GRAHAM GRANT: Will Swinney swallow his pride and give us all a tax break next week? Only the most foolhardy would get their hopes up

Daily Mail​

28-04-2025

Have you lost count of the number of times 'full-on John' Swinney has tried to re-set his failing government?
You're not alone, but the next refresh is on Thursday next week - when he will produce a policy agenda for the year ahead.
These announcements are normally made in September - but the Scottish election is looming, in May 2026.
The First Minister has brought the programme for government forward this year because he wants to stress that he's 'laser-focused on delivery'.
So, he's really firing the starting pistol on the SNP 's election campaign - but it hasn't delivered anything other than failure and division for much of the past 20 years.
The smart money is on a continuation of the status quo - with some more 'freebies' thrown in as a sweetener.
But times are lean for public coffers thanks to the SNP's financial incompetence, so the chances of anything spectacular are limited - and then there's the sensitive topic of Scottish independence.
Mr Swinney will have to bang the drum for his party's raison d'être - but he knows it's toxic territory for the majority of Scots.
Yet May 6 is an opportunity to tackle one of the greatest injustices of the SNP's long reign – one for which it is responsible.
The cross-Border tax gap is a barrier to economic growth – something which Mr Swinney says he wants to promote.
It means the hard-working young professionals we desperately want to attract and retain are giving Scotland a wide berth.
As we reported yesterday, business leaders have demanded an independent review into whether SNP taxes are killing Scotland's competitiveness.
CBI Scotland wants Mr Swinney to commission a study on 'tax divergence' with the rest of the UK as part of his plans for the final year of this parliament.
A review isn't necessary but there is a need for urgent action to tear up an iniquitous tax regime which penalises anyone with a shred of ambition.
Under the SNP budget for 2025/26, Scots earning more than £30,318 will pay more income tax than people elsewhere in the UK.
Workers earning £50,000 will have to pay £1,528 more in tax, those earning £75,000 an extra £2,082, and those earning £100,000 will see £3,332 added to tax bills.
In his speech to the STUC Congress in Dundee yesterday, Mr Swinney said 'we must ensure we have the highly qualified and skilled workforce needed to make Scotland an attractive place to invest.'
That is incompatible with high-tax policies, no matter how much the SNP boasts about how 'progressive' it is to launch raid after raid on our rapidly diminishing bank balances, or ballooning overdrafts.
The squeeze on household finances - from rising energy bills to soaring council tax - is pushing many families towards the breadline, or beyond it.
According to the Scottish Government, it is estimated that 20 per cent of Scotland's population (1,070,000 people each year) were living in relative poverty after housing costs in 2021-24.
A person is in 'relative poverty' if their current household income is less than 60 per cent of the current UK median.
We can expect to hear a lot from Mr Swinney about tackling child poverty - but his own government's figures show the number of children in relative poverty after housing costs is 'likely to be somewhere between 180,000 and 300,000 children'.
The SNP's flagship Scottish Child Payment (SCP) is fantastically expensive - and woefully ineffectual.
It will cost £471million in 2025-26 - but in September last year a damning study found 'no evidence' that the payouts are effective.
The Scottish Health Equity Research Unit said that even if the payments were working, Scotland 'would still be a long way from meeting its statutory target of reducing relative child poverty'.
More of our taxes are being poured into handouts rather than galvanising the economy, to little effect.
Wrong-headed policies and a burgeoning, dysfunctional public sector have swallowed up our extra taxes – and the NHS, which was supposed to benefit most, remains in a state of permanent crisis.
Reducing rampant waste and easing the tax burden are the only ways of boosting productivity and bolstering growth, with the proceeds directed towards rescuing failing public services.
Businesses have been hit with Labour's hike on employers' contributions on National Insurance – a crippling increase which demonstrates the fiscal illiteracy of a party which pays lip service to defending workers, while destroying their jobs.
The SNP's sky-high taxes and business rates are piling more pressure on firms clinging to survival.
That means Mr Swinney faces a big test next week – can he swallow his pride and announce the end of the tax disparity with the rest of the UK?
He should go much further, with a commitment to cut taxes across the board, but most of us would settle for baby steps.
Past record suggests this may be wishful thinking; yet while the SNP is in electioneering mode, only the foolhardy would get their hopes up for a big U-turn on taxes.
Yet the case for change is inarguable - it's worth remembering that less than £1 has been spent on public services from every £5 raised by hammering us with higher taxes than the rest of the UK.
Scots have paid an extra £3.4billion of income tax since the SNP opened up a tax gap with the rest of the UK in 2017.
But it has only generated £629million of extra budget revenue for the Scottish Government due to the impact on the block grant of slower economic growth north of the Border.
The reality is that the SNP demanded new powers for Holyrood - and then used them to make Scotland the most heavily taxed part of the UK.
It's a move that has hit businesses hard while contributing to moribund growth rates which have been running at roughly half the UK level for the past decade.
A government which drove the economy into the doldrums is now telling us that we should trust it to turn it around.
This is a fag-end administration which long ago ran out of ideas and momentum – and is now engaged in a last-ditch bid to regain credibility.
Many years have been wasted on botched transgender reforms and the doomed crusade for independence.
This is precious time that could have been devoted to driving up growth, creating jobs, and cutting taxes to make Scotland a magnet for investment.
Mr Swinney has a chance to start rowing back on his party's high-tax lunacy next week, and he should seize it as any sane leader would – but voters won't be holding their breath.
Undoing the economic damage the SNP has inflicted on Scotland will take longer than a year - and the only thing Mr Swinney is likely to 'deliver' before next May is yet more failure.