News / Barton backs 1p tax rise to protect services
SCOTTISH Labour’s Shetland candidate has welcomed the party’s plans to use Holyrood’s new powers to add a penny to the basis rate of income tax to “stop SNP cuts to schools and vital public services”.
Robina Barton described the party’s plan to set an 11p Scottish rate of income tax in next year’s budget as “bold” and called on the SNP to introduce the measure in its 2016/17 budget.
The rate, 1p higher than that proposed by George Osborne and John Swinney, would raise an estimated half a billion pounds to invest in services. A Labour amendment to that effect was defeated by 81 votes to 43 at Holyrood last week.
Swinney rejected the idea, saying the limited nature of income tax powers available to the Scottish Parliament “only allows for a single rate to be set and then applied to all three income tax bands”.
That meant, he said, that “any increase on the wealthiest would also apply to the lowest income tax payers” and Labour’s proposal – backed by the Liberal Democrats – would “hit those tax payers least able to pay.
However Barton pointed out that plans to ensure low-paid workers benefit meant over 810,000 workers in Scotland would not pay a single penny more.
The payment would be worth £100 to all income tax payers earning under £20,000, while someone on a salary of £30,000 a year would pay less than £4 a week under the plan.
But the SNP said Labour’s rebate plan was unravelling because around a third of people on low incomes do not claim the benefits to which they are entitled.
Barton said the SNP’s draft budget, with hundreds of millions of pounds in cuts to local authority funding, would have “devastating” consequences for education in particular.
“I have never agreed with austerity,” she said. “Even when times are hard we need to continue to invest in the kind of future we want to see.
“The SNP government in Edinburgh has a choice and so far they are choosing to make brutal cuts on local services like our Shetland schools. This means the educational services of these islands are trapped on a continual roundabout, as the smaller, localised schooling that is found in Shetland is threatened with closure again and again.
“This situation is unhelpful for any of our communities and the SNP government has to take responsibility for this endless uncertainty.
“Scottish Labour has made very clear that it would choose to use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to reject that austerity and invest in our country’s future.”
SNP Shetland convener Robbie McGregor said Labour’s proposed rebate for those earning between £11,000 and £20,000 failed to recognise that around one in three people do not claim benefits they are entitled to.
He estimated that around 350,000 people on low incomes nationwide, including many in Shetland, would miss out on Labour’s rebate as a result.
“The fact is that Labour have no way of telling us how this scheme would work, or how they could guarantee that the rebate gets to those who need it most,” McGregor said.
“The reality is Labour cannot guarantee that a single person in Shetland would claim or receive this £100, but if Labour ever got into power everyone locally would have to pay more taxes.”
He went on to say that Labour “don’t have a clue how their plans would work or how many low-earners in Shetland would be hit – these plans aren’t worth the back of a fag packet they were written on”.
McGregor, who is the agent for SNP candidate Danus Skene who is currently unwell, added: “While the SNP want to give the lowest paid workers in Shetland a pay rise, Labour want to give them a tax rise – and Labour will have to answer to local workers for their regressive plans at the election in three months’ time.”
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