We need investment not cuts
BY PAISLEY AND RENFREWSHIRE SOUTH MP MHAIRI BLACK
This week we will see the UK budget being set – and there are growing concerns that we will see even more real term cuts to Scotland’s budget.
The pro-cuts Tory party are starving the UK of economic growth by imposing Brexit and damaging Tory fiscal rules that will see deep austerity cuts to the NHS and to our public services.
The equally pro-cuts Labour party are no better with no real alternative to austerity – they are happy to sit back and copy their Tory chums.
The UK Government has already slashed Scotland’s budget this year and imposed real-terms cuts to the NHS across the UK.
The UK Government has cut Scotland’s block grant by 1.2 per cent in real terms since 2022-23, which is a real terms cut of £0.5 billion.
Scotland’s capital budget is due to contract by around 10 per cent over the next five years, which amounts to a real terms cut of around £1.6bn.
Enough really is enough, investment is needed.
Instead of continuously slashing and starving our public services while pandering to the wealthy, the Chancellor must invest to improve services, boost economic growth and help families with the soaring cost of living we are experiencing in Broken Brexit Britain.
We are calling on the Chancellor to use this budget to boost spending in our NHS by at least £15bn a year to improve our healthcare and reverse some of the cuts that the Tories have continued to make.
SNP analysis shows the increase in NHS England funding would provide more than £1.2bn in additional funding for Scotland’s
NHS through Barnett consequentials.
The Chancellor should also use this budget to help working families through the cost-of-living crisis by taxing the super-rich through a £12bn wealth tax.
This would fund a £400 annual energy bill discount for households who are struggling with soaring energy bills.
The SNP would also reintroduce mortgage interest tax relief, we would cap supermarket food prices and match the Scottish Child Payment UK-wide.
These moves would help people so much at this time of uncertainty and financial concerns for so many.
While Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are cutting green energy investment at the worst possible time, the SNP is also calling on the Chancellor to commit to growth in the budget by investing at least £28bn a year in green energy and rejoining the EU single market.
That is the only credible path to sustained growth for people in Scotland.
The SNP would use this budget to boost our public finances by scrapping nondom tax status, increasing capital gains tax, taxing share buy backs and also by increasing taxes for those earning more than £100,000.
The clear choice is between the SNP’s plans to invest in our public services and the economy, and Tory and Labour party plans for another decade of Westminster austerity cuts and poverty that will be inflicted on people in Renfrewshire.
Unlike Sunak and Starmer, the SNP will always stand up for Scotland’s values, defend our NHS, and demand the investment that is truly needed to protect people in Scotland.