Taxpayers are paying more and getting less in this year’s SNP Budget
By Russell Findlay
TAXPAYERS are once again picking up the bill for the SNP’s mistakes after another budget where the Nationalists will continue to make workers and businesses in Scotland pay more and get less.
John Swinney’s budget has once again set taxes in Scotland at the highest level in the UK, leaving the majority of people here to contribute more than people south of the border who earn the same amount.
The SNP don’t grasp the dire economic consequences of Scotland’s high tax rates, which stifle growth and discourage investment.
Lower growth under the SNP has cost Scotland’s economy at least £11 billion since 2011.
Today, they delivered another high-tax, low-growth Budget that will make us all poorer. pic.twitter.com/spBq2xer5p
— Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) December 4, 2024
The Nationalists have no regard for anyone with aspiration and they don’t understand that we need innovators to create jobs and generate the tax revenue necessary to improve public services.
John Swinney’s goal is not to create prosperity for all or to expand opportunities, all he seems to want to do is retain control of taxpayers’ money and spend it at will, often with reckless abandon.
The old left-wing approach has failed Scotland for decades and we must bring it to an end. We need real change in Scotland that finally delivers fairness and justice for taxpayers.
In the run up to the budget, my party had called for major cuts to income tax, business rates and LBTT, which used to be known as stamp duty.
In a letter to John Swinney, I set out fully costed proposals which would have started to undo the damage that the SNP government has done to our economy.
Swinney didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Instead, his finance secretary held up my letter during yesterday’s announcement in an attempt at mocking disapproval.
But our plans were responsible, affordable and sensible. They would have put more money in people’s pockets and given families the freedom to spend their own hard-earned money how they see fit.
I don’t think that’s controversial. To me, letting people decide how to spend their own money is just basic common sense. But in the corridors of power at Holyrood, common sense is not very common at all.
We did manage to pressure the Nationalists into making some changes, but they haven’t gone far enough.
UK government funding to provide rates relief for hospitality businesses has been passed on, after years where the SNP refused to hand it over. This is welcome, although it’s really the bare minimum that small businesses deserved and retail businesses have still missed out.
But the SNP refused to budge on income tax, so Scottish workers will continue to pay far more than people in the rest of the UK.
By continually forcing Scottish taxpayers to pay more, the SNP government is driving the disconnect that the public feels with politicians and leaving people feeling that Holyrood simply doesn’t get how hard it is to succeed in Scotland at the moment.
No wonder so many people currently believe that nothing will ever change, when the SNP keep doing the same thing year after year by retaining such damaging tax and uncompetitive rates.
It’s legitimate to ask what we get in return for paying far higher taxes. I know the answer – not enough. That’s reflected in a Scottish Government survey this week which revealed that trust in the SNP government has plummeted.
Our public services are a mess under the Nationalists and this SNP budget will do very little to change that. Huge amounts of money will be spent but a lot of it will go to waste because the SNP is out of ideas and appears to have no plan whatsoever to improve public services.
The budget has provided more funding for healthcare, which is welcome, but it won’t achieve much without serious changes to how our NHS operates.
My party has argued the amount of bureaucracy must be cut and the number of middle managers reduced so that funding can instead be used to improve frontline services. But, as Audit Scotland made abundantly clear this week, the SNP have no vision and lack of leadership over the necessary reforms to reduce NHS waiting lists.
The SNP’s budget earlier this week was just more of the same from a tired, out-of-touch government.
Scottish taxpayers are being forced to pay more while the SNP let public services get worse. pic.twitter.com/8XsjzcGsec
— Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) December 8, 2024
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to hail a supposedly new announcement that “by March 2026”, no one will wait longer than 12 months for a new treatment appointment.
That might be something to herald if the SNP hadn’t made a very similar promise to do that way back in 2022, which they said would be completed by… September 2024.
It seems that SNP environmental policy amounts to repeatedly recycling their dodgy promises.
The public is losing trust in the SNP government because it’s plain for all to see that they don’t keep their word and don’t offer a vision of a better Scotland for aspirational workers and hard-working families.
People increasingly feel left behind by the Nationalists because all they ever offer is a bigger state, without actually doing anything to make their lives better.
All that people want from Holyrood politicians is some common sense for a change. Is that really so much to ask for?
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The SNP budget might work inside the left-wing Holyrood bubble, but it lets down Scottish workers and businesses in the real world 👇🏼#FMQ pic.twitter.com/siSreqFxV9
— Russell Findlay MSP (@RussellFindlay1) December 5, 2024
