I sat through the Scottish Government’s budget announcement last week, and I’m still not entirely sure what I actually heard. There were plenty of words, plenty of promises about priorities and investments, but when you strip away the rhetoric, there was almost nothing concrete. It was a masterclass in political theatre: lots of noise, very little substance.
The NHS got mentioned, of course. The NHS always gets mentioned. We heard about commitment to healthcare, about supporting frontline workers, about investing in services. But where are the actual numbers? How many new staff are being recruited? Which hospitals are getting funding for equipment? How long will waiting lists actually take to come down? None of that was clear. Just warm words and vague assurances.
Housing Promises Without Plans
Housing is where it really fell apart for me. Scotland is in the middle of a genuine housing crisis. Young people can’t afford to buy, rents are through the roof, and entire communities are being hollowed out by short-term lets. This was the moment to announce real action: building targets, rent controls that actually work, meaningful support for first-time buyers. Instead, we got platitudes about affordable housing and aspirations for the future.
I don’t want aspirations. I want a plan. I want to know how many homes will be built, where they’ll be built, and how the government plans to fund it. But none of that was in the budget. Just more vague commitments that sound good in a press release but mean nothing in practice.
Education Falling Through the Cracks
Education barely got a look in, which tells you everything you need to know about the government’s priorities. Our schools are struggling. Teachers are overworked and underpaid. Attainment gaps persist. And yet the budget had almost nothing meaningful to say about any of it. A few lines about investing in young people, some talk about closing the poverty-related attainment gap, but no actual detail about how any of that will happen.
I’m tired of budgets that are designed to sound impressive without actually committing to anything. Politicians have become experts at saying a lot while promising very little. They throw out buzzwords like ‘transformative’ and ‘progressive’ and hope nobody notices the lack of specifics underneath.
Maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe there were details buried in the documents that I missed. But if a budget can’t clearly explain what it’s actually going to do, then what’s the point? Holyrood needs to do better than this. We deserve more than a budget that’s all performance and no substance.