Sturgeon is about to become our fifth First Minister but no one knows what her Government’s policies will be

In a matter of days, Nicola Sturgeon will become Scotland’s fifth First Minister. She will take on responsibility for a £30bn budget, for heading a Government that has control over Scotland’s public services and soon the Scottish Government will take responsibility for setting income tax rates for people across Scotland, after the biggest ever transfer of fiscal powers away from Westminster.

Listening to Nicola Sturgeon over the last few days, however, no one would ever know. Because despite embarking on a nationwide tour, she hasn’t set out a single policy that her Government will pursue. Instead, she seems intent on carrying on Alex Salmond’s approach of using the Scottish Government as a platform for campaigning against political opponents instead of changing people’s lives.

Let’s be clear about something. The last time Nicola Sturgeon asked Scots for a mandate, it was rejected. After two years of campaigning for independence, people saw right through the false promises and dodgy economics. They agreed to reject the policy that is the SNP’s purpose.

With the referendum question settled, Nicola Sturgeon now has a responsibility to get to grips with governing and dealing with the problems that Scots the length and breadth of the country are facing. This is the least that the people of Scotland deserve – we can’t carry on with two Governments that have their priorities all wrong.

We’ve heard lots of talk from Nicola Sturgeon about fairness, inequality and social justice, but she hasn’t said anything about what she will do about it. We live in a country where the richest people live nine years longer than the poorest, where the worst off children do worse at school than the most well off and where you are more likely to die of a heart attack if you live in a poor area.

We’ve not heard any explanation for why, during Nicola Sturgeon’s seven years as Deputy First Minister, standards in our schools have fallen, our Universities are more inaccessible to the poorest kids than ever before and our NHS is struggling to cope and soon faces half a billion pounds of cuts from the SNP Government. Even on the SNP’s own measure of inequality, nothing has changed since 2007, something the Deputy First Minister failed to mention in a radio interview this morning.

And when it comes to the UK elections in May, people across Scotland will want to know where the SNP now stand on the biggest issues facing the country. Yesterday, I wrote to Nicola Sturgeon asking her where she stood on Labour’s key progressive policies for next year’s election. You can read my letter here . I’m still waiting for a reply.

The 50p tax, the energy price freeze and taxing bankers’ bonuses to pay for jobs aren’t just popular across Scotland – they’re the right things to do. But the SNP, who say they want to hold the balance of power in next year’s election, refuse to give them full support. Instead, the Scottish Government continue to support a cut in corporation tax for the biggest Scottish companies, and the biggest winners would be the energy companies.

Just as they did during the referendum, the SNP are again trying to con people across Scotland. They say they’re the party of social justice, but words aren’t backed up by actions. Nicola Sturgeon hasn’t put forward a single redistributive policy that she’ll pursue as First Minister. There is no sign of any change that will reverse the decline in our schools and hospitals. And she refuses to reverse SNP policies that only move wealth from hard working people to big businesses.

Since the referendum, with the First Minister on the way out, and the Deputy First Minister on a prolonged victory lap pretending the SNP didn’t lose, Scotland has been without a Scottish Government. Next week, I hope Nicola Sturgeon will begin the work of governing again. Before then Scots deserve to know where she stands.

Margaret Curran is Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland