SNP leadership race: Five key challenges Scotland’s new first minister will face as Sturgeon’s successor set to be announced
Scotland’s new first minister is set to be announced today.
Nicola Sturgeon’s shock resignation sparked an explosive leadership contest with rows over religious beliefs, arguments about the recollection of past events, and widespread criticism of secrecy surrounding the vote.
The contest has also led to a number of other resignations, including that of Ms Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell as SNP chief executive.
Ash Regan, Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes at a leadership debate in Inverness earlier this month
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf and former community safety minister Ash Regan are all in the running for the top job.
Whoever becomes the new SNP leader and first minister will face a number of difficult challenges as they take office.
Here are five of the key priorities that are expected to be at the top of their agenda.
Scottish independence supporters at an All Under One Banner march in Glasgow last year
Defining a clear plan for independence
The campaign for Scottish independence did not stop following the results of the 2014 referendum.
The SNP leadership candidates each believe they can lead Scotland to independence but are yet to define a clear route to indyref2.
A special conference due to be held earlier this month to discuss plans was postponed following Ms Sturgeon’s resignation.
Ms Sturgeon’s preference was to treat the next general election, which will be held no later than 24 January 2025, as a de facto referendum.
The new leader will not be obligated to follow the same course and an alternative could be to treat the next Holyrood election, due in 2026, as a de facto referendum.
However, the UK government refuses to consent to a second referendum and the UK Supreme Court last year ruled that the Scottish parliament cannot legislate for another vote without Westminster approval.
Independence supporters will be keen to hear what the new first minister’s plans are to overcome the block, while those who wish to remain part of the UK will be hoping for another decade of fruitless campaigning.
Protesters took to the streets after the UK government blocked the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
How to progress with gender recognition reforms
The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill has been a contentious issue within the SNP.
In October last year, Ms Regan quit as community safety minister shortly before MSPs began debating the first stage of the bill. A total of seven SNP MSPs broke the whip to vote against the bill, which would make it easier for trans people to obtain a gender recognition certificate.
It then became a constitutional dispute in January when the UK government took the unprecedented step of using section 35 of the Scotland Act to block the bill from receiving royal assent and becoming law.
The new first minister may wish to challenge the intervention in court. The bill could also be dropped altogether or amended to satisfy the UK government.
Mr Yousaf has stated it would be “responsible” to drop a potential legal challenge if the lord advocate believed the Scottish government would lose.
Ms Regan believes any court challenge would fail, while Ms Forbes has previously pledged to amend the legislation to ensure it cannot be blocked again.
Whatever the decision, there will be displeasure from certain camps and allies of the party.
Campaigner Peter Krykant laying a wreath outside the Scottish parliament to mark International Overdose Awareness Day in 2021
Tackling Scotland’s drug deaths shame
Drug misuse continues to blight Scotland’s neighbourhoods.
Official data released last year showed there were 1,330 deaths in 2021 due to drug misuse.
It was the first time in eight years the figure had decreased, but Scotland continues to have the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe.
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Sky’s Beth Rigby was joined by Nicola Sturgeon earlier this month
The Scottish government has been attempting to increase access to rehabilitation and support for problematic drug use, including opening two family rehab centres.
An additional £250m has also been invested to tackle the “drug deaths emergency”.
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The new first minister is being called to back the Scottish Conservatives’ Right to Recovery Bill and see it through parliament.
The proposed legislation would enshrine in law the right of those struggling with addiction to access their preferred method of treatment, unless ruled harmful by a clinician.
Wendy Duncan said Scotland is an ‘EU leader when it comes to drug deaths’
When Sky News visited Scotland’s “Yes” towns and cities to see if the hunger for indyref2 remained, one woman said tackling drug-related deaths should be high on the agenda.
Wendy Duncan, 80, told us that the campaign for independence was a “waste of money and a waste of time”.
She added: “We’re an EU leader when it comes to drug deaths. It’s a scandal and the government should be concentrating on those types of things in Scotland.”
One woman told Sky News that ‘everything is going up in price, except wages’. File pic
Alleviating the cost of living crisis
The country barely emerged from the COVID pandemic before it plunged into a cost of living crisis.
Households are having to spend more on food and general bills and have seen their energy costs soar.
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Inflation takes surprise leap with food and booze costs to blame
Businesses have also been hit. The chip shop industry is just one of many that has been battered recently with the price of fish, cooking oil and energy skyrocketing.
As one Glasgow woman told Sky News: “Everything is going up in price, except wages. The new first minister should make sure the minimum wage goes up.”
Jean Whyte said she fears for those living off benefits and those not in work
In Dundee, Jean Whyte, 66, said she fears for those living off benefits and those not in work.
Ms Whyte said: “[My partner and I] are lucky that we have a wee bit of money behind us. But we used to donate to a food bank every two weeks – that’s now once a month or every six weeks.
“I have heard that a lot of people who used to donate to food banks are now using them.”
Although a pay deal has been accepted, union bosses say this ‘will not solve’ the NHS Scotland staffing crisis
Turning the NHS around
Scotland’s NHS is yet to recover from an extremely difficult winter which saw A&E waiting times reach record levels.
