Speaking to Sam and Ayesha, Kezia Dugdale that a future Labour administration in Scotland will have to make “dramatic changes” on public spending such as ending free university tuition fees.
Kezia says that the widening gap between government spending and revenue north of the border means that “something’s going to have to give” with respect to current Holyrood policies like free prescriptions, free personal care, free tuition fees and new child payments.
She says: “It's going to be incredibly difficult for whoever comes into office in 2026 [the year of the next Scottish parliamentary elections] because a lot of these very difficult things have been kicked down the road by the current administration in the box marked too difficult.
“I don't think that puts Anas [Sarwar, Labour’s leader in Scotland] off. I think if anything he'll actually relish the opportunity to do what Labour people do with power which is to fundamentally reform public services and advance the role of the state in our lives in a meaningful and positive way. It's only really Labour politicians that can do some of that hard stuff at these key moments.”
According to Ms Kezia, the party in Scotland will therefore face a choice in its manifesto for 2026:
“Does it want to keep free tuition or does it want to keep free school meals? If you're talking about tackling poverty and inequality, we all know that the way to prioritize money is in those early years. So that, again, makes you look at higher education and tertiary education or what happens in the senior years of school and to ask some fundamental questions about how you redistribute.”
Kezia also believes that independence is no longer the defining issue in Scottish politics and this allowed space for a wider debate on what she described as the need to “rewire Britain”.
“I'm not sympathetic to independence but what I do want is to rewire Britain. I want to change the voting system, I want greater devolution and I want employment law. I want immigration powers, I want to change the way that the fiscal framework operates in practice so that Scotland grows its economy.”
“Scottish politics for a decade was defined by [independence] so your position on wheelie bins was determined by your position on the constitution. That has changed now. Yes, support for independence is still consistent around 45% and sometimes it tips over the 50% mark. But as an issue it's fallen way down the rankings. it no longer determines how people vote in the same way that it did before.”
“So, we've moved on from the constitution but we should be able to have a conversation that is about something other than the status quo. Britain isn't working. Andy Burnham says that and Vaughan Gething says that, and there are people the length and breadth of the UK that want to talk about how we rewire Britain in a different way that represents a modern progressive democracy. You don't have to be a nationalist to believe in that.”
Given that Labour may well soon be in power in Westminster, as well as in Scotland, Wales and many English city regions, Kezia says she “would love that we could be really comfortable with the idea that politicians in the same party could hold slightly different positions on some of the big topics of the day”.
“It feels like we might be asking too much of our political class at the moment but that's the ideal world. It really shouldn't be beyond the wit of man that we can operate on that basis, and I think the public respond really well to that. The public like a bit of truth.”
Commenting on how Scottish politics will change in the wake of the First Minister’s announcement this week that he intends to resign, Kezia adds:
“This period of [Scotland] being very focused on liberal progressive cultural identity-based issues is going to end with this move from the Bute House Agreement to minority government because they just won't be able to get some key things through.
“A SNP minority government will no longer be able to ban things in the way that they used to do. They'll no longer be able to give out free things in the way that it used to do. And they also won't be able to do the thing I wish they'd done at some point in the past 17 years which is some serious reform of public services.
“So, this is going to be a government that's going to have to scale back its ambition. It's going to have to focus on bread and butter issues like the NHS and the economy and it's going to have to secure support across the parliamentary chamber to do anything at all.”
A very Scottish drama