Meeting of the Parliament 14 December 2016
Of course a wider package of measures is required. Clearly, however, the challenges in Scotland are greater, and that is why I believe that we must have the investment to match. It is quite clear that Scottish education authorities are struggling with their finances and that there have been drastic cuts to schools. We need to make a difference in order to close the attainment gap. To deny that is to deny reality.
My final argument concerns the fact that the Conservatives present themselves as a low-tax party, but they forget about all the stealth taxes that they propose to introduce. To be fair, they want lower income taxes, but they support a number of more regressive stealth taxes. For example, the council tax in England is rising by up to 6 per cent over the next two years. Perhaps employers would have something to say about the increase in national insurance contributions from those who earn £45,000 a year and just below that level, which represents a big increase of roughly £200 for someone on that wage. That is a proposal from the Conservatives but it is not something that they boast about. The apprenticeship levy is not additional funding for training; it is a replacement of the funding that we already have. Dare I mention the prescription charges and tuition fees that the Conservatives are desperate to introduce in Scotland? All those things represent stealth taxation rather than taxation that is up front, transparent and progressive, which is what income tax is.
My proposal is that we should reject the Conservatives’ throwback to the 1990s. Ruth Davidson’s political hero is John Major. He was famously, or infamously, in favour of 22 Tory tax rises—those who were around in that era will remember those stealth taxes—and was booted out of office immediately after he proposed them. However, we have also heard today that the Conservatives want us just to blithely follow what the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London wants to do—an anti-devolution stance—and that they reject the proposal that we should invest in our economy through investing in education. Truly, we are looking at a Conservative Party that has gone back to the 1990s and is not the moderate Conservative Party that it likes to present itself as.
I move amendment S5M-03063.2, to leave out from “families” to end and insert:
“investing in skills is the best way to strengthen the economy, and calls for a modest penny on income tax for this purpose, raising £500 million to transform Scottish education.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S5M-03063.2 Taxation Motion