What would the SNP leadership candidates actually do if they win?

Have the SNP leadership candidates learned from the mistakes of their first televised debate? Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan competed to trash the SNP’s legacy when they went head-to-head earlier this week. Last night’s Channel 4 clash was tamer: the trio were at pains to defend their party’s record in government. But while the atmosphere was more civil, viewers didn’t learn a huge amount more about the candidates’ plans for Scotland.

Kate Forbes was quick to plaster over Tuesday’s wounds, saying that it has been a ‘privilege to serve alongside Humza Yousaf in government and to serve under Nicola Sturgeon’ – though she did not apologise to Yousaf, when prodded by host Krishnan Guru-Murthy, for her attacks two days previously.

‘We’re electing here our future First Minister, who will have to deal with some very weighty matters,’ she said. ‘The future First Minister is going to have to deal with a lot worse than we’ve been dealing with through this contest.’

But if Forbes was kinder about Yousaf’s track record, Guru-Murthy didn’t hold back. ‘You are fantastically unpopular’, he told Yousaf, before honing in on Scotland’s health service crisis. Pushing back, Yousaf described how Scotland’s NHS outperforms every other national health service in the UK:

That’s not down to good fortune. That’s not down to coincidence. That’s down to a good track record that shouldn’t be trashed, particularly by members of our own party.

Will NHS staff be convinced by that? Will the health service’s patients? That seems unlikely: waiting times remain at record highs and junior doctors are to be balloted on strike action over pay disputes in a few weeks’ time. Yousaf will need to prepare better answers on the health service if he is to convince voters he’s committed to its improvement.

On the economy, Forbes’s plans for taxation also came under fire. Guru-Murthy remarked that with her ideas about cutting tax and growing the economy, she sounded ‘a bit like Liz Truss’. Regan didn’t fare much better – she said her plan was to ‘build, build, build’ but wasn’t clear where the money to invest in more infrastructure would come from.

On oil and gas, Regan spoke about how there was a need to be ‘careful with the transition to renewables’, with an emphasis on protecting the jobs of those in the industry. Since the start of the contest, questions have been raised about both Forbes and Regan’s views on the SNP coalition with Greens given their plans to slow the race to net zero. Both have appeared indifferent to the suggestion that they may have to lead a minority government if the Greens refuse to work with them.

Forbes’s religious beliefs came under scrutiny once again, as the discussion turned to equal marriage and abortion. Yousaf put himself forward again as the ‘unashamedly progressive’ candidate. He said the people of Scotland ‘need to know that if there is an attack on our rights on equal marriage, for example, that their first minister will defend their rights not just to the hilt, but also advance them where necessary’. Regan, meanwhile, a quieter voice in this debate, said that she is ‘not religious’, but respects other people’s views.

Forbes spoke about how she would serve in the future can be gleaned from how she has served in the past: ‘Setting budgets without prejudice,’ was her mantra. When quizzed further by Yousaf, about whether she would be able to stand up for the rights of certain communities ‘when they’re under attack’, Forbes spun her reply into an answer on trust; she asked Scottish people to believe her ‘solemn and honest pledge to uphold protections for every Scot’. On abortion, she wouldn’t answer whether she believed it was ‘wrong in principle’, but said: ‘There is a distinction between what I would do myself, which I think is actually the common view held by a lot of people in Scotland and beyond principle.’ 

Will this be enough to convince wavering SNP members that Forbes' religious views will take a backseat to her policy-making? With only one poll of SNP members having been released so far, it is hard to tell whether Forbes’s faith remains a stumbling block for some. Yesterday’s Ipsos poll found that Yousaf and Forbes were essentially neck and neck, while ‘outsider’ Regan continues to trail in third place. 

There is still a lot to play for though, as a significant proportion of members remain undecided about who they’ll back. While this TV debate wasn’t quite as explosive as Tuesday’s, viewers gleaned a bit more insight into the candidates’ policies on topics other than independence. In a contest so dominated by discussion about independence, this was rather refreshing – though the candidates didn't have long to expand on their points and many voters will remain confused about what Forbes, Yousaf and Regan would do if they win this contest.