Scottish budget is food for thought
Each February, Parliament passes Scotland’s annual budget for the coming financial year.
It’s no exaggeration to say that setting the 2023/24 budget has been the most challenging in Holyrood’s history, largely for reasons completely outwith our control.
In short, the Scottish Government is now expected to do more with less.
The UK Government has given it a budget which doesn’t make up for the damage caused by inflation, nor meet the increasing levels of demand for services like the NHS and social care.
Despite those challenges, this is Scotland’s greenest budget ever.
There’s £2.2billion to tackle the climate and nature crises.
It also scraps peaktime rail fares from later this year, saving travellers hundreds of pounds.
A total of 20,000 more children will be eligible for free school meals and £80 million will be invested in expanding school catering facilities, so that more children can be offered free meals as soon as possible.
And an extra billion will go to the NHS.
This is all possible because of what the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed is the most progressive tax system in the UK, something largely the result of changes made by the Scottish Greens.
By slightly raising taxes on those buying second/ holiday homes and on the highest earners, we are able to fund vital public services.
That builds on what our Green MSP group achieved back in 2018, an initial round of tax rises for the highest earners and tax cuts for those on the lowest incomes.
As a result of the changes we made back then our public services are already a billion pounds better off.
That’s how any government should act in tough times, redistributing wealth and truly supporting the poorest people and the services they rely on, like the NHS and schools.
Compare that to the woeful record of the UK Government, who dishonestly implemented the windfall tax on energy company profits the Greens and others called for, but then gave those very same companies a 90 per cent relief from the tax if they committed to drill for even more oil and gas.
Not only did that starve public services of vital funds, it was a devastating step backwards for our efforts to tackle the climate emergency.
Faced with a hostile Westminster government we’re straining at the limit of Scotland’s very limited financial powers, but we know it’s still not enough.
Public services like the NHS still need far more funding.
Only with the financial powers of a normal independent nation will that be possible though.
While we’re in a cost-of-living crisis that’s hitting the poorest hard, those earning the highest incomes or able to afford a second home can pay more and they should pay more.