Budget: Scotland
Debate between Christine Jardine and Kirsty McNeill(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Kirsty McNeill
We have made responsible tax choices entirely in line with our manifesto. That is why the rates of employers’ national insurance will increase by just 1.2 percentage points. The smallest businesses will be protected as the employment allowance will increase from £5,000 to £10,500, allowing Scottish firms to employ four national living wage employees full time without paying any employer national insurance on their wages.
Kirsty McNeill
I will make some progress. This Budget asks businesses and the wealthiest to pay their share while making taxes fairer. Those are Labour choices and they are inspired by Labour values. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) has made clear, this is a progressive Budget that values redistribution.
Kirsty McNeill
I will make some progress. And just as our Budget choices reflect our values, the ways in which the Opposition parties choose to oppose them represent their values, whether that is their opposition to our end to the VAT tax break on private schools or opposing, as the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) does, our attempts to bring agricultural property relief into balance. As she will know, the latest figures from 2021 to 2022 show that 40% of the value of APR went to just 7% of claimants; that is neither sustainable nor fair, which is why I support the Labour Government’s changes.
Kirsty McNeill
As the hon. Member will be aware, each year almost three quarters of estates eligible for APR in the UK are expected to be entirely unaffected by these fair and proportionate changes. Ours was a Budget, just as this is a Government, squarely for working people. The hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) complained of the tax burden. Unlike the SNP Scottish Government, which simply want to clobber teachers and nurses with ever higher taxes, we have delivered on our pledge not to increase national insurance or VAT on working people in Scotland. That means that they will not, thanks to this Budget, see higher taxes in their payslips.
Hundreds of thousands of workers in Scotland will benefit from an increase in the national living wage and a record increase to the national minimum wage. The Chancellor made the decision to protect working people in Scotland from being dragged into higher tax brackets by confirming that the freeze on national insurance contribution thresholds will be lifted from 2028-29 onwards, rising in line with inflation, so that people can keep more of their hard-earned wages.
We have begun the difficult work of restitching our fraying safety net. Thousands of Scottish households will be £420 a year better off on average, as a result of our change to the universal credit fair repayment rate. Around 1.7 million families in Scotland will see their working-age benefits uprated in line with inflation, a £150 gain on average, in 2025-26. Maintaining the triple lock means an increase in the state pension of £470 next year, on top of £900 this year, for 1 million Scottish pensioners.
Let me pay special tribute to the campaigners and fellow trade unionists who fought for changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Thanks to their efforts and the decisions of this Labour Government, nearly 7,000 retired mineworkers in Scotland will get an extra £1,500 on average in their pension. Finally, that is justice for those who powered our country.
Kirsty McNeill
I will make some progress. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) shared moving testimony about the impact of changes by the Scottish Government on rural communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) talked about the crisis in NHS and social care. The answer to all those challenges is the same: investment in our public services. That is exactly what this Budget is designed to do.