Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2026 [Draft]
As the SNP’s depute leader, Mr Brown must have been so busy looking at the party’s accounts that he missed Covid and the war in Ukraine, which led to a significant increase in everybody’s energy bills.
It is not only me who is pointing out the folly of the SNP Government’s budget. The Fraser of Allander Institute’s Mairi Spowage says that the shift in the tax base amounts to
“a fundamental change in our understanding of who counts as a higher rate taxpayer and what proportion of the income distribution should be paying higher rates of tax.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 20 January 2026; c 46.]
During the coming year, the total additional burden of the SNP’s tax regime will be nearly £1.8 billion, but only £969 million will accrue to the Scottish budget. That is the true cost of the SNP’s on-going failure to grow the Scottish economy.
Based on tax outcomes alone, we will not be voting for the budget, but there are many other reasons not to vote for it. The projections for benefits spending are eye-watering and are creating a cycle of dependency that can no longer be credibly described as an investment in Scotland’s future. Not only is it undesirable to adopt the soft-touch approach that the SNP takes to the adult disability payment and to disincentivising work through the Scottish child payment—the Scottish Government’s data reveals that one in 10 recipients have changed the way that they interact through the workforce because of it—but it is also fundamentally unsustainable, as a number of independent reports have flagged again this week.
Professor David Heald, who is one of the Scottish Government’s tax advisers, has warned of
“an erosion of the rest of the Scottish budget”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 20 January 2026; c 54.]
as a result of the mounting benefits bill, which already accounts for £1 in every £7 that is spent by the SNP Government and which will rise to £10 billion by the end of the decade. As a result of the SNP’s ballooning benefits bill, there is less in the budget for rural affairs and the enterprise agencies, and in future years there will be less for Scotland’s local authorities and health boards. Ministers must be honest that spending more on benefits means tax rises or severe cuts to core services—or, ultimately, a toxic combination of both.
For the record, I note that we would cut tax and cut the benefits bill, and our plans are costed and deliverable, unlike many of the measures in the budget that we are debating today. Our approach would create a virtuous circle, giving people and businesses more of their own money to spend and invest as they choose. Tackling welfare will give more people the chance to work, breaking the culture of dependency that has been cynically fostered by this SNP Government.
I turn to other areas of the budget. On college spending—