PM is blasted for calling NI tax raid a Union dividend
BLACKFORD SLAMS HIKE
Johnson pledges £1.1bn for Scots
BORIS Johnson has been slammed for claiming his National Insurance tax raid to fund social care in England is a £1.1billion boost for Scottish taxpayers.
The Prime Minister said a UK-wide 1.25 per cent rise in National Insurance payments would increase health and social care spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to the tune of £2.2billion a year.
But the SNP accused the Tory Prime Minister of imposing a second poll tax on Scotland by using the the NI contributions to make Scots fund social care provision in England.
Johnson wrote to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday telling her the Scottish budget would receive £1.1billion in additional spending as a result of the hike – about £300million more than Scots taxpayers would contribute.
To cheers from his own side as he presented the Tory manifesto-breaching tax rise to the Commons, the PM said: “It will create a Union dividend worth £300million.”
The SNP’s Ian Blackford responded by saying the tax hike was a regressive move that would leave families, young people and the low paid “paying the price of Westminster failure”. He said: “It’s very telling that as we hopefully emerge from this Covid crisis the first act of this Prime Minister is to impose this regressive tax.
“The scandal of this tax hike is it will fall hardest on the young and the lowest paid, the two groups who have suffered the worst economic consequences of the pandemic.”
Blackford argued Scots already funded social care in Scotland and said the plan to ringfence the hike for health spending was against the principles of devolution that allows Holyrood to decide its own priorities.
He added: “By raising this levy across the UK, the Tories are taxing Scottish workers twice and forcing them to pay the bill for social care in England as well as at home in Scotland. This is the Prime Minister’s poll tax on Scotland to pay for English social care.”
The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has forecast that Scotland would likely receive more back in Barnett consequentials than Scots would be paying out for the NI rise.
This is explained by Barnett funding being dependent on what is spent in England, not how much is raised in tax across the UK.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has said a tax on wealth aimed at “those with the broadest shoulders” should be used to pay for an improved social care system.
He added: “Read my lips – the Tories can never again claim to be the party of low tax.”