Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2024
The cabinet secretary should listen to what the Scottish Fiscal Commission has said about the need for growth. If we matched UK economic growth, that would, in the current year alone, deliver £624 million extra in tax revenues. The way in which we get more money to spend is by delivering growth. That is a lesson that the Government needs to learn.
What the SNP Government never tells us is that, according to its own figures—the GERS figures—the Barnett formula gives us £2,400 per head of population more to spend in Scotland than the UK average. That is the result of our being in the United Kingdom—the very United Kingdom that the SNP wants to take us out of. We currently benefit by that additional sum, which the SNP Government has to spend as it chooses.
We know what choices the SNP has made. We know about the fact that it has increased income taxes in Scotland. According to a recent survey by the Fraser of Allander Institute, more than one in three businesses are reporting that that has had
“a fair amount to a lot of impact”
on their ability to recruit. We hear that all the time from businesses across Scotland, in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and financial services. The tax gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK is actively deterring their ability—