Hansard

The minister stood in the Parliament during the budget statement and said that there will be a 2 per cent real-terms increase to local government, but that is simply not true. Repeating something that is dishonest time and time again does not make it true.

The hard reality is that, because of the SNP’s chronic underfunding, council tax bills for ordinary, hard-working Scots will go up in May. Those are people who are already reeling from the SNP’s income tax hikes, stealth taxes and the on-going cost of living crisis.

Not content with having crippled Scots with more and more tax to fund more and more benefits, the SNP Government proposes to pick people’s pockets again. Despite having pledged to scrap council tax in 2007, ministers have been content to let bills soar. Under the SNP’s new plan for council tax—which, we must not forget, is a tax that is paid from post-tax income—the bills for some households could rise from £2,700 per year to a staggering £6,515 per year.

Think about that figure. For a higher-rate taxpayer, more than £10,000 in pre-tax income will go to pay the price of the SNP’s persistent cash grab on councils. The Government’s own assessment shows that, under the SNP’s plans, anyone who lives in a home that is worth more than £240,000 will pay more in council tax.

Regardless of what flows from the consultation on council tax, we already know that the bills for some households will soar next year. The budget includes the creation of two new bands for properties that are worth more than £1 million. Those new bands, which will be imposed on larger homes regardless of the occupants’ income, will generate about £12 million per year. It will cost £5 million to potentially bring in £12 million, which is yet another big SNP fail on the value-for-money test.

Those households are sometimes asset rich but cash poor. The bands will affect elderly residents, some of whom will want to remain in their family home for as long as they can. Under the malign influence of the Scottish Greens, the politics of envy are all over the Government’s proposals.

However, it is not just those households that will pay more. That is why we are calling on the Scottish Government to scrap the plans for additional rates and ditch the council tax consultation. The consultation is nothing more than a smokescreen for higher taxes on middle-income Scotland—people who have had enough of year-on-year tax rises from a Government that takes more and delivers less.

As bigger bills drop through letterboxes next month, the Government is introducing more stealth taxes through the back door. Many residents now pay for garden bins, parking charges are killing high streets and plans for a visitor levy are set to do real and lasting damage to the tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors. Congestion charges threaten our cities and the prospect of workplace charging levies remains in place.

The minister will no doubt get to her feet to say that the decision on whether to introduce such new taxes will rest with democratically elected local authorities. However, in reality—this was clear when I spoke to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities at lunch time—cash-strapped councils across Scotland will feel that they have no other option but to use those powers to plug growing gaps in their finances.

The threat of cuts to core services still looms large across Scotland. That includes school closures, swimming pools shutting, library hours reducing and bin services being scaled back.

In my own area of Dumfriesshire, the SNP-run council has consulted on a raft of deeply unpopular cuts. Those include closing small nurseries and rural schools; ending free in-school music lessons for primary and secondary pupils; removing funding for school-based police officers; shutting the Hillview leisure centre in Kelloholm; scaling back gritting and snow clearing, which will put lives at risk; and removing council funding for citizens advice services. That is the true cost of the SNP in Dumfriesshire and the true cost of an SNP Government in Edinburgh.

Right across Scotland, councils have announced cuts year after year. Taxpayers are now left wondering what will be left for Scottish councils after 19 years of austerity under the SNP.

Today, in our motion, the Scottish Conservatives again stand on the side of taxpayers, on the side of councils that need a fair deal from this Government, and on the side of common sense, lower tax and better value for money. We stand against an SNP Government that is seeking to buy votes through the bloated benefits system—an SNP Government that, I am sad to say, expects Scottish workers to pay for its woeful and misplaced priorities.

I move,

That the Parliament notes with concern the ongoing consultation on council tax reform; further notes that central government funding has been reduced in real terms in this and previous Scottish Government budgets; acknowledges the cumulative pressure on households from rising council tax, the introduction of additional local charges, fees and levies, and the increasing likelihood of further council tax rises; recognises the damaging impact that funding reductions are having on frontline and statutory local authority services; expresses a lack of confidence that the current consultation will deliver fair or considered reform, given the Scottish Government’s record of underfunding local government, and calls on the Scottish Government to withdraw the consultation and rule out proceeding with the proposed council tax reforms, including the plan to conduct a revaluation of every home in Scotland for council tax purposes, at a time when households are already struggling with rising bills.