Middle classes hit for tax in Snp-green budget deal
● Tories slate lurch to left ● Labour says not enough
Around 372,000 Scottish workers will pay £400 more income tax this year than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK after the SNP and Greens united at Holyrood to pass the government’s Budget.
In return for Green support, finance secretary Derek Mackay agreed to impose a more punitive tax regime on the middle classes than had been proposed and pledged £160 million extra spending for local authorities.
MSPS voted narrowly to support Stage 1 of Mr Mackay’s Budget Bill when the SNP and Greens combined to defeat opposition from the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats by 67 votes to 59.
Mr Mackay claimed his financial package for 2017-18 would “support jobs” and encourage future growth.
But the finance secretary and Green co-convener Patrick Harvie faced attacks from opposite ends of the chamber.
The Conservatives denounced the Budget for lurching to the left and making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK, while Labour argued that the tax changes were
From “hard left, lentil muncher” to “man of the moment”, Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie found himself thrust into the Budget spotlight on a day of tempestuous Holyrood exchanges .
Other opposition parties, mainly Labour, lambasted the Greens for “selling out” on their anti-austerity platform by hatching a deal to support the SNP spending plans. Nationalists hailed Mr Harvie with a rousing, foot-
stomping reception which they normally reserve for Nicola Sturgeon. Ayrshire MSP Kenny Gibson extolled the Greens’ leader as the “man of the moment”, capturing the relief on the SNP benches that their Budget had been saved. The ire of parties on the left had been the gulf between the Greens’ manifesto demands for a 60p tax rate for top earners and the more modest shift in tax thresholds eventually agreed.
Murdo Fraser of the Tories branded the SNP “patsies” for swallowing the “hard left, high tax” agenda of the Greens, who were dismissed as “lentil munching, sandal-wearing watermelons”. It prompted Green MSP Andy Wightman to hoist his foot in the air to exhibit his shiny leather shoes.
Perhaps the most stinging criticism came from Labour MSPS, who subjected Mr Harvie to “sell-out” taunts throughout the debate. Party leader Kezia Dugdale called him a “fig leaf ” for SNP cuts after opposing austerity for his “entire political life”.
The normally restrained Greens leader could not resist a bit of hyperbole, insisting he had secured the “biggest compromise” from any government since devolution. “If every party, in a Parliament of minorities, was to say our manifesto or nothing, we would be failing the people of Scotland,” he said.