Meeting of the Parliament 10 September 2025
I will carry on.
Nearly 1.7 million children are affected by the two-child benefit cap. That policy has pushed about 350,000 children into poverty and 700,000 into deeper poverty. The gap between rich and poor is not theoretical. A cross-party commission estimated that scrapping the two-child cap, paired with benefit increases, could lift 4.2 million people out of poverty, including 2.2 million people in deep poverty.
In environmental terms, the system is also failing us. Environmental taxes made up just 1.9 per cent of GDP in 2024. That was down from 2 per cent. You heard that correctly—during a climate crisis, the UK Government is collecting less in taxes through environmental measures. As a total share of taxation and social contributions, the figure dropped from 8.4 per cent in 1997 to 4.5 per cent in 2024. That decline persists even as the climate emergency intensifies and recognised economists are calling for change.
Overhauling tax powers to ensure that those who have profited from wrecking our climate pay for its clean-up is very reasonable and fair. How is it a just transition if ordinary workers are being asked to pay for the consequences of the actions of massive oil and gas corporations?
This week, University of Oxford experts argued in the Financial Times that a land and property wealth tax is vital in order to “improve housing affordability” and ensure that rising land values benefit society, not just landowners. However, Westminster does not act. Instead, it refuses to tax wealth properly, underfunds the NHS and lets polluters off the hook.
Environmental taxation income is falling when it must instead rise in order to pay for the just transition. Scotland can choose differently. With independence, we can choose to close the wealth gap to redistribute wealth.