Scottish Labour manifesto: Key policies analysed

The Scottish Labour party have launched their 2024 election manifesto, in which leader Anas Sarwar has pledged that if his party won the general election it would bring change “for this generation, and the next”.

The document sets out the party’s plans if it was to form a government.

Here are some of their key policies, analysed by BBC Scotland correspondents.

Health is a devolved issue so even if Keir Stammer wins next month, Labour won’t be making decisions about the NHS in Scotland.

For that reason, many of the plans in this manifesto – to reduce the number of health boards, to have a mental health practitioner in every GP surgery, or to make more use of technology – can be seen as aspirations and the sort of topics Anas Sarwar will continue to challenge John Swinney on in Holyrood.

Even the headline promise to create 160,000 appointments every year to cut waiting times is not guaranteed to happen if Labour win in Westminster.

Firstly, the money raised would be transferred to Scotland through ‘Barnett consequentials’ (you can read more about those here), then the SNP government would have to choose to spend it on creating additional appointments, and highly trained staff would then have to be recruited to ensure those patients could be seen.

Growth is the answer to most questions facing Labour. With criticism that its plans imply a big cut to public spending, at least to those services that are not given protection, it is also promising not to raise tax “on working people”.

Labour has opted to constrain itself on borrowing, showing it is serious about economic stability by adopting the Conservatives’ fiscal rules on debt.

The only way out of that tax-spend-borrowing corner is with economic growth – generating more tax for public services, as well as more jobs and higher pay.

As UK and Scottish growth has been slow for 16 years, since the bank crash, Labour’s means of boosting it are not that radical a change of direction from the Conservatives’, with the same limit to the amount government can spend to stimulate growth.

So Labour’s plan depends on government competence, working better to stimulate business investment, backing the right technologies with an industrial strategy to back the most promising growth sectors, and using government funds to invest in them.

In Scotland, a lot of that is about renewable energy, though a hard line against further oil and gas drilling does not look helpful to investment or jobs.

Labour also says it will be be pro-worker. The tension between these two begins with the promise of a rise in the minimum wage. Some 200,000 Scots will be better off, we’re told, but employers will pay for that.

The tensions continue with more workplace rights; on fire and re-hire, banning zero hours contracts but only if they are ‘”exploitative”, broader parental leave rights.

Employment rights cross the Border, but much of Scottish Labour’s manifesto is about devolved powers, and an indicator of what to expect at the 2026 Holyrood election campaign.

Anas Sarwar answered a journalist’s challenge to rule out a rise in Scotland’s income tax rates, with a simple ‘yes’.

That leaves the next Holyrood manifesto also dependent on growth, putting emphasis on backing for renewable energy, a faster planning system, business rates reform to help the high street, and workplace skills.

Much of Scottish Labour’s manifesto raises criminal justice issues – which Scottish Labour MPs won’t be able to do anything about, because they’re devolved to Holyrood.

The party talks of Police Scotland being “gutted” (policing is devolved) and court backlogs delaying justice (courts are devolved).

The manifesto says Scotland’s “sense of security has been slowly eroded over the past 17 years” – taking us back to 2007 when the SNP gained power at Holyrood, not 2010 when the Conservatives gained power at Westminster.

Holyrood issues are being used to fight for Westminster seats, but that’s nothing new and Scottish Labour are not the only ones doing it.

Policies which a UK Labour government would be able to implement in Scotland include greater collaboration between UK police forces on cybercrime, fraud, trafficking and terrorism.

The manifesto says ninja swords, zombie-style blades and machetes will be banned and rules strengthened to prevent their sale online.

Labour says it will add new provisions to the Online Safety Act and explore further measures to keep people safe, especially when they’re using social media.

The commitment to end new oil and gas licences is a much less palatable pill to swallow in Scotland, where 60,000 jobs rely directly or indirectly on the sector.

But there’s no sugar coating it in the Scottish manifesto, although it emphasises that existing licences won’t be revoked.

Perhaps the biggest sweetener is the decision to base its publicly-owned Great British Energy north of the border, delivering clean power and investing in green energies.

GB Energy will be given £8.3bn over the course of the next parliament to co-invest with the private sector in new technologies.

The renewables industry has some concern about GB Energy being a generator of electricity because it fears that might skew the market.

But the party says it will invest in Scotland’s energy potential and create new high-quality jobs.

It’s fourteen years since Labour last won a national election in Scotland.

When Gordon Brown was prime minister, they held Scotland in the 2010 UK election while losing power across the UK. The SNP has dominated ever since.

But Labour senses that this is a change election, that frustration with a Conservative government at Westminster and an SNP government at Holyrood leaves them well placed to regain lost ground in Scotland.

One Labour veteran told me that campaigning in Scotland at this election was like taking a warm bath with bubbles. That is by comparison with years of rejection and some hostility on the doorsteps.

Another long standing Labour campaigner admitted that there was not yet enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer’s party. It was just that people were so fed up with the alternatives, Labour is now seen to offer the best route to change.

That’s why that word is plastered over the manifesto and threaded through the party’s campaign.

Yet the promises Labour are making are far from radical. They are modest and limited because as the party’s Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar, puts it, in tough times they would rather under promise and over deliver than break trust by doing the opposite.

A prominent part of Labour’s economic, energy and net zero plan is called GB Energy. So what is it?

“A publicly-owned clean power company, to create good jobs and cut bills for good,” says Anas Sarwar. “And [it] will be headquartered here in Scotland.”

Where in Scotland? He’s not saying before the election.

This is not an energy supplier, but an investment fund, laden with big expectations.

It is intended to co-invest with private firms in green energy generation, support new technologies, and back community-based wind, solar and hydropower projects.

All this with capital of £8.3bn spread over five years, when the current Whitehall expectation is of total green energy investment by the end of this decade of £400bn.

How it cuts your bill is not so clear, except that renewable energy is seen as cheaper than fossil fuels. Maybe so, but gas prices can go down as well as up.

Nor is it clear that this is a priority for private sector co-investors. They can get funds, if the investment conditions are right.

What they want from government is more electricity grid capacity, consents for grid connections, a guaranteed floor price to reduce risk and consistent policy.

Scottish Labour’s manifesto acknowledges the damage done to the cultural sector by the pandemic, which continues today.

They propose a long term recovery plan to support the sector, which was one of the first industries to close, and the last to reopen.

Campaigners who have long called for an increase in public funding for arts and culture will be heartened by the comment that for the 0.2% of the Scottish budget currently spent on culture “we get so much back for so little investment.”

They will also welcome the commitment to a baseline for cultural spending which reflects its value and delivers a greater share of the Scottish government budget.

They also support the introduction of an Arts Bill which would place a statutory responsibility on local authorities to deliver arts and culture.

Cash-strapped authorities like Glasgow – which has a huge number of museums, galleries and cultural organisations on its patch – may note any plan would be supported by fair funding.

They suggest a Cultural Rucksack scheme – based on a successful Norwegian programme which allows every school pupil the chance to experience professional arts and culture.

And they also want to see more support for the grass roots music industry and for the film and television sector, as well as increased opportunities to learn production skills.

They promise a push to address the decline in Gaelic language and to support a museum and archive devoted to telling the stories of underrepresented groups in Scotland’s history and culture.

That also ties in with a commitment to recognising Scotland’s historical role in empire, colonialism and transatlantic slavery, which they want to see included in the national curriculum.