SCOTLAND’S recovery from coronavirus will be the top priority for ministers in the coming years, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said today as she laid out her government’s legislative plans for the new parliamentary term.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the programme, the first since a co-operation deal was agreed by the SNP and the Scottish Greens, was short on big ideas, arguing that the country needed a much more radical set of legislative proposals. 

He branded the programme “tired and rehashed,” accused the SNP of lacking ambition and said that Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic was being held back as a result. Mr Sarwar also reiterated calls for an increase in the Scottish child payment.

Ms Sturgeon promised MSPs that a Bill to create a national care service would be brought forward in the current parliamentary year, with the plans fully implemented by 2026. 

She said the new service would be one of the greatest achievements of the Scottish Parliament and “the most significant public-service reform since the creation of the NHS.”

The SNP leader pledged the abolition of charges for dental treatment, as well as the implementation of “wraparound childcare” for the poorest families, aimed at offering free care before and after school.

Work on a second referendum on Scotland’s independence, to be held by 2023, will restart, the First Minister said, and plans to introduce a miners’ pardon Bill were also confirmed.  

Ms Sturgeon added that a new strategy for the housing sector, including the creation of a national system of rent controls, would be published later this year.

Scotland’s TUC welcomed parts of the programme but urged caution over its “lack of ambition” around a just transition for workers post-Covid. It claimed that the programme “tried to be all things to all people.”