Cutting education is a short-sighted move that will short change Scotland, Ian Murray will say today
During a visit to Entrepreneurial Spark in Edinburgh Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray will highlight research showing that Labour’s plan to invest in education and deliver a more skilled workforce could mean a £2 billion boost to the Scottish economy and hundreds of millions of pounds more in additional tax revenue.
The SNP are cutting hundreds of millions of pounds from schools and local services across Scotland, despite Nicola Sturgeon promising that education would be the ‘driving and defining’ priority of her government.
The GERS figures, Scotland’s annual accounts, published last month showed that the SNP government have cut spending on education and skills by 10% since 2007.
Labour has set out a plan to stop the cuts to schools, including a 50p top rate of tax on the richest 1% earning more than £150,000 to invest more in education. Nicola Sturgeon has described asking the richest to pay their fair share as ‘reckless’ and ‘daft’.
Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said:
“The single most important investment any government can make is in education, giving our people the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future and to prepare them to make their own business ideas fly.
It’s an investment in our single most important natural resource – our people – and it will net billions more for our economy and hundreds of millions more in tax receipts from a higher skilled, higher earning workforce.
The SNP have chosen to cut and cut education, with 10% slashed from spending since 2007, and hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts to schools and local services this year. That’s a short-sighted move which will short change Scotland.
Faced with the choice of cuts to schools, skills and education or using the powers of the Scottish Parliament, Labour will use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to invest in our future and grow our economy.”
Nicola Sturgeon says that at the end of her next term in Government she wants to be judged by her record on attainment. That’s right, after nine years of failing Scotland’s most deprived families she wants a second chance.
In addition to teacher training being cut by almost 30% we now have 4,000 fewer teachers under the SNP. We have redundancies in universities and colleges. We have 140,000 fewer college students. We have cuts to the education budget of every single council in Scotland. That’s their record.
It’s time for change. Real change.