Meeting of the Parliament 11 December 2024
I will make some progress, then give way shortly.
That policy would mean more money for young families who are getting their homes together and less for the SNP to waste on pet projects and fringe obsessions.
We did not just set out plans that would cut taxes for workers: our plans would also cut tax for many pensioner households, too—households that are forgotten by Labour and which were cynically dropped from the SNP’s budget this year. As winter approaches, I agree with the SNP that it was Labour that originally scrapped the winter fuel payment, but despite its attempt to grab headlines, the SNP then scrapped it, too, and has not restored it. Many pensioners this winter will get nothing at all, and will get only £100 next year.
As the mercury dips, what is different about the temperatures this winter compared with those next winter? Is it that the SNP calculated that by next year, the election campaign will be well under way? Does the SNP really think that it is okay for pensioners to freeze at home this winter, but that somehow they do not need to do so in an election year? Yes—we should be looking to save £2 million from free bus travel for asylum seekers this year if, at the same time, the SNP is taking the winter fuel payment off our pensioners.
We need to look to business to drive growth in Scotland, so that is why we do not just propose cutting taxes for average Scots—we also want to undo the damage that the SNP has done to many Scottish businesses. Across Scotland, retail, hospitality and leisure businesses are struggling because footfall is down, costs are up and the SNP is clobbering them with more red tape.
Now, Scottish Labour has dealt business another blow—a national insurance tax on jobs in sectors in which the wages bill is often by far the biggest cost. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, that national insurance tax will also fall on workers through lower wage growth.
That is why we want to mitigate the cost of Labour and the SNP with a tax cut for many businesses next year, by passing on the 40 per cent rates relief to shops and leisure businesses. We also want a game-changing, uncapped 100 per cent all-in relief for our pubs and restaurants. That would benefit nearly 3,500 pubs and 3,300 restaurants in Scotland. Instead, the Scottish Government’s budget offers relief only to small businesses with a rateable value of £51,000 and less, and only at the 40 per cent rate. Surely what the industry deserves now is a shot in the arm, so I hope that ministers might think again about extending relief during the coming budget negotiations.
Let us turn to some of the key areas in the budget. The SNP is right to press the United Kingdom Government for an uplift to cover the costs of the national insurance contributions increase. Whether the UK Government will do that is still unclear, but it is clear that the Scottish Government pays civil servants higher wages than they are paid elsewhere in the UK, and that there are more of them per capita. The national insurance increase bites harder into the public finances as a result of the SNP’s policy decisions on the shape and size of its civil service.