Scotland gets £350m boost – as Tories declare...

THE phrase ‘Union dividend’ was one we became very familiar with through the independence campaign of 2014. Expert after expert showed how Scotland benefited by being part of the wider United Kingdom when it came to finance and resources – from receiving more per head on public services spending, to helping us endure a North Sea oil industry crash.

Now, two-and-a-half years on from Scots voting decisively to keep Britain together, that Union dividend keeps delivering.

Thanks to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget decisions, Scotland will receive an additional £350million over the next few years in the form of Barnett Consequentials.

Around £100million of that will be delivered in the next year alone, ensuring Scotland continues to benefit thoroughly from being a key part of the United Kingdom.

If you lump it together with what Derek Mackay found down the back of the sofa in recent months, the figure begins to look mightily impressive. Far from pleading poverty, soon there will be bags under the eyes of the Finance Secretary from staying up all night counting his money.

As a sweetener to the Greens ahead of his own Budget negotiations, he was able to source £191million from his own magic money tree. And when he finally decided to act on the business rates crisis hitting the whole country, an additional £42million was unearthed.

Above all else, it is now clear – with these extra hundreds of millions – there is no need for the SNP to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK. That will drive away jobs and investment, and punish hardworking people, sending out signals to the rest of the world that Scotland is a bad place to do business.

So my challenge to Mr Mackay is this – take the additional money with good grace and ensure it’s the hardworking people of Scotland who benefit. And if he does that, he might find there’s less need to embark on the devastating cuts to local authority budgets that were set out in his Budget appendices.

Only this week, the independent and impartial Audit Scotland highlighted how the SNP had reduced local government investment by almost 10 per cent in recent years. So while more money has come from Westminster, less seems to be finding its way out of Holyrood.

Mr Mackay was already the luckiest Finance Secretary in devolution’s short history, and now that luck is extending further. He could take lessons from his Westminster counterpart, who has delivered an excellent Budget for the whole country.

The decision to freeze fuel duty for the seventh year on the bounce means motorists save as much as £10 every time they fill up their car.

Yet more people have been lifted out of taxation altogether thanks to another increase in the personal allowance, which is now up to £12,500. In addition, with the Living Wage now up at £7.50, 100,000 people in Scotland will get a pay rise.

Many feared the vote to leave the European Union would lead to a disastrous Budget outlining devastating consequences for public finances.

In fact, a significant number in the SNP and Labour who refuse to recognise and respect the outcome of the Brexit vote very much wanted it to be a Budget of gloom. How uncomfortable it must be for them to look on grimly from the sidelines as the UK economy continues to expand strongly.

Only this week, the IMF raised its growth forecast for the Brit- ish economy. Compare this to the Nationalists’ stewardship of Scotland’s economy, where growth, unemployment, employment and inactivity all show up more poorly than other parts of the UK. That is on their watch, they’ve been in charge for ten years and they have absolutely no one else to blame.

IT was of some relief to see the balance sheet of the oil and gas industry return to the black, but the £0.9billion forecast to arrive in the coming year by the Office for Budget Responsibility is a far cry from SNP projections.

The Nationalist leadership lied to the Scottish people when they said revenues would be £11.8billion in 2017-18. This was to be the cornerstone upon which a separate Scotland would be built.

Fast-forward a couple of years and the SNP’s financial wizard, Andrew Wilson, has been forced to admit this was a nonsense.

Fortunately, as we repeatedly argued throughout the referendum campaign, the strong shoulders of the UK economy are now on hand to absorb the blow from a volatile commodity.

The people of Scotland will be reflecting on two very different Budgets; one by Mr Hammond which prioritises growth and protects hard workers, and one by Mr Mackay that does the opposite.

We also learn today of the failings of Police Scotland’s i6 IT project, which will end up costing the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds.

That follows a crisis with IT systems within NHS 24 costing £130million, and the well-documented technology problems processing CAP payments for farmers, a shortcoming which starved the rural economy of hundreds of millions of pounds.

These are all examples of SNP waste which, if avoided, could have funded the low-tax, highwage economy Scotland craves.

And while the SNP will no doubt find grievance with some areas of the Budget, as it always does, it is the extra £350million announced yesterday which gives cause for optimism, both to the public and business.

It vindicates the decision of more than two million Scots who voted No in 2014.

The Scottish Chambers of Commerce has welcomed the additional funding, but warned the SNP to use it wisely.

It describes a ‘major opportunity’ for the Scottish Government to put the cash ‘to good use in growing the Scottish economy’.

That is an opportunity which now must be seized by ministers here, otherwise the good work of the Government south of the Border will be of no benefit to Scotland.