Tories in vow to rebuild from crisis

THE Scottish Tories have accused the SNP of seeking to take a “wrecking ball” to Scotland’s recovery by holding another referendum.

Party leader Douglas Ross made the claim as he outlined his plans to build more houses and cut taxes for homebuyers.

He said the Tories are proposing the most new social housing since devolution began in 1999.

This would see 60,000 affordable new homes over the course of the next parliamentary term, the party said, with two-thirds of these for social rent.

In addition, it said it would aim to restore housebuilding to “pre-snp and pre-financial crash levels” with 25,000 new homes in total per year by the end of the next term.

Meanwhile, the Tories said raising the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) threshold to £250,000 would lift threequarters of all buyers out of the property tax entirely.

Mr Ross said:

“Everyone in Scotland should have the opportunity to own their home and our tax system should support that ambition, so we have plans to ensure the majority of homebuyers pay no tax on transactions.

“We would also restore Help to Buy which was scrapped by the SNP, launch the biggest social housebuilding drive since devolution, and restore power to communities from the SNP Government by giving councils the power to create their own local LBTT discount schemes.

“Our bold plans would kickstart the property market and give a new generation of Scots the opportunity to buy their own home after the devastation of Covid.

“The Scottish Conservatives would rebuild Scotland brick by brick, while the SNP would rather force through another referendum and take a wrecking ball to our recovery.”