By Professor John Robertson OBA
That face! It’s the one a wee boy pulls when he’s caught out telling a porky.
At First Minister’s Questions on 21 November 2024, Anas Sarwar theatrically suggested a crisis in housing and didn’t much like being told the truth.
Here it is:
Year after year, Scotland builds far more, 370 000 per head, affordable (really) housing than England
Today, the Scottish Government published Affordable Housing Supply Programme: quarterly updates on approvals, site starts and completions for the year 2023/2024.
I thought I’d compare this with the most recent data for England. There are doubts about just how affordable English builds are, but I’ll park that for now.
The first two rows are self-explanatory.
The third row suggests how many Scotland might have built if it had England’s population, 10 times greater.
The fourth gives the surplus Scotland built, per head of population, as many 40 751 more in 2022/2023. Note that the smallest surplus posted, in 2007/2008, was a consequence of the previous Labour government’s starts.
The fifth then suggests, as a percentage, how bigger a percentage surplus of affordable homes, per head, Scotland built. Nearly 400% more 2021/2022. Note that the smallest percentage surplus posted, in 2007/2008, was a consequence of the previous Labour government’s starts.
Finally, per head, the Scottish Government built 370 031 more affordable houses than England.
Sources:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activis
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The table is not legible. Can you reproduce just the final right hand column – I guess that is the really interesting one.
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Turn your phone round to landscape or increase your screen magnification
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THIS is the British Labour Party – here are more insights into its track record in government and into how low it will stoop nowadays to win power.
It seems reasonable before ‘buying’ what the British Labour Party is likely to offer the Scottish electorate in 2026 to ask: ‘what’s been happening to the performance of A&E waiting times in NHS Wales?’ And what’s happening now that the long time British Labour Party government in Cardiff has been joined by colleagues in power in Westminster?
The analysis of official statistics by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) helps with this. Moreover, it offers useful perspective on the performance of A&E in Wales: it provides similar statistics for NHS Scotland. The latest data considered by the RCEM – for major emergency departments in Wales and Scotland – are for the month of September 2024. (See https://rcem.ac.uk/data-statistics/ ) Here are the key figures:
NHS Wales (NHS Scotland):
– patients admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours from arrival = 56.5% (NHS Scotland = 65.9%)
– patients spending more than eight hours = 23.4% (10.9%)
– patients spending more than 12 hours = 14.7% (4.5%).
The differences in performance between major emergency departments in Wales and Scotland is to say the least, substantial – NHS Scotland is performing very much better within the same context of the UK-wide health (and social care) systems, albeit not as well as I suspect any one would wish.
Why is it relevant to compare and contrast NHS Scotland with NHS Wales? Here is one reason: a headline from the Daily Record on 31 October 2024. It should not be forgotten as it says much about the ethic of British Labour Party politics at least within its leadership. It also says much about the newspaper involved!
Headline: ‘Rachel Reeves challenges SNP to improve NHS performance in Scotland after £3.4bn boost – the Labour Chancellor claimed NHS performance in Scotland was “worse than in any part of the United Kingdom”.
In the article there is this: “Frankly, the performance of the NHS in Scotland under the SNP is worse than in any part of the United Kingdom, and that money now needs to be used to address the priorities of the Scottish people.’ Adding: “In Scotland, the SNP now need to use that money that we have allocated wisely to start to reduce those waiting lists in Scotland, because they are out of control, and that is a sad legacy of the Government in Scotland.” There was no challenge to this big lie in the Record’s coverage!
And we thought that the Tories were the duplicitous party! Electoral victory in 2026 by any means? ( And for the avoidance of doubt – and as regular TuS readers will know – NHS Scotland compares favourably with its UK peers across a range of important performance metrics.)
The contrast in A&E performances is not restricted to September 2024. Usefully, the RCEM has published graphs of waiting times performance extending over a decade or more: based on official statistics, they reveal that NHS Scotland’s main Emergency Departments have long performed better on waiting times from patient arrival to discharge, transfer or admission. (The RCEM website publishes the evidence which confirms this!)
Once must assume the Daily Record is more interested in amplifying the lies of a senior British Labour Party politician intent on duping voters in Scotland rather than inform its readers with independently – and easily accessed – verified facts.
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Well , considering that Rachael Reeves couldn’t tell the complete truth on her CV , what chance have we got of hearing the truth about Scotland’s NHS from such a liar ?
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Labour built little affordable houses. Thatcher sold off council houses and did not build more. The SNP Gov have built far more, by proportion.
Scottish Gov build or renovate 6,000+ houses a year. Private builder build 17,000+. 50,000+ die each year. Freeing up houses. Scotland has enough houses but some are in the wrong place. For work or family connections. A better quality of life.
Abused women do not get legal aid. They have to stay in abusive situation because they do not get legal aid. Or lose the roof over their heads. Legal aid has to be paid back in any case. A false economy. The Law in the South has be changed so abused women ge5 legal aid. They do not lose the roof ove4 their head.
Wales is underfunded, like Scotland. Wales voted for Brexit. Lost £Billions. The unionists are a disgrace. Funding war instead of NHS keeping people well. Dumping Trident, illegally, in Scotland. Putting Scotland at risk.
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Pulling that ‘huffy face’ look must be standard training in Labour as evidenced by those astonished Welsh Labour Councillors this monday morning that Storm Bert could have caused so much flood damage and chaos to Wales. After all who would have thought that an area so susceptible to flooding they would have been caught out like this. Obviously being Labour the blame lies not with them but with the Met office for not telling them and giving them an ‘Amber’ warning.
By contrast with no ‘Severe Flood warnings’ in Scotland those intrepid BBC Scotland ‘Unionist heroes’ did not get a chance to show wee Jamie’s field in Aberdeen under a few inches of water to get their missed opportunity to blame the Scot Govenment. But at a guess they will be keeping their wellies at the door just in case they get an ’emergency’ phone call from the Daily’s so hold the front pages.
Robbo
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Anas Sarwar’s contributions to FMQs are limited to making wee boy huffy faces and reading carefully prepared head office scripts – five words at a time.
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