PfG 2025 - On Course To Where?

First Minister John Swinney brought the Programme for Government forward from September, ostensibly to give him a full year to enact the promises in it before the Holyrood elections next year.

But between the previous promises dropped, broken or simply previously made but still ongoing, there’s precious little in the PfG that’s new and most of what is has been framed as a task for after the election. This PfG - which coincided with the SNP’s announcement of their 2026 candidate roster - is much better understood therefore as a not-quite-official party manifesto for the election rather than a programme for the government.

The few policies that broke through to the headlines were restorations of policies previously cancelled by the Scottish Government like the end of peak rail fares and the restoration of the winter fuel payment.

The overriding tone of both the PfG and of Swinney’s speech introducing it to Parliament was that he aims to be seen as a steady hand at the tiller, bringing Scotland “back on course” amid the choppy seas of an unstable global situation of escalating conflicts and Trump’s trade wars. He plans to do this not by changing course in any substantial way but simply by continuing on with the previous strategy of increasing GDP Growth, promoting Scottish exports and accelerating foreign direct investment. He still has not accepted that accelerating foreign direct investment will lead to those Scottish exports being increasingly owned by foreign companies and the profits of that GDP Growth being shipped overseas rather than being reinvested in Scotland.

There was certainly no mention of reform to land, property or wealth taxes (thankfully, there was no out-of-nowhere Council Tax freeze this year, but only because he made the excuse that Council Taxes in Scotland were lower than in England so everything is fine, despite the obviously unfair nature of the tax).

There was also no mention of the kind of radical economic transition that Scotland actually needs to take in order to do our part to arrest and begin to reverse the climate emergency.

This all begs a question missing from the PfG and Swinney’s speech. If he is steadying the course that Scotland is on, where exactly are we on course towards? If the goal is simply “GDP Growth, at all costs”, how much growth will be “enough” growth? Where does Swinney think he’s steadying the course towards? And is that a place that we actually want to go?