FERGUS EWING: Will the Green tail keep wagging the SNP dog?
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We heard Humza Yousaf on Friday, March 17 at the Inverness Courier Leadership Debate comment on the A9 and A96 as part of his campaign.
In response to a question on the dualling of the A9, he said: “If I am First Minister, the first thing I will do is sit down with my finance secretary who I will appoint and say this is the priority and the budget has to reflect this.”
In response to questions on the dualling of the A96, he said: “I would waste no time in getting Inverness to Nairn, including the Nairn bypass, up and running.”
I attended the hustings hosted by this newspaper in order in particular to hear directly what each of the candidates had to say about the A9 and A96. Thus, I heard them all pledge – and pledge unequivocally – to the completion of the dualling of the A9 and progress on the A96. I took down a note of exactly what Humza Yousaf said because I had not been clear before the hustings meeting what his position was.
The quotes from him above make it crystal clear: There can be no hiding place. The Scottish Government must now deliver and make up for the broken pledge of completion of the A9 dualling by 2025. In Holyrood, in a recent debate on these roads, I said we, the Scottish Government and the SNP, were in “the last chance saloon”. Weeks have passed since then and so, to continue the metaphor, the bartender of that establishment has called: “Time gentlemen please!”
When Holyrood resumes after the Easter recess I shall once again seek to raise with the new First Minister his clearest of promises on both roads and how he plans to deliver on them. I shall take the opportunity to remind him of these commitments made here in Inverness in front of a large number of members of the public, as well as SNP members.
One obstacle to delivery on these commitments is our preoccupation with the co-operation deal with the Green Party. I do not believe that this deal helps us at all, on the contrary, I’m certain it’s damaging Scotland.
To dual the A9 and A96, the absolute necessity is that a much greater share of the overall Scottish capital budget be used in order to achieve this. Other parts of Scotland have seen major improvements. Trams, the Forth Crossing, the Borders railway, Aberdeen peripheral and the M74 extension and so on. So now it is surely time for major upgrades in the Highland? In short, it’s our turn. But will the Greens see it that way? So far all their MSPs have repeatedly refused to support the A9 dualling, finding weasel words to avoid any such commitment.
Over the coming weeks we shall see whether the “green tail” continues to wag the “big yellow dog”, or whether the new FM sticks to his guns and delivers on the pledges he made to us, so very publicly.
