SNP 2017

MANIFESTO 2017
Supporting our young people
A good education is an investment – not just in our
children, but in our society and our economy too.
While the Tories in Westminster are intent on removing
support for our young people, the SNP Scottish
Government is committed to ensuring our young people
are able to get ahead in life.
• Research shows improved childcare is the single policy
that will do most to reduce income inequality. Under
the SNP the availability of free early years education
and childcare has increased from 12.5 hours in 2007
to 16 hours a week for all three and four year olds
and it has also been extended to two year olds from
low income households. By 2021 we will increase the
provision to 30 hours.
• In government we are investing £50 million to ensure
all staff working in private nurseries delivering our
childcare pledge are paid the real Living Wage.
• We have extended free school meals to all children in
Primary 1 to 3 in Scotland, ensuring they get a healthy
and nutritious meal every day, improving their
concentration, helping them to achieve better results,
and saving families around £380 per child per year.
• Free tuition has been maintained, saving students
in Scotland up to £27,000 compared to the cost of
studying in England.
• We have been reforming vocational education and
increasing the number of Modern Apprenticeships,
hitting new records every year on the road to our
target of 30,000 new starts by the end of
this parliament.
• We have expanded the Education Maintenance
Allowance – now scrapped for new students south of
the border – to support even more school pupils and
college students from low income families.
Supporting our emergency services
Despite emergency services in England having tax relief
from VAT, the UK government has failed to deliver the same
relief for Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue
Service. This has cost Scottish taxpayers more than £140
million since 2013. SNP MPs will continue to make the case
to the UK government to extend a VAT exemption to Scottish
emergency services. The money saved will be invested by the
Scottish Government in making Scotland safer.
Public Sector Pay
The Scottish Government has supported public sector
workers through a difficult time of pay restraint with additional
measures to tackle low pay. However, we recognise that
at a time of rising inflation, public sector pay caps become
increasingly unsustainable.
For the NHS, the Scottish Government will work with
unions to submit evidence to the independent pay review
body on the impact of pay restraint and ask it to make fair
recommendations. And we will commit - as we always have
done - to implementing the recommendations of the pay
review body in full.
SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY MANIFESTO 2017 19