commitments are affordable, impactful and deliverable. Together, they reflect my optimism that out of every challenge, we gain an invaluable opportunity to adjust our course, to interrogate our priorities and to renew our partnerships.

I have been clear about the financial limitations surrounding this Programme for Government due to UK Government spending decisions. In the face of these significant challenges, it is critical that we direct available funding towards our four priorities – eradicating child poverty, building prosperity, improving our public services and protecting the planet.

However, not everyone was impressed.

‘Deeply disappointing’ on animal welfare

OneKind works to end cruelty to Scotland’s animals through political lobbying and was deeply disappointed to discover that the programme did not include a single direct animal welfare commitment. The previous 2023/24 Scottish Programme for Government included a commitment to consult on phasing out cages for egg-laying hens.

OneKind Director, Bob Elliot, said:

We were deeply disappointed to discover that the Government’s Programme for Government did not include any direct commitments to improve animal welfare in Scotland. This is, quite frankly, very poor from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government has often been at the forefront of animal welfare in the UK. They were the first to prohibit wild-animal circuses and the ‘sport’ of fox hunting.

Scots are passionate about animal welfare. They want a Government that is committed to improving the lives of Scotland’s animals and legislation that effect real change. The absence of any such commitments is glaring.

The charity’s current campaigns include their Stand Up for Pigs campaign to ban farrowing crates in Scotland and their work co-ordinating the Unbound the Greyhound coalition, that is working to ban greyhound racing in Scotland.

Scottish Programme for Government: must do better

However, animal welfare was not the only area Swinney came under fire for with his Scottish Programme for Government. The Law Society of Scotland noted that:

the programme makes no mention of the urgent need to properly fund legal aid practitioners. Continued underinvestment in legal aid over the long term risks undermining improvements that have been made elsewhere within our justice system. The result will be further erosion of access to justice for the people of Scotland and will be more keenly felt by those in our communities who are most vulnerable.

Housing was another area Swinney left wanting. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) warned that the Programme for Government is inadequate for the desperate situation so many are in.

SFHA chief executive Sally Thomas said:

Whilst it’s welcome that the First Minister acknowledged the importance of housing, today’s Programme for Government does not go far enough in tackling Scotland’s deepening housing emergency.

With nearly 10,000 children growing up in temporary accommodation, and the number of homes started by housing associations at the lowest level since the 1980s, we must now see action on funding for affordable rented housing in the Scottish Government Budget in December.

Featured image via the Canary