Meeting of the Parliament 26 November 2025
The Deputy First Minister should have been here earlier. I believe that she asked for it. Which party brought in the presumption against the issuing of further oil and gas licences in Scotland, which is doing damage to the Scottish economy?
There is a raft of other tax and spending announcements where our commonsense calls have been ignored by both Governments. Labour’s cruel family farm tax will do real damage to the farming community and the wider rural economy.
Neither the United Kingdom chancellor nor the Scottish finance secretary has grasped the fundamental rules around taxation. What Scotland needs now is the sensible application of a modern-day equivalent of Reaganomics, not the counterintuitive, tinpot fiscal policies of Rachel Reeves and Shona Robison.
Our motion sets out a position against any further tax rises. Instead, Rachel Reeves is setting out on a path towards ever higher tax—a path to nowhere that is well trodden by Shona Robison and the SNP—and an extra £26 billion in tax by 2029-30. That is the highest ever tax base in the United Kingdom. It is tax on top of tax on top of tax.
Freezing thresholds might in the short term stealthily fill the chancellor’s black hole, but that will surely and steadily damage the economy as more and more middle earners become enmeshed in ever higher taxes. As we see in Scotland, the net effect is that people work less hard, save less, retire earlier or do not take that promotion, which all compounds the depressing doom loop that undermines growth and investment.
However, it is not just income tax that is rising under Labour—there are higher taxes on savings, dividends, gambling, capital gains and the use of electric cars. There is national insurance on salary-sacrifice pensions and more tax on Irn Bru. This is not a smorgasbord of tax changes; it is a fiscal car crash that is anti-aspiration, anti-business and anti-growth.
The politics of envy are all over the budget. There is a higher tax on middle-income earners and a mansions tax, which sends out a message to the world that the rich ain’t welcome in Britain any more.
Labour is not just making the same mistakes as the SNP is on tax; it is making the same mistakes on welfare, too, with £3 billion to remove the two-child benefit cap and a failure to fundamentally reform the social security system. Labour’s approach and the SNP’s approach mean that welfare spending is now out of control in Scotland and in the rest of the UK.
I accept that today’s budget delivers extra resources of £820 million to the Scottish Government. My challenge to John Swinney and the SNP is this: why not do something that they have not done before? They should do something novel, such as cut tax. That would deliver the best solution to tackle the cost of living crisis by giving people their own money back. That would be a good budget for Scotland and a good budget for growth, but it will not happen because John Swinney is Rachel Reeves in disguise.
We need both of Scotland’s Governments to urgently prioritise economic growth and to deliver economic stability. The Scottish Conservatives are pro-growth, we are low-tax and we are on the side of workers and businesses.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that the UK Budget should be an opportunity to promote economic growth, deliver investment in Scotland and address the alarming increase in economic inactivity; recognises the importance of backing working households, easing cost pressures and protecting Scotland’s rural economy; believes that ending the Energy Profits Levy is essential to secure investment in the North Sea; emphasises that the UK Labour administration’s tax rises on family farms and small businesses are deeply damaging and should be reversed, and warns against further tax rises; calls on the Scottish Government to prioritise growth with measures to improve productivity, support small businesses, tackle soaring welfare costs and strengthen Scotland’s fiscal position, and believes that both of Scotland’s governments must urgently prioritise economic stability, investment and opportunity as the foundations of sustainable public services within the UK.
16:09