Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2026 [Draft]
Members can go back beyond Macmillan, to Disraeli and others, to find the principle of one-nation conservatism alive and well. The issue is how proportionately and effectively we tax the wealthy. I believe that, if we simply send a message out to globally wealthy individuals that Scotland is a hostile environment, fewer of them will come and more of them will leave. That is the fundamental reality that is lost on Patrick Harvie. We must guard against that.
The point that I made to Mr Harvie earlier is that some of the wealthiest Scots are also the most socially mobile. Take Alan Cumming, who lives in his $5 million Manhattan townhouse, or Brian Cox, who divides his time between the UK and the United States. When Brian Cox comes to Britain, he chooses Primrose Hill in London, where he avoids the Scottish National Party’s high taxes. Although Mr Cox is happy to fly north to Scotland—I am not sure whether he does so on a private jet, Mr Harvie—he does not want to live here. He has explained:
“I find Dundee difficult … the poverty is very hard to take. To see the heroin addiction, to see where it’s got to”.
It is strange that that did not make it into an SNP party election broadcast.
I want to turn now to the motion and amendments before us. On the Labour amendment, I agree on the need to examine business rates, but I remind members that, during the previous session of Parliament, budgets that the Labour Party did not oppose repeatedly short-changed Scottish businesses on rates relief.
As for Reform’s amendment, I note the reference to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and I must commend Reform for SNP levels of selective quotation. Was it not the IFS that described Reform’s self-funding tax cuts as “a mirage” and “not credible”?
The Greens’ amendment sums up, perhaps, the timbre of the debate. To it, I pose one question: when there is little or no wealth left in Scotland to tax, and when the wealthy have gone and the tax base shrinks, how on earth will we fund the public services that our country needs and deserves?
That is why the Conservatives will vote against the motion, and it is why we will steadfastly oppose any further tax increases or any attempt to further devolve tax powers to this Parliament. Fair tax, low tax and a growing tax base should be the watchwords of this Parliament in this session.
I move amendment S7M-00249.3, to leave out from “, progressive” to end and insert:
“and low taxation, which incentivises work and investment; rejects the left-wing ‘Holyrood’ consensus, which believes that Scotland can tax its way to economic growth; calls on the Scottish Government to use its existing devolved taxation powers to reduce income tax to stimulate growth, and rules out any further devolution of fiscal powers, which have already created a damaging tax differential, which undermines Scotland's ability to retain and attract high earners and wealth creators.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.