We will make our education system one of the best in the world with equal opportunities for all of our children. We will –
• Expand early education and childcare to 30 hours per week – this will require, by the end of the par-liament, additional investment of £500 million per year by 2021, 600 new childcare centres and 20,000 new childcare staff.
• Invest £750 million in raising attainment for all – targeting school funding where it is needed, and put-ting more resources in the hands of individual schools including £500m raised directly from local taxa-tion for investment in schools.
• Implement the National Improvement Framework to drive up standards across all schools.
• Empower parents and teachers to be more involved in the decisions about their schools, and provide more resources direct to schools.
• Widen access to our universities, protect college places, appoint a Commissioner for Fair Ac-cess, invest in free education, and reform student support to benefit all students.
We will create opportunities to thrive from our youngest children to our oldest pensioner. We will –
• Support parents and young children with a new Maternity and Early Years grant, the universal baby box, and 500 more health visitors.
• Ensure that our young people benefit from new opportunities with 30,000 apprenticeships, a new Jobs Grant to support them into work, free bus travel for apprentices and young people who have been unemployed, and help for housing for 18-21 year olds.
• Build a social security system based on dignity and respect and invest more than £200 million to make social security fairer.
• Protect disabled people from further cuts, reform the assessment system and support Scotland’s Carers.
• Tackle poverty through a Fairer Scotland Action Plan.
• Give our older people the opportunity for thriving and active lives with concessionary travel, free per-sonal care, free prescriptions and protect low income pensioners from rises in taxation.
We will transform public services for the 21st century – our NHS will be protected, nurtured and re-formed. We will –
• We will increase the health budget in real terms every year and by almost £2 billion in total over the
course of the next Parliament – £500 million more than inflation.
• Reform the NHS to meet the challenge of an ageing population, investing in social and primary care, and allocating an additional £150 million to mental health and £100m to tackling cancer.
• Invest £200 million in five new elective treatment centres and create a new trauma network using sites in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow.
• Ensure there are no barriers to care between health boards, social care partnerships, primary care, communities and local councils.
• Protect funding for the police in real terms and introduce a new criminal offence to tackle all forms of domestic abuse.
We will grow our economy with a focus on creating more, better and higher paid jobs. We will –
• Lead a national drive to boost productivity with support for new ideas and entrepreneurs.
• Extend the Small Business Bonus, so that 100,000 businesses will pay no business rates at all, main-taining a competitive business environment.
• Build the infrastructure that Scotland needs to grow, with almost £20 billion of investment in roads, rail, schools and 50,000 new homes – and 100% broadband coverage across all of Scotland.
• Extend payment of the living wage and develop an employment service that supports people into work.
• Establish an Innovation prize, support education for entrepreneurs, review business support to focus on innovation, internationalisation and scaling up companies.