Meeting of the Parliament 19 February 2026 [Draft]
I accept that the fiscal framework results in Scotland having to constantly compare its tax performance and income performance with those of London and south-east England. If the fiscal framework recognised that the economy of London and south-east England is so utterly different from that of everywhere else in the UK, Scotland would be in a very different position. There is a significant need for reform of the fiscal framework.
This year, the Scottish Greens did not propose any further changes to income tax as part of our budget negotiations because we believe that Scotland already has a progressive income tax system. We proposed changes elsewhere and I am glad that we were able to come to agreement with the Government on the introduction of a private jet tax that will properly tax 12,000 incredibly polluting flights into Scotland every year, on a new mansion tax, new bands for council tax and the removal of shooting estates from the small business bonus scheme, where they were masquerading as small businesses to receive tax benefits that they simply do not need.
There will always be a little bit more that we could do on income tax and we must always ensure that we maintain progressiveness in the system, but the focus now, and in the next session of Parliament, should be shifting the burden of taxation from work to wealth. The single biggest failure in the 27 years of this Parliament has been the failure to reform council tax. We have come so far on income tax and have been able to do an incredible amount for our constituents with the money that we have raised, but Scotland’s other major tax—and one that is paid by the vast majority of households—has been left untouched and is still the system that we inherited in 1991, when there was a quick and dirty compromise to replace the hated poll tax.
There is much more to do in the next session of Parliament and that must be underpinned by a far greater degree of honesty in our debates on tax and spending. It is not credible for parties to come to the Parliament demanding that the Government spends hundreds of millions of pounds more while also demanding that it cuts income tax or other forms of devolved taxation.
My final point is about the need for us actually to spend less time debating Parliament’s tax powers because we have given far more control over tax to local government. Local government knows far better than a national Parliament what the economic, social and environmental needs of communities are. Clearly, we cannot devolve income tax, but there is a desperate need to reform local taxation in this country and to give our colleagues in local government the powers that they need. In the debate before this one, we heard about issues such as the cruise ship levy that would massively benefit communities such as Inverclyde, which I represent, or Orkney. I hope that, in the next session of Parliament, we can defend our progressive record on income tax but move to the far more urgently needed work that is required to fairly tax wealth in this country.