Decade of waste
How SNP has squandered £2bn... yet still wants tax hike
‘Should get a grip on wasteful spending’
THE SNP has wasted more than £2billion on doomed projects and extravagant socialist giveaways during a decade of reckless public spending.
As Nicola Sturgeon prepares to launch another punitive tax raid on the middle classes, the Scottish Daily Mail today details how her party has squandered public money on a litany of failed initiatives, indulgent Left-wing schemes and lavish foreign trips.
Our dossier of waste also reveals the scale of overspending across government departments, NHS boards and the justice system.
High-profile examples include a new Common Agricultural Policy system that ran £76million over budget and a rail link that swallowed up more than £30million before being cancelled.
Last week, the First Minister published four new tax proposals which ministers are considering ahead of the Scottish Budget – with three advocating a new 21p band on income tax rates. All four scenarios suggest increasing the 40p higher rate and 45p top rate in April next year, with three backing a 1p increase on the basic 20p rate and a 50p top rate.
The move would see 890,000 current basic rate taxpayers, or 40 per cent of the total, face a new 21 per cent rate, sparking warnings that the move could push Scotland back into recession.
Miss Sturgeon said ‘the time is right’ for tax hikes to fund public services and a host of Left-wing SNP pledges.
But Tory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘Instead of hiking up the taxes of hard-working Scots, the SNP should look at the money they’ve wasted over the past ten years of government.
‘There are countless examples of the SNP overspending, or simply using public funds inefficiently. Rather than hitting taxpayers they’d be better off cutting down on this waste, and focusing on trying to grow our economy.’
He added: ‘We have got to focus on stimulating economic growth, because that is how we will pay for our public services. Yet the SNP now seems ready to do a deal with any one of the Leftwing parties which they know could push us back into recession.’
The catalogue of waste includes the SNP’s £16million-a-year Family Nurse Partnership Scheme, which experts branded a waste of money and no better than using health visitors.
The Scottish Government spent £300,000 on iPads and other gadgets for children in Malawi, funded the flop golf film Tommy’s Honour to the tune of £400,000 through arts quango Creative Scotland, and has splashed out £370,000 on legal fees to defend its alcohol minimum pricing plan.
In 2012, then First Minister Alex Salmond and his entourage spent almost half-a-million pounds of taxpayers’ money on a trip to the Ryder Cup in Chicago.
Mr Salmond and his wife Moira were accompanied by Sports Minister Shona Robison, 12 government officials and 22 workers from publicly funded agencies.
Miss Sturgeon, meanwhile, took a five-day trip to the US this year, at a cost of more than £40,000.
Other examples include a £2million campaign to encourage parents to ditch disposable nappies, £265,000 spent on Saltire flags to fly from Government buildings and official cars and the £27milliona-year ‘baby box’ scheme.
In 2012, the Army and Navy club in London’s Pall Mall was hired at a cost of £25,000 a day, to ‘showcase Scotland’ during the city’s Olympic Games, while £250,000 went on a ‘Gaelic Facebook’ site which attracted only 1,500 users.
John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Scotland is addicted to unsustainably high spending, with a deficit that is the largest in the EU.
‘The SNP should get a grip on its wasteful spending before it dares to think about further tax increases.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘The serious economic threat posed by Brexit, coupled with continuing UK Government austerity means we are seeing increasing pressure being put on our public services, and the time is right for a discussion about how we protect these vital services.
‘That is why we have started a conversation to look at how best to use our income tax powers.’
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