How NHS waiting lists in Scotland and England reveal difference between SNP and Labour in government
The blistering pace of NHS reforms under the UK Labour government contrasts sharply with the SNP’s 18 years of failure
This week, I travelled down to Liverpool for the UK Labour conference with Scotland at the heart of it. At an event for Scottish delegates, Keir Starmer recalled the moment he received a phone call on a Saturday night from the Norwegian Prime Minister, confirming a £10 billion deal to build warships on the Clyde.
That deal has secured 2,000 jobs in Scotland until the late 2030s, as well as ensuring we have co-ordinated Norwegian and British naval patrols in the North Sea. The same UK Labour government has brokered a trade deal with India that will see tariffs on whisky fall from 150 per cent to 75 per cent immediately and drop to 40 per cent within 10 years.
Mortgage interest rates have dropped five times since the election, lowering household bills and UK Labour have delivered a pay rise for 200,000 of the lowest paid workers in Scotland. With so many Scots at conference, it was hard to get anywhere fast.
One-in-six Scots on a waiting list
Wherever I turned, I bumped into Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs, from the leader of the Scottish Labour party to the Secretary of State for Scotland talking about their ambitions for this country.
The UK Labour government is delivering for Scotland, but in so many areas that affect people’s lives, power remains with the stagnant SNP.
Labour is reducing NHS waiting lists in England, but on the other side of the Border, one-in-six Scots are stuck without treatment. Indeed, there are more people who have been waiting more than two years on an NHS waiting list in Glasgow alone than in the whole of England.
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The chair of the British Medical Association Scotland, Dr Iain Kennedy, has warned that Scotland’s NHS is “dying before our eyes”. He told The Herald: “We’ve lost the founding principle of the NHS – that it’s free at the point of delivery – as many people are having to go private and they’re not happy about that.”
This pace of the UK Labour government's transformation of health has been blistering in just 14 months – by contrast, the SNP have had 18 years to fix our NHS and have failed to do so.
Indeed in Scotland, there is a two-tier health system in all but name. The creeping privatisation of Scotland’s NHS is only part of the story – wherever you look, public services are crumbling.
SNP putting party before country
Scottish schools, once the envy of the world, are falling down the international league tables. And while the UK Labour government is restoring neighbourhood policing, the SNP are cutting police numbers and closing police stations.
For two decades, Scots have suffered from the results of the SNP putting party before country. But in 2026, we have a choice. With no disrespect to my hard-working colleagues, the real reason Scotland has deals with India and Norway is down to the choices of Scottish voters themselves.
It was they who, in 2024, put Scotland at the heart of a UK Labour government. And in 2026, they have a chance to boot out the SNP and put Scotland at the heart of the Scottish Government as well.
Jackie Baillie is MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and her party’s spokesperson for health
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