AS our kids gear up for the summer now that the exam season has passed, others are getting their campaign boots on – or should that be flip-flops?

Visiting the Dumbarton Youth Corridor project, the other week, young people told me how they were looking forward to our Holiday Programme again. Unfunded yet again in the Labour Group’s budget, since 2018 this scheme has been a priority SNP investment.

On average £2million per year ensures that children and your people are engaged, entertained, and continue to excel, providing a golden thread throughout the summer and ensuring kids continue to flourish and learn.

What have Labour learned from this? Not much!

Starmer’s somersaults to win Tory votes continue to shock but not surprise.

Promises to abolish student fees across the UK once again end up on the scrap heap. The best Labour can promise young people is the extending the vote. Two promises the SNP has delivered on in Scotland; students benefitting from free higher and further education since 2007 by the first SNP Government - and guaranteed since then.

The best the Tories can come up with is plans for mandatory national service for 18 year olds that will involve a ‘choice’ between military conscription and volunteering. Costed £2.5bn a year by the end of the £1.5bn will be paid for with money from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).

The UK Government promised its UK Shared Prosperity Fund would replace in full all EU funding lost to Scotland after Brexit. But it has only allocated £212 million to Scotland over a three-year period, when EU funding would have been worth around £549 million over three years – a shortfall of £337 million.

In Glasgow EU funding supported everything from capital investment projects to anti-poverty and social inclusion initiatives, and employability programmes and support for small businesses to increase growth and exports.

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However, since Brexit, the UK has suffered the largest five-year decline in goods trade since comparable records began, with the volume of UK goods imports and exports being 7.4 per cent smaller than in 2018.

Last month another bampot Brexit barrier was imposed. New complicated checks mean more expensive export and import controls leading to higher food prices and business costs. Independent, expert analysts who advise major supermarkets, wholesalers, and the government on the impact of Brexit on trade, reported the cost of new border controls will be £2.9 billion - almost ten times higher than the UK Government estimates. 

If passed on to consumers this will see the average household monthly food shop continue to increase. Some food importers warning that the new checks could add 60 per cent to costs.

Both the Labour Party and the Tories are wedded to austerity and Brexit. Whilst the SNP has a proud record of action – with transformative policies like the Baby Box, free school meals, free bus travel for under-22 and the game-changing Scottish Child Payment which is contributing to keeping 100,000 children out of poverty in 2024/25. All from an ever-decreasing block grant return on our taxes from Westminster.

This is a sharp contrast to the apathy of the UK government, whose apathy has left 4.3 million children living in poverty. And robbed them of opportunity and hope. 

Last month I had the privilege of meeting the EU Ambassador to the UK. Coincidentally it was the same day Europe offered the UK a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 which would have allowed young people to live, study or work across Europe for up to four years.

Labours immediately rejected the EU’s offer of a youth visa – before the Tories could even consider –characteristic of their cynical search for Tory votes, flagrantly dismissing the rights of young workers and vulnerable businesses. Within 24 hours the drawbridge was drawn up.

Between 2019 and 2022 the number of children on school trips abroad has declined by 81 per cent. Which is why here in Glasgow we have worked with the European Parliament Liaison Office to forge links between our schools and their Ambassador Schools Programme. Whilst not a replacement for the EU Erasmus+ programme which funded so many school trips abroad and wider collaboration, we hope by participation in the scheme Glasgow schools will be able to continue forging European links and opportunities.

Imagine what we could do with the proposed national service £12bn to spend on young people over the course of the next UK parliament? Lift children out of poverty, invest in education, empower youth services, and encourage international exchanges.

Same as Sunak, Sir Keir has confirmed a Labour government will keep the cruel two child benefit cap, the rape clause, tuition fees and an unelected House of Lords, it is clearer than ever that Labour offers no change. 

Young people’s horizons have never been so important: only the SNP offer a horizon of opportunity and hope.