The UK has delivered for Scotland ...the SNP has failed

KATE Forbes could never bring herself to admit it, but she knows she was handed the raw materials by Rishi Sunak to deliver a Budget that set Scotland on the road to recovery.

The tragedy for the country is that she and the SNP-Green coalition squandered that opportunity.

Despite being given the biggest block grant Scotland has ever received from a UK Government, this underwhelming Budget failed to provide the pick-me-up desperately needed as we try to get back on track post-pandemic.

Take our beleaguered businesses for starters. Service industries have been devastated by almost two years of either full lockdown or restrictions. Despite the life support of furlough, the pandemic has taken an enormous toll on Scottish firms, with almost 20,000 lost in one year.

In recent days, both the Federation of Small Businesses and Confederation of British Industry pleaded for support to help businesses that have survived to keep afloat in the months and years ahead.

The Scottish Conservatives are acutely aware of their plight. That is why we urged the Scottish Government to deliver a £631million support package for business, comprising 75 per cent rates relief for a full year for the leisure, hospitality, tourism and newspaper sectors, and a freezing of the poundage rate. What did we get instead from Kate Forbes? A 50 per cent cut in rates lasting just three months. Yes, it’s something; but it’s too little and doesn’t last nearly long enough.

The worrying speed with which Omicron is spreading suggests, sadly, we’ll be living with Covid for a good while yet. So our toiling businesses need the security of sustained government support. Scotland’s hospitality sector, which had its initial recovery hampered by the SNP’s shambolic vaccine passport scheme, is entitled to feel let down.

As for personal tax, let’s not forget Scotland will continue to be the highest-taxed nation in the UK thanks to the SNP’s income tax bands and rates.

The country’s local authorities will be feeling equally as dismayed as businesses. After years of brutal funding cuts, they have been short-changed once again.

My party called for the SNP to pass on the proportionate share of increase in the block grant directly to Scotland’s councils. This would have amounted to an extra £1.2billion for libraries, leisure centres, street lights, bin collections and pothole repairs.

Again, the SNP-Green coalition failed to deliver. Instead, they quietly – Miss Forbes made no mention of it – removed the freeze on council tax rises, which has been a key SNP policy since they took power in 2007.

This cynical, sleekit move is effectively passing the buck to councils. It’s up to them to raise the additional funds, denied by the Government, through tax rises. The calculation, of course, is that the public’s wrath will be directed at local politicians, rather than the SNP.

This Budget also betrayed the malign influence of the Scottish Greens. My party warned Nicola Sturgeon was creating a coalition of chaos by bringing the extremist, anti-business Greens into government – and our worst fears are being realised.

We saw it recently when Nicola Sturgeon abandoned thousands of oil and gas workers by opposing Cambo. And this from the leader of a party which based its economic case for independence on Scotland’s oil.

Now we can see the Greens’ impact with the SNP’s reluctance to commit to upgrading our trunk roads. The dualling of the A9 and A96 is long overdue, yet there was no information in the Budget statement on when, or even if, it will go ahead.

Naturally, however, independence did feature. Another divisive referendum is the last thing the people of Scotland want, yet the SNP are so obsessed that even the task of recovery from a pandemic can’t shift their mind from the constitution.

I’m not claiming everything in this Budget is wrong. I support increasing Scottish Child Payments from April. Yet youngsters have been failed by the SNP, who are responsible for plummeting education standards and using the Children’s Rights Bill to confect more constitutional grievance.

AND, of course, I welcome the increase in spending on the NHS. Our health service is deep in crisis, with Humza Yousaf presiding over the worst A&E waiting times since his party came to power 14 years ago. We have a huge shortage of staff, while ambulance response times are unacceptable.

Yes, the pandemic has placed a huge strain on Scotland’s NHS. But the SNP’s poor record predates Covid. This cash injection is welcome, but let’s be clear: the Health Secretary no longer has any excuse for failure.

Overall, this Budget falls desperately short of what the country needs. The UK Government delivered their part of the bargain. The SNP-Green coalition failed miserably to deliver theirs.