Tories challenge Swinney to ‘focus on the day job’ in key conference speech
Shadow Scottish secretary Harriet Cross made the appeal ahead of John Swinney’s speech to SNP conference on Saturday.
John Swinney is being challenged to “finally focus on the issues that matter to people across Scotland” when he addresses the SNP conference on Saturday.
Conservative shadow Scottish secretary Harriet Cross made the plea to the Scottish First Minister ahead of his keynote conference address.
Mr Swinney will close the SNP conference in Aberdeen, but Ms Cross said that there were “serious questions about the direction in which Scotland is heading” that the First Minister must address.
Calling on him to “focus on the day job”, the Tory MP said Mr Swinney should use his speech to set out plans to “reverse the decline in educational standards, address the crisis engulfing our NHS, tackle the drug deaths emergency and finally back the North East and our oil and gas workers”.
She went on to call for Mr Swinney to “put the priorities of people across Scotland first” instead of “rerunning the tired old arguments” on independence.
Ms Cross stated: “As the SNP faithful gather in Aberdeen, John Swinney has a golden opportunity to use his conference speech to focus on the issues that actually matter to Scots.
“Hardworking Scots aren’t focused on re-running the arguments of 2014. They’re worried about declining educational standards, the crisis engulfing our NHS, the drug deaths emergency, and the collapse of our critical oil and gas sector.
“Swinney will be addressing SNP members in what should be the oil and gas capital of Europe.
“But his party’s presumption against oil and gas and failure to back Jackdaw and Rosebank means we’re forced to rely on countries like Russia for the oil and gas we still desperately need.
“These are the issues Swinney should be focused on. Not spending more time and taxpayers’ money pursuing independence when the SNP failed to secure a majority at the Holyrood election, which he said would be the only way to secure a second referendum.
“John Swinney should focus on the day job and use his speech to set out how he plans to fix the problems his party created.”