IPPR Scotland reacts to Holyrood election result, sets out six immediate tasks

For immediate release

Reacting to the Holyrood election result, IPPR Scotland director Stephen Boyd said:

“The SNP is once again the largest party by a distance and can be expected to form a stable minority administration. However, to get major legislation and budgets agreed, it will have to find common ground with other parties.

“The turnout is dispiriting but unsurprising given voters’ low confidence in any party’s ability to deliver on their priorities. The ill-tempered, largely unserious campaign seems to have reinforced the electorate’s pessimistic view of politics.

“The next Parliament will be the most challenging since devolution with a looming fiscal gap, weak growth, intensifying pressures on public services and increasingly unproductive political polarisation.”

IPPR Scotland has set out six immediate tasks for the new administration.  

1. Tax: Develop and implement a long-term tax strategy for Scotland to provide fiscal stability and generate sufficient revenues to respond to the country’s changing circumstances. Scotland’s tax-and-spend system is mildly more progressive than the rest of the UK’s but miles behind the far more progressive system of Nordic countries. The tax strategy must recognise that middle earners can be better off with higher taxes if it means public services are better and society is less fragmented.
2. Economy: Ditch the current economic strategy which enjoys almost no support amongst stakeholders and, working through the new National Council for Economic Growth, develop and implement a new strategy that addresses current and future challenges (e.g. demographic change, the climate crisis and deindustrialisation). The new Council should be put on a statutory basis and given real resources.  
3. Climate: While net zero is polarising across parties, among the public there is little evidence of a ‘greenlash’. Much time has been lost rewriting targets, and the new parliament will find itself even further behind. A central priority must be to resuscitate the heat-in-buildings policy as an opportunity to rejuvenate our environment and prepare our homes to keep us warm as the gas grid is shut down.
4. Public services: Reform and efficiency should be core priorities for public services, but they already are and long have been. Current policy puts the cart before the horse, setting an arbitrary target to reduce jobs, and banking on unprecedented efficiency gains to offset society’s growing need for public services. Continuing with this contradictory and ineffective framework risks Scotland sleepwalking into a new round of austerity.
5. Poverty: The child poverty action plan should be revisited with bold new actions if the government wants to have any chance of hitting the 2030 child poverty target. The Scottish Child Payment is testament to what devolved powers can achieve when the government is prepared to be bold.
6. Democratic renewal: The low turnout is stark reflection of the levels of disengagement and disillusionment among the Scottish electorate. The new Parliament is likely to be the least proportionate since devolution. Local democracy is on its knees. The next government has to lead the way towards democratic renewal in Scotland – fundamental reform of local government is a good place to start.

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW:  

Stephen Boyd, director of IPPR Scotland, is available for interview.

CONTACT:

Sukhada Tatke, media and impact officer at IPPR Scotland: s.tatke@ippr.org; 07901169121

NOTE TO EDITORS:  

• IPPR Scotland shapes public policy in pursuit of a fairer, greener, more prosperous Scotland.