SNP says Labour manifesto fails to rule out cuts and NHS privatisation

The manifesto was launched today and proposes to shift the NHS "away from a model geared towards late diagnosis and treatment, to a model where more services are delivered in local communities".

The party has pledged to cut waiting times with an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a week, using evenings and weekends to deliver this.

Cracking down on tax avoidance – which it said will raise £1.5 billion – and non-dom loopholes will pay for the additional appointments, the party said.

The party also said it will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff and introduce a new “Fit For the Future” fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners to catch cancer earlier.

A dentistry rescue plan is also included in the manifesto, with a focus on providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas in need.

However, Stephen Flynn, SNP Westminster Leader, says the manifesto "makes it clear that only the SNP will put Scotland’s interests first and stand up for Scotland’s values". 

The party has accused Starmer of failing to come clean on Labour’s plans for £18 billion of further Westminster austerity cuts and failing to rule out NHS privatisation.

Flynn said: "The real story of this manifesto is not the measly amount Labour is offering but what it is deliberately failing to rule out.
 
"The Labour Party had two tests today - rule out £18 billion of Westminster cuts and rule out NHS privatisation - and they have completely failed on both counts.
 
"That will rightly worry every voter in Scotland who values our NHS and who values public services, which have already been hit by years of austerity.

"The truth is that the Labour Party have been so obsessed with courting Conservative voters in England, that they've ended up writing a Tory manifesto.

"It is a manifesto that keeps the two child cap on benefits but removes the cap on bankers' bonuses.

"It is a plan that talks about backing business but at the very same time backs the disaster of Brexit.

"It is a document that claims to prioritise growth but at the very same time continues a hostile environment to migration that will stall economic growth."

Meanwhile Labour's "ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty" has faced criticism for not vowing to scrap a Conservative policy long-blamed for keeping children in such a situation.

The party’s manifesto states that they will work with the voluntary sector, faith organisations, trade unions, businesses and devolved and local government “to bring about change”.

Starmer said the party will lift millions of children out of poverty but did not give detail as to how or a timeline for when, as he launched the document on Thursday.

He had confirmed during a Sky News interview on the eve of the manifesto launch that scrapping the two-child benefit cap would not be included in its manifesto.

Last month, Starmer said he would scrap the cap “in an ideal world” but added that “we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment”.

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has estimated removing the cap – introduced in 2017 and restricting Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children in most households – would lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 800,000 children are in less deep poverty, at a cost of around £1.8 billion.

CPAG chief executive Alison Garnham said while a child poverty strategy is “imperative and extremely welcome”, it must begin with abolishing the two-child limit “which more than any other policy has driven child poverty to record levels”.

She added: “Today’s manifesto is a good first step, but no route to happy healthy children and a strong economy starts with record child poverty.

“We will need to see detailed policies and targets that demonstrate how a reduction in child poverty will be achieved.”

Paul Carberry, chief executive of Action for Children, said the party’s proposed strategy to reduce child poverty “won’t get off the ground until they ditch the cruel two-child limit and benefit cap policies” while the Children’s Charities Coalition branded the failure to commit to doing so “deeply disappointing”.

Crisis said it was “hugely welcoming to see the Labour Party recognising the desperate need for a cross-government strategy to end homelessness”, while Shelter described the party’s commitment on social housing as “bold and desperately needed”.

Economic experts have also said tax hikes and spending increases within the Labour manifesto are “trivial” and do not address cuts already faced by buckling public service.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), suggested that delivering “genuine change” in Britain – Starmer’s flagship promise to voters – would require more funding than the policy document proposes.

Mr Johnson said some of Labour’s plans were better than “a shopping list of half-baked policy announcements” – an apparent reference to the Tories’ offering – but warned it would need to put “actual resources on the table”.

“And Labour’s manifesto offers no indication that there is a plan for where the money would come from to finance this,” he said.