Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said on Thursday that a Scottish Labour government would hit the ground running with “100 days of change” to fix the country after two decades of “SNP failure”.
After moving the media call from the front entrance of The Scottish Parliament, (disallowed during purdah) to Dynamic Earth, Mr Sarwar took his place at the front of the group of activists and candidates all bearing the placards which said “Scotland needs Change”.
Mr Sarwar passed along the front line of Labour Party campaigners offering high fives to the people in the front row to emphasise the latest campaign message.
He addressed the media saying: “It is just one week to go until the election when Scotland have to decide do we have a decade of SNP in power or change with Scottish Labour. That is the choice.
“We’ll support our young people by starting the work of employing the new classroom assistants and the new teachers to do the catch up in literacy and numeracy. We’ll create our ending homelessness unit so we can eradicate rough sleeping once and for all. We’ll start growing our economy and attracting investment by ending the ideological block to new clean nuclear energy, and we’ll make sure every part of our great country gets to thrive.
“That includes our island communities who have been failed for so long by the SNP’s ferry fiasco. So the choice next week is clear. If you want to reject the poison of reform, if you want to beat the SNP and you want to change Scotland, there’s only one route to that change, and that’s a vote for me and Scottish Labour.”
Asked what he would do in particular to alleviate homelessness he said that the key proposal is the Ending Homelessness Unit which Labour have in their manifesto. He saidv hat rough sleeping has increased by more than 60% in the last few years – but there will be immediate action.
Mr Sarwar said: “We’ll move straight away to try and eradicate rough sleeping as soon as possible. And then we have to build the homes this country needs so we can end homelessness in the more medium to longer term. And that means building 125,000 new homes in the next parliament. It means reforming our planning system so we can get faster decision making and we can attract investment into our country.
The manifesto sets out the promise to build more than 50,000 new affordable homes and more than 125,000 new homes by 2031, with a dedicated Housing Bank to “direct investment into housebuilding”.
The party’s manifesto claims that the Ending Homelessness Unit will bring homelessness to an end by 2040 with modular home pilots, priorities set on prevention rather than cure and localising targets in areas where there is a “high prevalence” of rough sleeping.
Using much the same mantra as the Labour Party did during the General Election in 2024 which they won, the Scottish Labour leader says Scotland needs change. He is emphatic that this election is a straight choice between five more years of excuses from the SNP, or a Scottish Labour government ready to get to work from day one.
Despite the polls which have Labour trailing in either third or fourth place, Mr Sarwar was upbeat. He said: “This is a direct message to anyone that still has not made their mind up in this election campaign. “We can see that Scotland needs change. We can see things aren’t working right now. You have given the SNP 20 years. Give me five, and in that five years, we will demonstrate that we can fix the NHS, we can make life more affordable, and we can build a better future for Scotland. So if you want to reject the poison of reform, if you want to beat the SNP and you want to change Scotland, the only route to that change is a vote for me in Scottish Labour.”
Asked why in opposition Labour has not been able to effect change he listed the recent Labour wins – the Rutherglen by-election, the General Election, the Hamilton and the Larkhall by-election.
He also claimed that he has been a positive influence on the Scottish Labour Party. He said: “I’ve been leader of my party for five years, and in that five years, I’ve got the Labour Party back on the pitch. I’ve got us back into second place.”
Mr Sarwar said that after 20 years of broken promises, people are right to ask what would actually change which is why Scottish Labour has set out the first 50 actions a Labour government would take in its first 100 days.
These would include actions to save the NHS, make life more affordable, grow the economy, back local communities and end government waste.
Scottish Labour say that while the SNP is “tired, out of ideas and full of excuses,” Scotland does not have to be.
If the party gets enough MSPs elected to form a government then any government would in its first 100 days undertake the following:
- Declare a waiting times emergency and publish a plan to get patients treated wherever there is capacity
- Stop the downgrading of Wishaw neonatal unit and start work to end the 8am rush for a GP appointment
- Expand the Warm Homes Programme, widen support with energy costs and boost the Warm Home Discount
- If international instability continues, deliver £100 million of emergency support including help for struggling households, support for businesses, bulk buying fuel to bring down prices at the pumps, and action with supermarkets to keep down the cost of staple items
- Transfer the first £70 million into a pothole fund for councils
- Remove the ideological ban on new nuclear projects and get Scotland back in the race for jobs and investment
- Create an Ending Homelessness Unit and begin action to eradicate rough sleeping
- Ban phones in classrooms and begin recruiting the first tranche of recovery teachers
- Establish a Delivery Unit and a Scottish Treasury to drive efficiency, cut waste and focus government on results
- Call in CMAL and CalMac to find solutions to avoid a summer ferry crisis and begin unpicking the SNP’s ferry fiasco.
