PHILIPPA Whitford rubbished Tory claims on the Scottish Government's handling of the cost-of-living crisis and the NHS during an appearance on Politics Live.
Whitford was responding to comments made by Tory MP Tim Loughton who was critical of the SNP's plan to hold indyref2, as he said that the previous referendum was a “once in a generation opportunity” and that should be more than eight years.
Loughton claimed that a referendum shouldn’t be a priority for Scotland as he said there are more pressing concerns north of the Border.
He argued that the cost-of-living crisis was being handled “particularly badly” in Scotland and that there was a "crisis" in the Scottish education and health systems.
The SNP’s Westminster health spokesperson responded by saying that Scotland was outperforming the rest of the UK in many areas.
She replied: “This claim about the NHS and education is just complete nonsense and if you would just look at things like A&E waiting times, cancer waiting times, any of the data on closing the education gap, Scotland is outperforming England and the rest of the UK.”
Whitford was then interrupted by host Jo Coburn who referenced Nicola Sturgeon having to apologise to the Scottish Parliament on NHS waiting times.
SNP’s Dr Philippa Whitford gets stuck into Tory Tim Loughton and BBC Jo Coburn over the lie that Scotland’s health and education is failing. #politicslive pic.twitter.com/Q4mIlVh3NA
— Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) July 12, 2022
Whitford replied: “Hang on Jo, all four health services have faced an absolute crisis with Covid. We’re in the middle of another wave, you’re referring to weekly data that Scotland data that England doesn’t anymore.
“If you look at the performance over the last seven years, the A&E waiting times in Scotland have been ten percent better than England, almost much higher than Wales or Northern Ireland for seven years.
“So argue about independence but don’t argue on the performance of the NHS because if you bothered to look at the data, you’ll see it’s different.”
She went on to undermine Loughton’s claims on the cost-of-living crisis in Scotland as she argued Scotland didn’t have the necessary powers to deal with it.
She said: “The Scottish Government doesn’t have the levers to fix that. This is why it is actually urgent that we get a chance to change the kind of economy we have coming out of Covid so that we have a fairer, greener, more sustainable economy because we all know that we need to be somewhere different by the end of this decade or we will burn the planet.”
