Scottish election claims fact-checked

By Friday, we’ll know who’s received the final election. However over the course of the marketing campaign, events in Scotland have made all types of claims in an effort to steer voters to again them. The areas they’ve lined embrace well being care, public spending and the atmosphere.

We examined among the claims.

The SNP have typically repeated the declare a Labour authorities would minimize £18bn from public spending.

This figure came from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank earlier this yr.

Nonetheless, the assume tank has since prompt cuts might vary from £10bn to £20bn and pressured there’s uncertainty across the determine, as a result of no spending plans have been revealed past subsequent yr.

Public spending general is because of rise over the following Parliament and Labour has mentioned it should stick with the broad outlines of the Conservatives’ present spending plans.

However as a result of they’ve already dedicated spending to the NHS, defence and new childcare entitlements, different departments look set to lose out.

The extent of the squeeze on “unprotected” areas will depend on what decisions are made for different public providers.

The SNP say that is proof Labour would proceed with Tory “austerity”.

Nonetheless, an enchancment within the economic system might make these cuts pointless – or the following authorities might discover a method to increase extra tax.

Holyrood’s block grant is decided by the general stage of spending on public providers at Westminster – which is rising in actual phrases by 1%.

The Scottish authorities may also increase earnings tax to make up for what it sees as a block grant shortfall.

The Scottish Conservatives need to present themselves because the get together of the oil and fuel sector however their manifesto repeats a now discredited determine round the way forward for jobs within the sector.

It claims that Labour and the SNP are placing 100,000 Scottish jobs in danger by not totally backing future exploration licensing – one thing which the Tories assist.

However the actuality is that the North Sea is a declining business and so jobs are frequently being misplaced.

The business’s personal figures present that, at current, it employs about 60,000 folks in Scotland, immediately and not directly.

Even when jobs within the wider economic system – similar to hospitality and retail, whose prospects earn their crust from oil – are added in, that determine solely rises to 83,000.

Research from Robert Gordon University says that even within the best-case situation, 33,000 oil and fuel jobs will go by the tip of the last decade within the UK.

Within the worst case, that quantity will increase to 60,000.

The distinction between the most effective and worst-case situations is 27,000 oil and fuel jobs – and that is throughout the entire UK, not simply Scotland.

The place the Conservatives agree with the opposite events is on the necessity to guarantee a good vitality transition for staff.

Scottish Labour chief Anas Sarwar’s declare that 40% of hip and knee replacements are being accomplished privately is right – the determine comes from Public Health Scotland.

In 2022 in Scotland, 11,175 hip and knee operations happened, of which about 4,600 had been carried out at non-public hospitals.

Data from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) exhibits that greater than 3,000 hip replacements and 1,500 knee replacements had been carried out privately final yr.

That’s both via sufferers self-funding their care or via insurance coverage claims.

2023 noticed document ranges of personal admissions (up 11% on the earlier yr).

The Nuffield Trust says in Scotland, there was an 80% rise over the previous 5 years in folks paying out of their very own pocket for healthcare.

Nonetheless, the rise was greater in Wales (up 124%) – the place Labour run the devolved administration which controls the well being service – and in Northern Eire (218%).

England – the place the well being service has been underneath the management of the Conservatives – noticed an increase of 20%.

Relative to its inhabitants, England continues to have the very best variety of sufferers going non-public.

This means that wherever you reside within the UK, rising numbers of sufferers are taking issues into their very own palms and paying for healthcare to keep away from lengthy waits on the NHS.

Labour has said if it had been in authorities it will make use of “spare capability” within the non-public sector to chop NHS ready lists in England (NHS funding can be directed to non-public suppliers so it stays free for sufferers).

However organisations together with the Nuffield Belief have questioned whether or not the general well being price range will improve sufficient to make the restoration Labour are promising achievable.

As a result of well being is devolved, it’s as much as the Scottish authorities to determine the best way to spend its price range and the SNP – who’re in energy at Holyrood – say they oppose additional privatisation.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats declare 20,000 tonnes of “raw sewage” was “pumped into Scotland’s rivers and seashores” final yr.

In 2022, there were around 20,000 incidences (reasonably than tonnes) of sewage being launched into Scotland’s rivers and seas.

This occurs when heavy rainfall causes sewers to overflow.

The manifesto incorporates an acknowledgement that the scenario in Scotland just isn’t as unhealthy as it’s in England, the place hundreds of instances have been recognized of sewage overflowing into rivers on dry days when the sewers ought to be capable to cope.

Though the figures usually are not immediately comparable, specialists have informed the BBC there are large variations north and south of the border.

For a begin, Scotland’s sewers usually are not underneath the identical stress from speedy inhabitants enlargement as England and Wales.

And – crucially – the Victorian sewer system was designed to permit sewage diluted by rainwater to be launched on days of extreme downpours in order that it doesn’t again up into folks’s properties.

Monitoring in Scotland is low, masking simply 4% of the sewer community in contrast with 89% in England.

Scottish Water has mentioned that’s as a result of vital overflows have by no means beforehand been recognized as an issue. Nonetheless, it has begun to put in extra screens.

Scotland has additionally been a decade forward in requiring new developments to separate family waste water from the rainwater which enters the drains on our streets.

However, the Scottish Lib Dems say each outflow must be monitored.