Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2025
As someone who has visited some of those countries, I know that their delivery of public services is an awful lot better than it is in Scotland. One of the great problems that the Scottish Government faces just now is that the reason for having a high-tax agenda is surely to deliver better public services. However, that is simply not the case at the moment, which is a serious issue for most people.
We also know that, in one in every two of our small businesses, the most reported obstacles to their success did not relate only to the high-tax agenda. Some 62 per cent of small businesses mentioned the increases in energy prices, and it is not surprising that half of small businesses complained about taxation, VAT, pay as you earn, national insurance and business rates. Two thirds of the businesses that were surveyed said that the Scottish Government’s income tax policy had a huge impact on their business, with the construction industry being the most impacted sector.
Those policies—namely, the high-tax agenda and low growth—will not help to address the cost of living pressures but will instead exacerbate them. The SNP’s idea of keeping taxes high is not an agenda that will address our concerns.
To make matters worse, the SNP Scottish budget came in conjunction with the Labour UK budget, which was also intent on damaging the economy by punishing the wealth creators of the UK with increased national insurance contributions—a tax on jobs. That will increase considerably what businesses have to cope with.
Labour and the SNP both talk a great deal about supporting the economy of the future, and they are right to do so—whether that relates to life sciences, financial services, new technologies or artificial intelligence—but they do the exact opposite when it comes to oil and gas. My colleague Douglas Lumsden will expand on that in his speech.
There is also the issue of housing—I see that the Minister for Housing is in the chamber. We have had many debates on housing. The Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, who is sitting beside the housing minister, rightly made the argument about the need to address things at source. Housing is one way in which we can do that. The current statistics, which I think were rehearsed during topical question time just before this debate, spell out the extent of the challenge that we face on housing.
I began my contribution by referring to the international situation because I firmly believe that that is a hugely important backdrop to the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves. Some of those circumstances are well beyond our control, but that makes it even more important that, in Scotland, the UK and Scottish Governments work together to address the issues that concern our voters the most: their jobs, their family budgets and the delivery of effective public services.
It is no secret that the Scottish Conservatives believe that the recent budgets have confirmed that both Governments are moving in the wrong direction, because there is not sufficient focus on growth, lowering the tax burden or removing the barriers to business that stifle entrepreneurship and innovation.
I move amendment S6M-16750.3, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:
“notes the ongoing concerns amongst the Scottish business community about the effects of the widening tax differential between Scotland and the rest of the UK; further notes the failure of both the UK Government and the Scottish Government to prioritise policies that will deliver sustained economic growth, investment in infrastructure and more efficient public services, and calls on the Scottish Government to take a balanced approach to net zero, which includes supporting Scotland’s oil and gas industry and ending policies that worsen cost of living pressures.”
14:48Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.