Scots billionaire calls for ministers to get paid ‘millions' in wage rise
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MINISTERS should be handed million-pound salaries in a bid to attract better leaders, Scotland's top entrepreneur has claimed.
Sir Tom Hunter also slammed the SNP's record — insisting they must slash taxes to reverse 'managed decline' and save the 'lacklustre' economy.
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Sir Tom Hunter wants our leaders to earn top salaries to attract the best talent
Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
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John Swinney earns a fraction of the salary paid to Singapore's president
The ex-Sports Division tycoon reckoned Scotland could become the Signapore of the UK through low-tax, pro-business policies.
But he said that huge pay hikes were first needed to attract the top political talent to Holyrood.
Sir Tom compared First Minister John Swinney's salary of £135,605 to the $2.2million earned by the wealthy Asian city-state's president Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
In a apparent swipe at Cabinet ministers like Nats leader Mr Swinney and Health Secretary Neil Gray, Sir Tom added: 'We need to encourage better people into politics.
"The hardest job in this country is running the country.
'Can we get the best people doing it? The second hardest job is running the NHS.
"Can we get the best people doing this?'
The First Minister is entitled to earn £182,438 a year but receives less due to a 16-year ministerial pay freeze — which he has partially lifted to hand colleagues £19,126 hikes.
Asked it the best talent is running the country, Sir Tom — Scotland's first home-grown billionaire and one of its richest men — said: 'I would say we could do better.'
The Ayrshire-born business boss also blasted the state of public services under the SNP.
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Sir Tom said: 'Our education standards are falling, our health service is struggling, and we have a lacklustre economy.'
He called on Nats to drastically cut taxes for higher earners and firms to 'welcome entrepreneurs and wealth creators' and boost jobs.
A research paper for his Hunter Foundation pointed out how the 48 per cent top rate of income tax — imposed by former First Minister Humza Yousaf at Nats' December 2023 Budget — was exactly double Signapore's 24 per cent.
But Sir Tom stopped short of saying Scotland should quit the UK.
He said: 'I don't think the economic argument for independence is there yet.
'If it's independence, just more of the same, then the whole of Scotland will be poorer.'
Last night Tory economy spokesman Murdo Fraser siezed on Sir Tom's 'utterly damning' takedown of the Conservative's rivals.
He hit out: 'He says their policies have been anti-business and anti-growth, that they have ignored Scottish companies, and that Scots' incomes and essential services have been badly damaged as a result.'
But Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said ministers welcomed the findings of Sir Tom's philanthropy body.
She explained: 'There will be some areas where we will disagree.
'But I'm sure within this report — which I haven't had the opportunity to read in full as yet — there will be areas that we can agree on.
'What Sir Tom does raise is there is something inherently challenging in the system that Scotland finds itself in at the moment and we need to rise to that occasion.'
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