Friday September 4th 2026
Miles Briggs, MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East, Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party writes his monthly column for Midlothian View.
The first week of September marks the end of summer, and this year the weather has made certain of that. For MSPs, it is also the beginning of a new term in Parliament and time to think about the priorities for the months ahead.
Setting out their programme for government this week, SNP Ministers don’t seem to be at all clear what the priorities for Scotland should be. On the one hand, efficiency and cost-cutting appear to be the name of the game. On the other, John Swinnney is not willing to reform social security spending and is planning to introduce yet another costly Independence Bill.
The First Minister’s other proposals include reducing Scotland’s health boards from 14 to two and cutting the number of local authorities. Yet he promises no compulsory redundancies and refuses to estimate how many jobs will go. After two decades in power, the SNP has bowed to every public sector pay deal demand, with little evidence they will follow through when these reforms face opposition. Their record on public sector reform is dire. Unless Ministers start matching their rhetoric with delivery, Scotland’s public services will continue to decline, and taxpayers will never get value for money.
On health, the promise was to end NHS waits over 26 weeks by 2031. Given that there are currently more than 30,000 Scots waiting more than a year for treatment and that this July was the worst on record for delayed discharges from our hospitals, this looks like yet another SNP promise waiting to be broken.
The programme for government was full of contradictions from a party that is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Scots and out of new ideas. My Scottish Conservative colleagues and I, however, know exactly where focus is needed.
I recently discovered that Lothian Buses has experienced more than 1,000 incidents of anti-social behaviour, resulting in 400 repairs, and six staff absences in only the first six months of this year. Meanwhile, e-bike gangs continue to terrorise road users and pedestrians alike. In my last column, I described the escalating issue of shoplifting, under which many businesses in Midlothian and across our region are suffering. I will continue to take every opportunity to hold Ministers to account on law and order and engage with Police Scotland to get action. In the last Parliament I felt a bit like a broken record demanding more police officers for our region, but I will not stop. Talking to local people I know that the community feels intimidated, and this must change.
While the programme for government promised yet more resources for the already over-budget A9 and A96 projects, Midlothian residents will have noted that there was no mention of the Edinburgh by-pass, which causes untold stress and delay, and which is holding back economic growth. There has also been little to no progress from SNP Ministers on the long-awaited upgrade of the Sheriffhall roundabout. Transport is a major issue for Midlothian and the surrounding region, and it must be addressed in this parliament.
As for the health reforms announced this week, I’m not sure where the rationale for two Strategic Health Boards came from. It is clear that the Integration of Health and Social Care has not delivered the outcomes envisaged, and we need to see a new model of health care delivery. What is most important, however, is that we place local accountability and decision making at the heart of any reforms to ensure that they can be delivered with real understanding of the distinct challenges faced in specific communities. In the meantime, I will continue to fight for fairer funding for NHS Lothian, for community mental health services, and for a better deal for our hospice sector.
I was disappointed that the Programme for Government did not better reflect the strength of feeling behind improving palliative care that emerged during the end of the last Parliamentary session. After the passage of the Assisted Dying Bill through the last parliament, all parties pledged to take action to improve the delivery of palliative care. I will be taking this opportunity to continue work on my Right to Palliative Care Bill. Many readers will have had loved ones who could not access the end-of-life care they deserved, so I hope that last session’s debates have created the political will from all parties for urgent reform and a legal right to palliative care.
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