Swinney: Scotland is still suffering from Margaret Thatcher's 'devastation'

John Swinney has claimed Scotland is still suffering the consequences from Margaret Thatcher’s time as prime minister and the ‘devastation’ she ‘wreaked’ on the country.

The First Minister made the suggestion after being challenged on the Scottish Government’s record by Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who insisted Scotland had been ‘stagnating’ under the SNP.

Ross hit out at ’17 years of decline and broken promises’ on issues such as NHS waiting times, drug and alcohol deaths and life expectancy but the First Minister fired back with his claims over Thatcher’s time in charge of the country.

He told MSPs that some academics believes policies from the 80s are still having an impact on Scotland in the present day.

READ MORE: Live coverage of the general election campaigns

He quoted Glasgow University’s Gerry McCartney, a professor of wellbeing economy, who said there could be ‘lagged effect from decades ago of urban planning, policy decisions and the 1980s, economic changes which had then translated into people’s alcohol deaths a decade or two later’.

Swinney continued: "I simply put that evidence to Parliament because we have to understand the consequences of the devastation wreaked on our country by the policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government."

Ross wasn’t having it though and reckons it was wrong to blame the current issues on something that happened more than 40 years ago and accused Swinney of ‘blaming the failures here in Scotland now to a period before I was even born and apparently it has nothing to do with the 17 years the SNP have been in charge here in Scotland’.

It was the Tory MSP’s final appearance at First Minister’s Questions before he steps down as party leader after next week’s General Election and he said:"On the SNP's watch, Scotland's NHS waiting times are at some of their worst levels ever.

"They have made Scotland the drugs death capital of Europe. Alcohol deaths are now at the highest level for 16 years and life expectancy in Scotland is lower."

He then went on to say ‘the SNP are bad for Scotland’s health’ and ‘it’s not just our health service the SNP have failed’.

Other complaints from Ross included the inability to upgrade key roads and the fact they had pledged to close the attainment gap but it had widened. Police officer numbers, the oil and gas sector and much more were also on the Tory’s list of frustration.

He said: "From Salmond to Sturgeon to Swinney, all they have achieved is dividing Scotland."

We know apart from separating Scotland from the rest of the UK, nothing else matters to John Swinney.

"Independence will always come first, before our NHS, before drugs, before schools, before the economy, before everything.

"Scotland is stagnating under the SNP, we have had 17 years of decline and broken promises.

"Isn't it time to finally move on from the division of this SNP Government to focus on the issues that really matter to people?"

The First Minister was willing to fire back at his opponent though and pointed to the fact the Scottish Government have gone from spending a third of their budget on the NHS when the SNP took power in 2007 to almost half of it now.

The First Minister said: "That has ensured there is more funding to deal with the increased demand there is in the National Health Service."

And he continued to back independence by insisting that the ’14 years of conservative austerity’ is exactly why it ‘matters’ and blamed the likes of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng for ‘ludicrous’ decisions which ‘escalated’ the cost-of-living crisis across the entire UK.

He insisted: "Independence is the solution to austerity, Brexit and the cost of living, and we're going to see the back of Douglas Ross as well.

"I don't really think Douglas Ross is in a position to go on at me about division when his colleagues behind him have told him to get out of office as leader of the Scottish Conservative Party."