Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2016
As I have said repeatedly, I will set out my proposals on income tax. It is interesting that Ruth Davidson is not proposing to use the income tax powers. Over the past year, how many times has she stood over there and said to me, “The time is soon when we will all have to decide how we will use the income tax powers”? Yet, as she confirmed at her conference, she is not proposing a single iota of difference from George Osborne’s tax proposals.
Ruth Davidson led the troops up to the top of the hill, promising a 30p tax band but, when she got them there, she said that she was going to march them straight back down again. She is going to mimic George Osborne; I am going to take the decisions that are right for Scotland.
If Ruth Davidson wants to talk about differences between Scotland and England, I will give her some. If someone is a taxpayer in Scotland, their children do not pay for a university education, unlike in England. If someone is a taxpayer in Scotland, they do not pay for personal care for their elderly parents, unlike in England. If someone is a taxpayer in Scotland, they get medicines free when they are sick, unlike in England.
Those are some of the benefits that taxpayers in Scotland get—unlike those in England—but which Ruth Davidson wants to take away. Perhaps she will answer this: how much do the Tories think that people should pay for a university education and how much would she have the prescription charge return to? Let us have some answers from her before she has the nerve to stand here and lecture anyone else.