Conservatives' Scottish manifesto pledges analysed

The Conservatives' leader in Scotland, Russell Findlay, has launched his party's 2026 manifesto for the Holyrood election. The full document runs to 96 pages. So, what is the party promising? BBC Scotland journalists have been analysing the pledges.

The Conservatives promise they will bring in a "three-convictions-and-it's-jail" policy for serial shoplifters and people committing anti-social behaviour, tougher sentences for sex offenders and mandatory life terms for child rapists.

Killers who refuse to reveal what happened to their victims would face a "no body, no parole" rule. Whole life tariffs would guarantee some murderers would die in jail.

Automatic early release for all prisoners would be abolished.

The Conservatives say they'll fast-track new "no frills" jails and extend existing buildings.

The Tories want to copy Sweden, which has struck an agreement to dispatch up to 600 of its prisoners to a jail in Estonia.

Sweden will stump up £7395 for each of them every month, compared to £3928 for housing inmates in a Scottish prison.

If Scotland struck the same deal, that would represent an 88% increase for each prisoner sent overseas.

And if we transported 600 of them to jails abroad, the annual bill would be £53m.

A hefty price tag and that's before anyone starts talking about human rights.

The idea is undeniably an alternative to releasing prisoners early to ease overcrowding - the route taken by the SNP-run Scottish government - and in the short term, it is cheaper than building new jails.

The Tories say they'll protect communities and provide justice for victims.

Critics will say Scotland jails far too many people as it is.

There are plenty of eye-catching promises on the NHS with big price tags attached.

From creating "Super Saturdays" for routine operations and widening access to weight-loss drugs to ensuring everyone can see a GP within 48 hours.

To do this, the Tories say they will double the proportion of the health budget that goes to family doctors. For GPs who are booked up weeks in advance and seeing more complex patients, it is unclear how quickly staff can be recruited and capacity increased.

To reduce waiting lists, five national treatment centres, currently on hold, will be built with £70m allocated to increase NHS capacity. But the cost of one of these centres in Livingston is currently projected to be over £180m.

The Tories oppose current policies on Minimum Unit Pricing and plans to reconfigure neonatal services but many of the broader themes will sound familiar even if the strategies differ.

The Tories say they want to "raise school standards" by scrapping Curriculum for Excellence, ensuring pupils know their times tables and giving headteachers the power to permanently exclude disruptive pupils.

However, it is the commitment to review the approach of mainstreaming which will likely draw most attention.

The party says that children with additional support needs (ASN) "must be supported in the classroom" but that the "presumption of mainstreaming" young people who have additional needs has resulted in "pupils' learning needs not being met and contributes to disruptive behaviour".

The concept was introduced over twenty years ago, when a more inclusive approach was embraced by educationalists who said it would bring about better outcomes for both children with ASN and children in the wider school community.

However, since then, the number of children with ASN in Scotland has increased vastly and now sits at 43%.

Several reports in recent years have highlighted a lack of resources to support pupils with ASN in mainstream schools.

Russell Findlay has returned to a very familiar Tory refrain - opposition to a second independence referendum.

Positioning themselves as the foil to the nationalists' cause has worked well for the party in past elections.

But with the constitution sitting further down many voters' priorities lists, will it be an effective tactic again?

Over the last decade, control of some welfare benefits has been devolved from Westminster to Holyrood.

The Scottish Conservatives say Scotland now has a "bloated benefits bill" and systems of "light-touch reviews" that will lead to spending of £10bn a year.

The party proposes a two-child limit on the Scottish Child Payment. Introduced in 2021, those on certain benefits received a £10 payment per week per child under 16, before it gradually rose to £28 this month. The Tories say families should only receive this benefit for the first two children.

In addition, the manifesto also proposes restrictions on Discretionary Housing Payments that were introduced to mitigate against the UK's controversial "bedroom tax" of the 2010s.

The party also says it will reinstate the UK's old Cold Weather Payment for pensioners, which was replaced by Social Security Scotland, and tie it to average temperatures.

Elsewhere, the Tories echo Reform's proposals to reinstate the "local connection" criteria for homelessness applicants, tying the issue to asylum seekers and the housing shortages in Glasgow.

There is no suggestion of seismic changes to council finance, like scrapping the council tax.

Instead they propose giving councils a fixed proportion of the Scottish government's budget. Every year, the amount would go up in line with the overall government budget.

The party also proposes giving councils far more freedom over how to spend their money.

At present, a significant proportion has to be spent on particular aims or objectives agreed between councils and Holyrood.

Some specific policy proposals include a pothole fund and cash to abolish some council car park charges. The devil would be in the detail.

Adult Disability Payment (ADP) replaced Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in Scotland four years ago, and can be claimed alongside someone's salary.

Between March 2022 and the end of January 2026, £6.1bn in ADP has been issued.

There are roughly 498,000 people as claimants of ADP at the moment, 40% of whom are receiving the benefit for Mental and Behavioural disorders.

The Conservatives want a rethink; they say it's "unaffordable, unfair, and unsustainable" to continue this way, and would toughen eligibility for ADP by introducing an assessment for mental health conditions.

Their manifesto says they could save £2bn a year by the end of the Parliament.

The Scottish Conservatives want to paint themselves as the party unafraid to take difficult decisions.

With almost half a million ADP clients, will that be a vote winner?

One Scottish Conservative manifesto pledge blows a hole in the UK's commitment to reach "net zero" planet-warming emissions by 2050.

The concern is that tackling climate change involves costs which Scotland "cannot afford," like green heating and electric vehicles.

So it commits to scrapping the target of reaching net-zero by 2045, which is five years ahead of the UK as a whole.

The target was recommended by the independent Climate Change Committee because Scotland's land has the space to plant more trees which absorb carbon dioxide.

What it doesn't require is for average households to switch to green technologies any quicker than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The targets for each of the home nations are intrinsically linked and so if Scotland doesn't hit the target by 2045, the UK won't hit it by 2050.

At the moment, that would put the UK's climate ambitions behind most of the developed world.