Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2025
We have put it on record that we support that. However, the key point that I am trying to get across is that we must have evidence of what works best. One of the reasons why such a tariff might work best is exactly the one that the cabinet secretary gave—it is levied at source.
When it comes to the overall perspective on universal policies, we cannot afford to do everything that we would like to do. That is the point. To make judgments about what we should be doing, we must examine the evidence on effectiveness, but we must also look at the greatest vulnerability.
That is the problem that the UK Labour Government is facing at the moment with welfare benefits, just as the Scottish Government is finding out that we cannot afford to do everything that we would like to do. That is the reality that we have to understand when it comes to setting policies in this place.
As Conservatives, we are always being criticised for being obsessed with economic growth, but I reject that criticism on two counts. Economic growth is essential because it leads to more jobs, better pay, lower poverty rates and better education, and because economic growth is essential to welfare and to a feel-good factor among businesses and industry.
We are also criticised in relation to Liz Truss, and rightly so, but Liz Truss’s fault was not her aspiration to deliver economic growth; it was that she failed to take the advice of the financial institutions and to interpret the market trends correctly. That should be a lesson for the Trump Administration, as we can see if we look at today’s papers, as the markets have had a considerable shake. It was that refusal to listen to the advice that was so unforgivable and did such damage to the UK economy at a critical time, but it did not mean—and it does not mean now—that the aspiration for economic growth was the wrong principle.
That is where we took issue with the Scottish National Party’s recent budget, which entrenched the high-tax agenda without pointing to any signs of an ability to deliver better public services. It is all very well to say that the lowest-paid in Scotland have seen their taxes reduced to the tune of the princely sum of £2 a month, which I do not think will be of much use to them, but the fact is that middle-to-higher earners are being squeezed beyond their means, which is causing businesses in Scotland to be concerned about some aspects of recruitment and the increasing tax differential with the rest of the UK. I am quite sure that that is why the Deputy First Minister has expressed her concerns about the persistent rise in tax.