No change for the better from the new labour government — scottish national party

“CHANGE”? WHAT “CHANGE”? IN JULY 2024, PEOPLE TOOK KEIR STARMER’S LABOUR PARTY AT ITS WORD AND VOTED FOR HIS PROMISE OF “CHANGE”. IT WAS THE ONE SINGLE WORD ON THE FRONT OF THEIR MANIFESTO.

However, it didn’t take long for Labour to show it was just more of the same old Westminster. They weren’t offering change for the better, but change for the worse. Before the election, Keir

Starmer was sending letters to pensioners boasting that he would “never betray Britain’s pensioners”. But soon after the election it was announced by his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, that

they would abolish the universal winter fuel allowance – a policy that would push 900,000 pensioners in Scotland into fuel poverty. The same Rachel Reeves who crowed in 2017 that Labour will

“stand up for pensioners [by] defending the triple lock & winter fuel payments”. As for the triple lock for pensioners, she claimed state pensioners would get a £470 uplift. But as

money expert Martin Lewis has pointed out this “is simply factually not true”. The winter fuel payment raid is a political choice with the most serious consequences. Labour’s own figures

show that it could result in 4,000 excess deaths this winter, and estimates suggest that the cost to the NHS will be just shy of £1 billion and just shy of £100 million in Scotland. As for

WASPI women, there was nothing yet again – with no provision for compensation in the Budget. So when it comes to pensioners, the promise of “Change” must feel like a bad joke. Labour

promised they would not raise taxes on “working people”. Yet we now find, due to Labour’s infinitely flexible definition of “working people”, that people face five years of their taxable

income being increased because of frozen tax thresholds. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has pointed out, this budget means living standards are set to return to the depths experienced

during the cost-of-living crisis by the end of this parliament, with those on the lowest incomes faring the worst. Families will be up to £1,760 a year worse off because of Labour’s Budget.

Does that sound like “Change” to you? Then there’s Labour’s pledge on national insurance. Labour promised they would not put up national insurance, but after the election they shimmied and

said that would only be “on employees”. But placing the burden on the employers’ contributions for their employees that has a knock on effect to employees. As the Institute for Fiscal

Studies has said this will proportionally hit harder those employing lower paid workers and flow through to lower pay. As they also say, higher national insurance contributions “will be felt

be people – mostly workers” and that the biggest increase in labour costs will fall on low earners. But there’s others who will be affected. Labour are now raiding the payroll accounts of

charities, care homes and small local businesses with this national insurance hike. It’s also a direct assault on Scotland’s businesses, workers, and growth. Scotland’s vital tourism and

hospitality sector – our pubs, hotels and cafes – are already hamstrung by Brexit, and will now face an increased burden as a result of these changes. This punishing tax hike will hit many

of Scotland’s 340,000 small and medium sized businesses – the very companies that drive growth, that reinvest locally, that sustain 1.2 million Scottish jobs and 42.4% of all private sector

turnover in Scotland and that sponsor local groups and clubs. They are caught in the crosshairs of this anti-small business Labour Chancellor. They deliver essential economic activity where

the money generated remains local but will fall foul of Labour’s rank duplicity unlike those working for public limited companies or the public sector earning six-figure salaries. The

national insurance hike represents a £25 billion double whammy tax on jobs. The resources that will fund the Labour’s raid on payroll are the same resources that businesses would have used

to recruit more people into work, reducing unemployment, growing their own business and assisting in the ambition of greater growth in the wider economy. It is the same resource that would

have delivered pay rises for ordinary working people next year. Where will that resource come from now? And, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has also pointed out, it might not even raise

£26 billion for the Treasury. It may cost that figure but it may only accrue £10 billion at the end of the day. So what is the “Change” here? Scotland has gone from one Westminster

government that places the burden on ordinary people with another doing the same thing. Labour claims that there is no return to Tory austerity. In terms of word play they are technically

correct because this is Labour’s austerity. They have called on government departments to make 2% efficiency savings. There is literally no precedent for that, ever. No government has ever

achieved that, so those efficiency gains will not be realised, and those 2% savings will turn into what they are – 2% cuts. As for the block grant, the Scottish Government now receives a

lower share of UK spending than at any point in the last decade. Total UK government expenditure has decreased since 2020, and Scotland’s share of that expenditure has decreased faster

still. In 2014, the adjusted block grant represented 8% of UK government expenditure; however, that figure has fallen to 7.6%. That represents a real-terms cut to the Scottish budget every

year since 2020, and the Scottish block grant is now worth £6.4 billion less than it was in 2021, a drop of 12.7%. Moreover, last year the Scottish Government’s capital grant – money for

building long term rather than regular annual spending – was cut by 9.6%, a real-terms cut of £600 million, and we face a further cut from Westminster of 3%, or £200 million, to our capital

grant this year. That is money not available to build schools, hospitals, roads and so on in Scotland. The fact is that we have fresh austerity and a fresh cost of living crisis delivered by

this Labour Government – a Hobson’s choice for Scotland in broken Brexit Britain, where things can only get worse. So whether it is Labour or Tory, it is just austerity – Westminster

austerity. No “Change”. In election leaflets that went out across Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, Labour promised to reduce energy bills by £300. Instead, they have risen by £149. So where

is Labour’s £449 saving coming from? Speaking from Manchester – not Aberdeen – the chair of GB Energy could not say when any savings would materialise, and the day before the Budget Labour

blocked any move to put that on a statutory footing in the GB Energy Bill. It is heads Westminster wins and tails Scotland loses. No “Change” there. And this Budget has done nothing to atone

for the 4.3 million UK children living in poverty, a situation that is further entrenched by Labour’s two-child cap impacting over 87,000 Scottish children. Over 100 children a day fall

into poverty with Labour’s two-child cap. That is 10,000 children since Labour took office in July. What a record! What a “Change”! As for black holes, the biggest black hole in this Budget

was Brexit. No mention of its disastrous impact was made or addressed. In documents published in response to the Budget the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned that, “weak growth

in imports and exports over the medium term partly reflect the continuing impact of Brexit, which we expect to reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15 per cent in the long

term.” Earlier this month the Westminster Treasury was forced to admit that the UK has already paid the EU £23.8 billion as part of its ‘financial settlement’ agreement and will pay a

further £6.4 billion. On top of those costs, a study by the Centre for European Reform (CER) found that UK government tax revenues would have been around £40 billion higher on an annual

basis, if the UK had remained in the EU – the exact amount that Rachel Reeves has claimed to raise through higher taxes in yesterday’s budget. What sort of “Change” is it where Scotland pays

for a Brexit it didn’t even vote for? This wasn’t a budget for “Change”. It’s a know-your-place Budget for low-paid workers, small businesses, families, pensioners, and for Scotland. THE

ONLY REAL CHANGE THAT CAN HELP SCOTLAND ESCAPE THIS WESTMINSTER ROUNDABOUT CAN ONLY COME WITH INDEPENDENCE AND A ROUTE BACK TO JOINING THE LARGEST SINGLE MARKET IN THE WORLD.