Latest economic wheeze from the SNP? Pay every Scot £20k a year

EVERY man, woman and child in Scotland should receive a government ‘salary’ of £20,000 a year, under a radical tax shake-up backed by a Nationalist MP.

Kirsty Blackman said the party should scrap the welfare system and put a citizen’s income policy in its place.

All Scots – even working people – would get tax-free cash instead of pensions and benefits.

However, Mrs Blackman’s suggestion of £20,000 each would cost Scotland £107 billion a year.

The UK’s total benefits bill, including pensions, is about £171 billion a year – for a population ten times the size of Scotland.

Tax bills for middle and higher earners would soar to pay for it.

Mrs Blackman, who had been put forward by her party to speak on tax at a conference fringe debate, insisted she was ‘verging into personal territory’ in backing a citizen’s income.

But she is far from a lone voice – in March, SNP delegates backed a spring conference motion stating: ‘Conference believes that a basic or universal income can potentially provide a foundation to eradicate poverty, make work pay and ensure all our citizens can live in dignity.’

The Scottish Greens – who the SNP will need to push a Referendum Bill through Holyrood – have long championed the policy.

Mrs Blackman said the SNP needed to raid Scotland’s wealthy and successful businesses to fund her spending spree.

She added: ‘I’ve got a real issue about unearned income, people who get dividends, people who pay corporation tax, they pay less than even the lowest threshold of income tax. How is that fair?

‘Citizen’s income basically guarantees that everybody, every family, has enough money to live on. You give everyone £20,000 and then you tax after that.

‘In an independent Scotland, and if we’re thinking about policies for a White Paper 2, then we might want to think about something a bit more radical.’

No country has a citizen’s income but Finland will trial it next year.

Scottish Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: ‘This was a bonkers policy when it was first floated by the Greens. To see it replicated by the governing party in Scotland is slightly alarming.’

The Scottish Government declined to comment.