While Labour not so quietly self destructs, the SNP Government spins and the Tories huff and puff, Tavish Scott comes up with an idea that could easily and practically help everyone in Scotland. A 2p in the pound tax cut.
We've all talked about supporting increased powers for the Scottish Parliament, but there are powers we already have that we could use.
My personal preference would be that we should also raise taxes for the very, very wealthy as well to offset some of the cost, but Tavish's idea has lots of good points.
A tax cut would help to bring children of working families out of poverty - for the first time, more children in poverty come from families where someone is in work.
It would give hard pressed Scots, struggling to pay all their bills, a bit more of a cushion.
I spent the downturn in the early 90s working in an office where I saw families turned out of their homes on a daily basis because they couldn't pay their mortgages. I never want to see anything like that again, especially at a time when we have even less social housing than we did then. If we don't want to see families of 5 cooped up in one room in bed and breakfasts, chucked out during the day, and with no cooking facilities, then maybe we should be looking at a radical solution like the one Tavish has outlined.
He is the first Scottish politician to have a decent, practical, easily implemented idea which would really help struggling Scots. Let's see if the SNP Government has the guts to use the powers it has before it asks for more.
2 comments:
I'm not so sure, Caron! It's going to mean some cuts from somewhere and a pretty wholescale review of our spending policy - it does seem like it's a "big idea" without the detail behind it to make it workable.
I'd also have thought that the correct place for the new Scottish leader to make this announcement was at the Scottish conference, rather than the Federal one, where he could actually have a motion to support it and give our conference a bit of much-needed media interest. What do you think?
There is scope for cuts up here - the Executive spending up here has doubled since 1999 and we can still retain the main achievements we have made while finding the £800m this would cost. Within a budget of £30 billion, it's achievable.
As far as which Conference is concerned, I'm quite relaxed about that. Taxation is a UK wide issue, after all, and this has given us some pretty good media coverage. When was the last time Brian Taylor blogged about one of our policy initiatives?
In terms of consultation within the Party about such a change, I think you definitely have a point.
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