Humza Yousaf has warned his rivals vying to become the next first minister of Scotland over any “foolish” move to push the party’s policy agenda to the ring wing.
The Health Secretary, who is battling with Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and MSP Ash Regan to replace Nicola Sturgeon in Bute House, has appealed for the SNP to continue its “progressive agenda” that he said had resulted in the party gaining popularity with Scots.
Yesterday, Ms Forbes criticised the Scottish Government for a lack of business sense, warning that policies have not been drawn up with industry needs in mind.
Read more: Humza Yousaf would not ban businesses if they miss key DRS deadline
While Ms Regan has criticised a flurry of policies, included the gender recognition reforms and accelerated the move away from North Sea oil and gas.
But Mr Yousaf told journalists he was “keen to continue our progressive agenda”.
He made the comments as he unveiled a policy to expand free childcare for all one and two-year-olds, a key pledge by Ms Sturgeon ahead of the 2021 Holyrood election.
Mr Yousaf added: “I believe in a wellbeing economy.
"I believe of course in economic growth, but not for its own sake, in order to make sure that people’s living standards increase, to make sure we can pay people properly so they can withstand the shocks of things like the Tory cost-of-living crisis.
Read more: SNP bars public from watching leadership hustings
“I would say to any of my colleague in the leadership race that the SNP has managed to gain support to dizzying heights because of the progressive agenda that they have.
“I think it would be foolish to abandon that.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel