On Monday afternoon, the Scottish National party will unveil its new leader and Scotland’s first minister-elect, after the most bruising and tumultuous contest in the party’s history. The SNP’s first leadership election in nearly 20 years was triggered in February by Nicola Sturgeon’s shock decision to resign.
The contest has been an at times vicious ideological battle between the continuity candidate, Humza Yousaf, the flag carrier for Sturgeon’s socially liberal agenda; Kate Forbes, a vocal, centre-right critic of many of Sturgeon’s policies; and Ash Regan, an ill-experienced outlier who tried to appeal to the SNP’s independence hardliners.
Regardless of which candidate wins, they will face the same challenges in government. Here is what sits in the next first minister’s in-tray.
The first 100 days
Once the first minister is appointed – after a parliamentary vote on Tuesday, they will be formally sworn into office by Scotland’s most senior judges on Wednesday – they must try to establish themselves in voters’ minds, perhaps with a bold, defining new policy.
Sturgeon was familiar to voters, and popular, when she took over. Forbes and Yousaf are less well known. The winner must quickly form a cabinet that unifies the SNP’s now warring wings. Yousaf’s dilemma would be whether to keep Forbes, currently the finance secretary, inside it. Her attacks on his credibility defined her campaign. Forbes’s challenge would be persuading Sturgeon’s cabinet allies to accept her new agenda, and finding able new ministers.
Immediate challenges
The new first minister must quickly decide, by mid-April, whether to contest the UK government’s block on Holyrood’s gender recognition bill. Yousaf wants to challenge it in court if the legal advice supports that, while Forbes and Regan have said court action is not a priority. Not contesting the veto would risk setting a precedent for future Westminster interference, while doing so would prolong a very divisive dispute.
All three have also pledged to pause or amend the widely criticised deposit return scheme for bottles and cans, which is due to launch in August, but Scottish business leaders want the “reckless” plan scrapped, saying it threatens post-pandemic recovery.
Scotland’s budget
The heavy squeeze on public spending, surging inflation and rising wage bills put huge pressure on the first minister’s £60bn annual budget, and limit the scope for expensive new initiatives. The Scottish Fiscal Commission, an independent body, said last week there was a £1.5bn black hole between demand for public services and the money to pay for them, and that gap will grow.
Scotland’s tax receipts are lower than England’s; Scotland’s workforce is ageing faster, while birthrates are falling. Thanks in part to Brexit ending free movement, Scotland has workforce shortages, making it harder to recruit staff for care homes and hospitals, while its public sector wage bill is rising faster than England’s. Sturgeon’s popular new benefits to reduce poverty are costly and it remains uncertain how effective they are.
What the new first minister chooses to cut may define them as much as their first big idea. It is also essential they have parliamentary backing for their budgets. The SNP does not have a majority at Holyrood. It needs allies.
Whither the Green alliance?
Sturgeon’s Bute House power-sharing agreement in 2021 with the pro-independence Scottish Greens gave her government a majority at Holyrood. But the Greens were very clear on Saturday that deal will collapse if Forbes is elected, given her criticism of key policies in that agreement on gender, bottle return, higher taxes and speeding up the closure of North Sea oilfields. Losing that majority would make it harder for the SNP to pass budgets and implement radical policies.
The leadership contest opened up divisions among SNP members over how positive they feel the alliance has been, and only Yousaf has committed to maintaining it. Forbes has said she is not worried about leading a minority government.
Fixing the NHS
The biggest challenge will be fixing the health service and trying to rescue Sturgeon’s widely criticised plans to integrate social and community health care in a national care service. Scotland has record cancer and surgery waiting lists and record A&E delays. Health and social care is Holyrood’s biggest budget line, absorbing £19bn a year – a third of total spending.
The next first minister must tackle bed blocking in hospitals and queues in A&E. Recent figures showed only 65% of emergency patients were seen within four hours; NHS vacancies are at a record high, with 5,800 nursing posts unfilled; and 57,000 “bed days” were lost in January due to delayed discharge. The SNP has pledged to increase NHS spending above inflation: doing so would mean deep cuts in other services.
The climate crisis
Sturgeon was busy at the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow in 2021, winning plaudits for accepting that the world faces a climate crisis and arguing that North Sea oilfields need to close soon. But her government’s climate policies are failing to meet Holyrood’s legal targets to cut emissions by 75% by 2030.
The UK Committee on Climate Change, an independent watchdog, has said such targets are essentially meaningless if they will not be met. Hitting them will require radical action to decarbonise Scotland’s homes, by switching off gas boilers. Scotland’s transition to electric cars has slowed down, and ministers have ignored meat consumption and been too light of touch with farmers, the committee argues.
Independence and the union
Although Scottish independence is the SNP’s defining mission, Forbes and Yousaf ditched Sturgeon’s proposal to use the next general election as a de facto referendum after the supreme court ruled that Holyrood could not stage a real one without Westminster’s authority. They want to build up greater support for independence first, but must sell this gradualist approach to party activists frustrated by Sturgeon’s repeated but unfulfilled promises to hold that vote.
The Scottish and Welsh governments have tense relations with the Tories in London, accusing Westminster of post-Brexit power grabs. With Labour making a detailed offer on constitutional reform after the next election, the new first minister must decide whether to push for further devolution now while maintaining a longer-term aim of full separation.
