Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 08 June 2022
I cannot believe that question—the extent of the public money that is being wasted by this SNP Government is absolutely patently obvious. It is increasing week by week and is taking away a lot of money that could and should have been used to finance the public books.
I remind members what Audit Scotland has said about parliamentary scrutiny in relation to the spending of public money—this might answer another part of the question that I have just been asked. The Auditor General said:
“The Scottish Government now needs to be more proactive in showing where and how this money was spent, and show a clearer line from budgets to funding announcements to actual spending. This will support scrutiny and transparency”.
That, cabinet secretary, is exactly the same conclusion as the Finance and Public Administration Committee came to.
I turn to the tax issue that is central to the problems that the Scottish Government faces in relation to the disincentives of tax policy and the weaknesses of the tax take. The cabinet secretary has said that Scotland has a progressive income tax policy, but she should heed the warnings of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which says that, in the next five years, Kate Forbes will have 700,000 middle earners in a higher tax bracket.
Neither should the cabinet secretary forget that, in December, the Scottish Fiscal Commission dismissed her claim that the majority of Scots would be paying less tax. That is simply not borne out by the evidence. The disincentives that come from that are likely to be significant and, most important, Scotland’s divergence from the UK income tax rate threatens to damage Scotland’s competitiveness, which is why we want to see a return to parity as soon as resources allow.