Scottish Government must redistribute cash

Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon refuse to hold emergency budgets despite the Scottish Power chief warning that half of Scotland’s households could face fuel poverty by the autumn.

A triple whammy of higher interest rates on loans and mortgages, crippling fuel costs and double digit inflation threatens to redefine the socio-economic landscape for decades. Individuals, companies and the UK Government have got themselves heavily indebted, which may explain why the Bank of England has been so slow to increase interest rates to mitigate inflation on asset and energy prices, while some policymakers admit to underestimating the extent of the inflation spike to our cost.

While the UK Government has refused to ask BP and Shell to pay a windfall tax from their multi- billion pound profits, the Scottish Government, with its fiscal powers, has the ability to redistribute wealth to those suffering the most but it, too, has refused to intervene beyond the council tax reduction. In itself this does not help cash-poor pensioners in middle cost housing, many of whom are widows relying on a state pension. It’s ironic that the SNP, who see Council Tax as an obsolete form of taxation based on property values calculated over 30 years ago, are defining those needing help with their cost of living.

The Scottish Government could take thousands on low incomes out of tax now and increase tax on high earners. This would put cash in the pockets of those struggling the most. For those pensioners, the unwaged and untaxed earners the Scottish Welfare Fund could have been broadened and topped up with some of this additional tax take. Instead they blame Westminster. Perhaps the UK domiciled £184 million Euromillions lottery winner will appreciate the gravity of this crisis by donating £1,000 each to the 184,000 poorest households?

NEIL ANDERSON

Edinburgh