Hansard

We look forward, of course, to seeing detailed plans for investment and, more specifically, for how the incoming Government intends to pay for them.

I have some suggestions. The UK Government must look at the revenue-raising options of taxing polluters and the very wealthy. Indeed, one of the outcomes of the austerity years in the UK is that the wealth of billionaires and the super-rich has ballooned—slow clap for the Tories for taking from the poor and giving to the mega-rich. Trickle-up economics is what we have had. We need to tax that money back into our economy.

Windfall taxes are all very well, but a consistent approach to the taxation of big polluters in order to fund the transition to net zero would be more effective. Simply stopping tax breaks for oil, gas and aviation would be a start. Last week in the chamber, we all agreed that one of the best things that we can do for small businesses is ensure that big businesses pay fair taxes. The Observer found that, between 2018 and 2020, Shell and BP paid no corporation tax or production levies on North Sea oil operations while claiming tax reliefs of nearly £400 million. How are small, clean energy companies in the UK supposed to compete when big oil gets massive tax breaks? Jet fuel has always been tax exempt in the UK. How are small, clean transportation businesses or publicly owned buses and trains supposed to compete with a polluting aviation industry that does not pay tax on its fuel?

The UK needs to collect that money and to revise the capital budget strategy to align with climate goals. We have a whole bunch of stuff that we need to build—wind turbines, energy storage, grid infrastructure, train stations, hydrogen-powered buses and low-carbon homes. Let us get on with it. There is no shortage of money. Follow the trickle-up economics and tax dodgers to see where it has gone.

I challenge the UK Government to take a different approach and to rebalance the UK economy in favour of hope, to get money into the pockets of people who need it and can spend it, and not to be shy about making those who can and should contribute more do so.

Our devolved Government in Scotland has a role to play, too: the Scottish Government has not exhausted all our tools to address the current financial crisis. In recent weeks, the Scottish Greens have been highly critical of some of the spending decisions that the Government has made. The cuts to climate spending and the nature restoration fund, and the scrapping of policies to cut peak rail fares and to give free bus travel to asylum seekers have all been active decisions made by this Government while protecting other areas of spending and maintaining tax cuts for businesses. We cannot sit back and say that this is all Westminster’s fault when we are making decisions such as those and are failing to explore all options to establish sustainable revenue streams to support public services and investment.

The Scottish Greens have a range of proposals on such solutions. There must be strategic reprioritisation towards critical areas including climate action, social security and public health, with a focus on efficiency and impact.

I challenge the Scottish Government to review unconditional handouts to large landowners and the approach of putting money into unsustainable infrastructure projects such as the A9 and A96, and into fossil fuel derivatives. Significant untapped revenue-raising opportunities include carbon emissions land tax, devolution of air passenger duty and reforms to non-domestic rates relief, landfill tax and council tax. Those should be pursued aggressively in order to create a more sustainable fiscal framework.

Last week, a major report by Oxfam confirmed that bringing in the devolved air departure tax and using it to target private jets would raise enough money to scrap peak rail fares permanently, thereby supporting more commuters to make the switch to low-carbon travel.

When the Scottish Greens were in government, development of a carbon land tax and cruise ship levy were well under way, as was the long-overdue reform to council tax. Will the minister confirm in closing today what the Scottish Government’s plans are now for those important measures?

It is time to think again about taxation.

I move amendment S6M-14614.1, to insert at end:

“; believes that, whilst the fiscal levers available to the Scottish Government are inadequate to fully protect public services and communities from UK Government austerity, it must use every power available to address the urgent social, economic and environmental challenges that Scotland faces, and calls, therefore, on the Scottish Government to explore all avenues to fiscal sustainability, including maximal use of existing tax powers, a review of tax reliefs and other subsidies, reform of local government finances, and the creation of new local revenue raising powers, such as the carbon emissions land tax and cruise ship levy, and to reprioritise spending away from programmes that undermine its core missions of tackling child poverty and the climate emergency.”