Nicola Sturgeon will promise that Scottish National party MPs at Westminster will vote against any plans to privatise the NHS or cut health spending in England.

The pledge will be one of the main offers in the SNP’s general election manifesto as Sturgeon seeks to bolster her party’s claim its MPs will protect Scottish interests at Westminster.

Sturgeon is expected to reject charges that this would contradict the SNP’s promise not to interfere in English spending decisions and will argue that any NHS spending cuts decided in Westminster will automatically reduce Treasury funding for Holyrood.

In a further effort to shore up support among urban centre-left voters, Sturgeon is expected to endorse calls for a new 50p top rate of taxation but only if introduced across the UK. She will call for an end to a long-standing cap of 1% on public sector pay rises, an £118bn economic stimulus package for the UK economy and protection of the universal winter fuel payments for older people.

Sturgeon said those pledges were proof of her party’s commitment to combating further austerity. “While the polls have narrowed, the Tories are still on course to win the election,” she said ahead of Tuesday’s manifesto launch.

“Labour proved beyond any doubt that they were unable to provide the opposition needed to keep the Tories in check in the last parliament. Only the SNP can provide the strong opposition that Scotland needs to protect our schools, hospitals and vital public services from deeper Tory cuts and further damaging austerity.”

Angus Robertson, the party’s depute (deputy) leader, said the £118bn in new spending could be released by slowing down deficit reduction.

“We clearly don’t have the same priorities as the UK austerity government,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “The manifesto is one that chooses a different future, which looks after the weakest in society, one which the Tories and sadly Labour in many respects have turned their back on.”

Robertson said SNP MPs’ pledge to vote against further austerity measures would “protect the public not just in Scotland but across the UK”.

Asked why, if the SNP supported a 50p top tax rate, it had not already been introduced in Scotland via Holyrood’s own tax-raising powers, Robertson said: “The Scottish government has already outlined its decision. In Westminster we are going to vote to end austerity.

“We are going to stand up for having a different path, not just for Scotland … but for the rest of the UK too.”

The first minister is facing a tough fight to hold on to the 56 of Scotland’s 59 Commons seats the SNP won at the general election in 2015, a record number for any Scottish party, after the surge in its support after the 2014 independence referendum.

After last week’s Manchester Arena bombing, the SNP cancelled the planned manifesto launch last Tuesday. It will now be held in Perth, the main town in the key Tory target seat of Perth and North Perthshire.

Senior SNP figures privately admit the party faces losing up to 15 seats, with the Tories set to win a number of rural constituencies and Labour and the Liberal Democrats eyeing up gains in the Edinburgh area and the Highlands.

Recent opinion polls show the SNP’s support has slipped from a record high of 55% in April 2015 down to 41% last month, with voters drifting away following last year’s Brexit vote and Sturgeon’s call for a second independence referendum, though the party remains comfortably ahead of its rivals.

The SNP lost momentum after campaigning was suspended following the Manchester attack, adding a sense of urgency for Sturgeon.

Rival parties predict deep cuts in SNP majorities in the seats its holds. They report voters are inclined to vote tactically in protest at a second independence poll and over Sturgeon’s perceived failures over devolved policies in schools and the NHS, which are not directly affected by a Westminster election.

Sturgeon is under intense pressure over NHS funding and the cap on public sector pay after she was berated by a nurse during a live election debate on BBC Scotland nine days ago.

The first minister hinted she would lift that pay cap after Claire Austin, a nurse with NHS Lothian, said she had to use food banks and would back a Royal College of Nursing strike to improve pay. “You have no idea how demoralising it is to work within the NHS,” Austin said.

The Tories are pledging to increase health spending in England by £8bn over the next parliament, which would increase Scotland’s grant through its complex funding formula for devolved parliaments.

That means the SNP is unlikely to be called upon to vote down English spending cuts, but the pledge to do so is a signal that the party is willing to join an unofficial “progressive alliance” at Westminster with Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Greens.



Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, again rejected suggestions from Sturgeon on Sunday that he would agree to any formal pact with the SNP if there was a hung parliament. In an interview for Bauer radio, Corbyn said: “There will be no deals. There will be no alliance. We’re fighting this election to win.”

Scottish Labour and the Lib Dems have already pledged to end the NHS and public sector pay freeze, in part by increasing income tax rates in Scotland by 1p across the board and levying a 50p rate on people earning more than £150,000 a year, using Holyrood’s new autonomous income tax powers.