We will protect frontline investment in public services across the UK - and here in Scotland we want to make progress in improving schools and healthcare.

Health... with Labour
While Scottish Labour’s focus on reducing cancer, and between 1997 and 2007 helped to cut deaths among the under 75s from cancer between by 15 per cent, we know that more has to be done to reduce cancers. Scottish Labour will introduce a new right halving the time from one month to two weeks to see a cancer specialist and get results. At present, the waiting time target in Scotland for people referred by their GP for cancer tests is 31 days. We need to detect cancer earlier to save more lives. Scottish Labour will campaign reduce this to 14 days by 2015. This is estimated to cost £10million per year based on Scottish Government’s current costings of reducing current waiting times, and will be made by making savings in the NHS budget, including in IT.

Are the Tories a change you can afford?
The NHS we inherited from the Tories was run down and neglected.  Labour invested massively in the NHS, with spending over £10 billion in 2007, double what is was in 1997.  The Tories would scrap Labour’s two-week cancer referral guarantee and make immediate cuts – threatening our frontline services. 

The SNP are not doing enough
The SNP cannot be trusted on Scotland’s health and wellbeing. Cuts in NHS spending, bed blocking and hospital acquired infections have all contributed to making Scotland less healthy under the SNP. The SNP are actually spending more on bonuses for the most senior doctors than taking action to tackle hospital acquired infections.

Schools... with Labour
Our pledge is to make substantial progress on eradicating illiteracy and innumeracy to ensure all Scottish children leave school with the ability to read, write and count. We have also called for a discipline code to be developed in every school in Scotland. It is also our ambition to provide a guaranteed apprenticeship for every qualified school leaver.

Are the Tories a change you can afford?
The Conservatives have made clear they would make immediate cuts and have refused to commit to protecting front line services. Instead, the Tories prefer to give a massive tax cut to millionaires.  

The SNP are not doing enough
They have not taken their responsibility seriously. New schools are not being built and there are 2000 fewer teachers in classrooms than under Labour in 2007. Hundreds of newly qualified teachers are unemployed or being forced to accept temporary contracts which the SNP are failing to deliver their promise to reduce class sizes.