Although A&E performance has improved since the start of the year, key treatment time targets were again missed earlier this month.
NHS 24 staffing has been increased to help cope with the demand and up to £8m is being provided to health boards to alleviate pressure from delayed discharge.
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Scotland is in the grip of an NHS crisis
Unison, GMB and Royal College of Nursing members recently accepted the Scottish government’s pay offer, but union bosses have warned the deal “does nothing to solve” the NHS Scotland staffing crisis.
Patients are said to be “waiting too long for routine operations” and staff are working under “unacceptably stressful conditions”.
Margaret Maguire and Catherine McGroggan said Scotland was ‘suffering’
In West Dunbartonshire, Margaret Maguire and Catherine McGroggan told Sky News that the country was “suffering”.
Ms McGroggan, 73, claimed the Scottish government continues to blame a lot of the NHS’s struggles on the pandemic.
She stated: “That was two years ago, and people are still struggling to get an appointment with a doctor. I’m not online so how is someone on the phone supposed to see my hands if I’ve got an issue with them?”
Ms Maguire, 75, added: “They are playing on the pandemic too much.”
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With all eyes on who becomes the new leader of Scotland, improving results in these key areas will be a crucial challenge for the next first minister.
A nine-year-old girl found dead in Weston-super-Mare has been named on the day police revealed a teenager had been charged with her murder.
Emergency services were called to Lime Close in the Somerset town at 6.09pm on Monday but Aria Thorpe was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said a 15-year-old boy had been charged with her murder and that a preliminary post-mortem found she died from a single stab wound.
The teenage boy – who can’t be named due to his age – will appear at Bristol Magistrates’ Court later today.
A police cordon remains in place as forensics officers continue their work.
Flowers and tributes have been left at the scene. Pic: PA
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Superintendent Jen Appleford, from Avon and Somerset Police, said the community was in shock and Aria’s family were being supported by police.
“It is impossible to adequately describe how traumatic the past 36 hours have been for them and we’d like to reiterate in the strongest possible terms their request for privacy,” she said.
Supt Appleford said police were working with local schools and other agencies to make sure support is available.
Britain loves chocolate.
We’re estimated to consume 8.2kg each every year, a good chunk of it at Christmas, but the cost of that everyday luxury habit has been rising fast.
Whitakers have been making chocolate in Skipton in North Yorkshire for 135 years, but they have never experienced price pressures as extreme as those in the last five.
“We buy liquid chocolate and since 2023, the price of our chocolate has doubled,” explains William Whitaker, the real-life Willy Wonka and the fourth generation of the family to run the business.
William Whitaker, managing director of the company
“It could have been worse. If we hadn’t been contracted [with a supplier], it would have trebled.
“That represents a £5,000 per-tonne increase, and we use a thousand tonnes a year. And we only sell £12-£13m of product, so it’s a massive effect.”
Whitakers makes 10 million pieces of chocolate a week in a factory on the much-expanded site of the original bakery where the business began.
Automated production lines snake through the site moulding, cutting, cooling, coating and wrapping a relentless procession of fondants, cremes, crisps and pure chocolate products for customers, including own-brand retail, supermarkets, and the catering trade.
Steepest inflation in the business
All of them have faced price increases as Whitakers has grappled with some of the steepest inflation in the food business.
Cocoa prices have soared in the last two years, largely because of a succession of poor cocoa harvests in West Africa, where Ghana and the Ivory Coast produce around two-thirds of global supply.
A combination of drought and crop disease cut global output by around 14% last year, pushing consumer prices in the other direction, with chocolate inflation passing 17% in the UK in October.
Skimpflation and shrinkflation
Some major brands have responded by cutting the chocolate content of products – “skimpflation” – or charging more for less – “shrinkflation”.
Household-name brands including Penguin and Club have cut the cocoa and milk solid content so far they can no longer be classified as chocolate, and are marketed instead as “chocolate-flavour”.
Whitakers have stuck to their recipes and product sizes, choosing to pass price increases on to customers while adapting products to the new market conditions.
“Not only are major brands putting up prices over 20%, sometimes 40%, they’ve also reduced the size of their pieces and sometimes the ingredients,” says William Whitaker.
“We haven’t done any of that. We knew that long-term, the market will fall again, and that happier days will return.
“We’ve introduced new products where we’ve used chocolate as a coating rather than a solid chocolate because the centre, which is sugar-based, is cheaper than the chocolate.
“We’ve got a big product range of fondant creams, and others like gingers and Brazil nuts, where we’re using that chocolate as a coating.”
The costs are adding up
A deluge of price rises
Brazil nuts have enjoyed their own spike in price, more than doubling to £15,000 a tonne at one stage.
On top of commodity prices determined by markets beyond their control, Whitakers face the same inflationary pressures as other UK businesses.
“We’ve had the minimum wage increasing every year, we had the national insurance rise last year, and sort of hidden a little bit in this budget is a business rate increase.
“This is a small business, we turn over £12m, but our rates will go up nearly £100,000 next year before any other costs.
“If you add up all the cocoa and all the other cost increases in 2024 and 2025, it’s nearly £3m of cost increases we’ve had to bear. Some of that is returning to a little normality. It does test the relevance of what you do.”
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