Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2024
The decision to freeze council tax was a support measure in response to the pressure on household incomes due to the cost of living crisis that has been driven by the decisions of Murdo Fraser’s UK Tory Government and, of course, the catastrophic mini-budget that sent inflation sky high. I think that Murdo Fraser was a supporter of Liz Truss and wanted us to follow her tax decisions, so I am not sure that he is in the best position to give me any advice on income tax or any other tax in this place.
I will present the Scottish budget on 4 December, and I have already told Parliament that it will be a challenging budget. However, despite being only 71 days away from our budget, I simply do not yet know how much funding we will have for next year. I am looking to the chancellor to give further clarity on 30 October.
We have called for a move away from an approach that is focused on annual funding. We need greater certainty of funding to help the devolved Governments to plan further ahead, so I welcome the chancellor’s intention to move to multiyear budgets. I want to work with her to ensure that they provide the certainty that we need for our medium-term budget planning.