SNP’s plan ‘costs EACH taxpayer an extra £21k’
THE SNP’s ‘reckless and irresponsible’ spending demands threaten to bankrupt Britain and cost every Scots taxpayer an extra £21,140, analysis suggests.
Scottish Tories today accuse Nicola Sturgeon of trying to push the UK to run up an additional £439 billion of debt on the UK credit card – at the same time as trying to force through another independence referendum.
Respected think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that the SNP’s plans were inconsistent with balancing the UK Budget, and would result in spiralling debt.
Tories say the First Minister’s manifesto is even more reckless than Jeremy Corbyn’s as Labour have at least estimated costs for their own pledges.
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon failed to provide detailed costings in her manifesto, let alone plans for how her long list of demands might be paid for. She is every bit as reckless and irresponsible with taxpayers’ cash as the man she wants to install in No 10, Jeremy Corbyn.
‘It also shows extraordinary reserves of brass neck to dictate eye-watering spending commitments from the UK Treasury – while demanding a vote to leave the UK next year.’
The SNP is demanding an extra £439 billion of UK spending over the next five years, according to Tory analysis, and £53 billion in Scotland alone.
If that was met by Scottish taxpayers it would mean every working man and woman paying an extra £21,440 over the next parliament – £4,228 per year.
Ms Sturgeon has made clear she hopes to prop up a minority Labour government, and will demand in return another independence referendum and the removal of Trident nuclear weapons, at the expense of thousands of jobs.
Her manifesto also sets out other demands, for spending in Scotland and the wider UK. The full cost of this has not been set out until now. The SNP has demanded that various welfare policies, including Universal Credit, the twochild cap on tax credits and sanctions on claimants who fail to look for work, should all be scrapped.
It estimates that would cost £3.7 billion a year in Scotland. The Tories say that means, UK-wide, over the five years of the next parliament, it would require a staggering £225.6 billion.
A further £127 billion would be needed to bring NHS spending per head in England up to the current Scottish level, the Tories claim – which, in turn, would push Scottish spending higher still.
Like Labour, the SNP wants to compensate so-called Waspi women, born between 1950 and 1955, who have had to wait longer than expected to access their state pensions. Labour has estimated this would cost £58 billion, but the SNP has not put a figure on it.
The SNP would also demand the UK Government ‘reverse its cuts to the Scottish budget’, put at £13.9 billion in the SNP manifesto. The SNP insisted ‘the Tories’ sums just don’t add up’ – but did not provide its own total costings.
A party spokeswoman said: ‘These dodgy figures are simply ludicrous.’
The IFS has criticised both Labour and Conservative spending plans. But it said it had been unable to carry out the same detailed analysis of the SNP’s plans because ‘it is not a fully costed set of plans, it’s a list of requests.
It added: ‘It’s a giveaway manifesto – spending increases and tax cuts. That would not be consistent with balancing the budget. It would imply borrowing for day-to-day spending, which other parties have said they would not do.’
‘Extraordinary reserves of brass neck’