I’ll stand up for middle class on tax, vows Carlaw
SCOTS families hammered by high SNP taxes would receive a boost under a Tory government, the party leadership race frontrunner has promised.
Jackson Carlaw said he would stand up for Scotland’s ‘harddone-to middle class’, who he accuses the Scottish Government of treating as cash cows.
Workers on salaries above £26,000 pay more tax in Scotland than they would if they were living elsewhere in the UK, and coughed up an additional £750 million last year.
Mr Carlaw pledged a Scots Tory government under his leadership, after the 2021 election, would ‘start to redress some of the imbalance’.
He said: ‘I recognise there’s a hard-done-to middle class all across Scotland, who feel that they have been taken for granted.
‘The SNP have seen them as a group that they can increas-progress ingly tax higher. They have to know that we are on their side. I think of them as part of the blue collar generation.
‘They are not rich people. They are career nurses who are now in a senior position, police officers, train drivers.’
He added: ‘It’s hard-working people who feel there are obstacles put in their way to success. The success is penalised and almost even frowned upon.’
The Tory MSP for Eastwood was deputy to Ruth Davidson for almost eight years, but he believes the party has ‘spent a long time in hiatus’ because of Ms Davidson’s maternity leave and then shock resignation in August.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised increased funding, with an extra £1.2 billion for Scotland, and Mr Carlaw wants Scots Tory party policy to change with the times.
He said: ‘I think that we need to look very closely at our policy agenda. A lot of it was designed to the immediate aftermath of the recession and the austerity era, and not really designed to look at the 2020s and the new challenges of this decade.’
He also pledged to prioritise help for young housebuyers, who find it increasingly difficult to get a foothold on the property ladder.
‘I can see a whole generation of young people who desperately want to have that opportunity to own their own property, feeling they are as far away now as when they left school,’ Mr Carlaw said.
‘It’s a key challenge because for the next generation it really does matter.’
The Scottish Conservatives enjoyed unprecedented success under Ms Davidson, supplanting Labour as the largest opposition party at Holyrood. But has stalled and last month they lost seven of their 13 MPs north of the Border in the UK election.
Mr Carlaw, who will face Michelle Ballantyne for the leadership, is determined to build the party’s appeal.
His tax promise was welcomed by campaigners yesterday. Sam Packer, of the Tax
‘They have to know we are on their side’ ‘It is fantastic for taxpayers to hear ’
Payers’ Alliance, said: ‘It is fantastic for taxpayers to hear a politician calling for a lower tax burden.’
However, the Scottish Government yesterday defended its tax policies.
A spokesman said: ‘As a result of our progressive income tax policy, 55 per cent of Scottish taxpayers pay less than they would if they lived elsewhere in the UK.’