BBC Scotland is clearly delighted to tell you:
Adding a new higher-rate income tax band in Scotland might only raise £60m, a leading fiscal think tank has warned.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67706492
Only £60 million?
According to the Guardian in May 2023:
Hospital doctors in Scotland have been offered a cumulative 14.5% pay rise in a fresh attempt by Scottish ministers to avert highly disruptive strikes. The Scottish government said the offer would cost £61.3m and was the best made by any government in the UK: doctors’ pay deals are negotiated separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/22/junior-doctors-in-scotland-offered-cumulative-145-pay-rise
Junior doctors in Scotland have settled. Why was that £61m investment important?
According to STV, a year earlier:
NHS Scotland could lose half its junior doctors in next two years. A survey of BMA Scotland junior doctor members found that 50% are considering leaving the profession in Scotland within the next two years, with the current issues in the NHS leaving them feeling demoralised, undervalued and exhausted.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/nhs-scotland-could-lose-half-its-junior-doctors-in-next-two-years
Did the ‘leading fiscal thinktank’ consider what £60m can buy. I could go on. Home care for 60 000 people to prevent them having to go into a care home away from their family.
‘Only’ £60m? Elitist, out-of-touch, lagging ‘think’ tank.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I am always in favour of taxing the top earners more to pay for the essential services we all need it’s all part of the mantra that those with most should pay for what those with least need , we are a long way from fairness and still without penalties for those wealthy people who complain about the imposition of fairness 🤫
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I agree in principle to this tax rise, but we can’t keep firefighting to maintain services. I have always said we are 5 years behind England when it comes to the services provided. We are already seeing that deterioration of our services to the level England was in 5 years ago. The future does not look great for Scotland.
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I’m anonymous yet I’ve signed in?
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What services?
Golfnut
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Five years behind England? What services or all? What metrics you using? What evidence can you point to? Great thing about TuS is evidence based comparative assessments!
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It is difficult for you to justify the suggestion that Scotland is 5 years behind England.
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“…I have always said we are 5 years behind England when it comes to the services provided…”
That begs the question: were you ever right?
The evidence from the past few years is that the Scottish government are willing to attempt to find solutions, to avoid damaging and disruptive strikes. This is particularly true in healthcare, where avoiding strikes has allowed the covid backlog to be tackled to a degree.
Sure, there are costs involved, but is the Westminster Tory regime’s approach cost-effective? Hiring agency staff to provide cover at not dissimilar costs to settling pay disputes. With the added “bonus” of little or no progress (on either disputes or backlogs), but the money spent anyway.
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You know James Cook is pulling a fast one when you see comments open – 20 hours old, https://archive.ph/ko5ug published15th December 2023, 05:45 UTC , first of 1,362 comments at 15th December 11.54, and still going 28 hours later at the time of writing… 🤣
Philip Sim’s article is the usual BBC Scotland platform for SG opposition, but thought this particular PARTY-piece priceless – “Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told BBC Scotland that budgetary pressures were not a short-term issue, but the result of “16 years of financial mismanagement and SNP incompetence”… I think its absolutely ludicrous that we continue say to people across this country, we expect you to pay more and get less “.
I agree with ‘Anas “wi teeth” ‘, having switched from being directly elected to playing the “List” game, rather highlights his point of ‘ its absolutely ludicrous that we continue say to people across this country, we expect you to pay more ‘ and still get me.
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Thanks for the link. Mr Sarwar talks of ‘pay more and get less’? Unless of course you are getting more in Scotland – as a recipient of the Scottish Child Payment OR as a public service worker in receipt of a decent pay rise this year OR as a student getting more financial support from your government in order to avoid debt caused by tuition fees OR the young people now getting free bus travel OR ….
And that’s before cataloguing the OTHER ‘MORES’ we get in Scotland in terms of an often better quality of public services by comparison to those provided by Mr Sarwar’s own party in government in Wales.
When Mr Sarwar’s two statements (i) “budgetary pressures were not a short-term issue” and (ii) “16 years of financial mismanagement” and considered in the context of a government with very limited fiscal and economic levers to pull on, what would have been Labour’s remedy over the past 16 years to deal with these longer term ‘budgetary pressures’ in Scotland? More austerity and/or less mitigation of Westminster austerity?
Or perhaps Labour in Scotland still favours an income tax rise across the board? Recall in 2017, when Alex Rowley opened for Labour in a Holyrood debate on the 2017 Draft Budget, we learned this (with my emphasis):
‘Today, Labour wants to put forward an alternative. We are asking Derek Mackay to amend his draft budget and PUT 1P ON THE BASIC RATE OF TAXATION in order to raise an additional amount of nearly £500 million to invest directly into local public services.’
Patrick Harvie of the Greens asked the obvious question at the time: ‘I think that he knows that we share a lot of intent about the need to raise revenue to invest in public services and protect them from the cuts. However, WHY SHOULD THAT BE FOCUSED ON THE BASIC RATE? CAN THE LABOUR PARTY EXPLAIN WHY LOW AND MIDDLE-INCOME EARNERS SHOULD BE ASKED TO PAY MORE TAX RATHER THAN THOSE WHO CAN GENUINELY AFFORD TO PAY?’
Source: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-25-01-2017?meeting=10749&iob=98621#5586
Would Mr Sarwar have been content with an extra £500m for public services taken out of working people’s pockets in Scotland? WOULD THAT HAVE AVOIDED HIS CHARGE OF ‘FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT’? Is that still Labour’s remedy?
And will ‘big’ Labour impose such a rise in income tax on England if/when in government in Westminster? I’m told there are severe budgetary pressures impacting negatively on public services and local government there too. Perhaps taking money from ‘non-doms’ is the ever expanding remedy for everything or perhaps there can be another minor adjustment to the ‘magic money tree’ spreadsheet’? So much easier for a government with full agency of a normal independent nation state!
‘Budgetary pressures’ – severe stresses on local government and on public services – in Scotland are replicated, indeed are often much more severe/worse, in Labour-run Wales. What Mr Sarwar is witnessing is the result of severely restricted or absent economic, fiscal and monetary powers available to the governments in Edinburgh and Cardiff. If/when Westminster decides to spend more or spend less on public services and when it acts in ways that bring benefits/disbenefits to the UK economy, Scotland and Wales experience the fallout.
The outcomes and impact on Scotland and Wales are fundamentally not about mismanagement either by the SNP or Labour in government in Scotland and Wales respectively – even tho’ of course all governments everywhere and always ‘could do better’ – but are inherent in the way the Union is structured and operates.
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As postscript to Philip Sim’s “New Scottish income tax band might only raise £60m” article mentioned above, had noted comments were still open before going to bed, but find this morning they finally closed, with the last of 2,046 comments from the usual suspects at 22.59 on the 16th – 35 hours of comments must be a new record for BBC Scotland desperation, with the article is still in prime spot on the BBC Scotland/Politics web-page listed as 1 day old 🤣
Having spotted the only other article with comments still lingering on the Politics page was the unattributed “One in four Scottish councils fear ‘bankruptcy’ – study” at 3 days old, so thought to compare duration of comments, and found it was 33 hours.
Curious as to why the LGUI study only examined Scottish Councils but mentioned English cities having filed for bankruptcy, looked up the quoted CE ‘Jonathan Carr-Watson’…
He turns out to be Jonathan Carr-West, found on a UK Parliament link where he had been grilled by the ‘Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee’ on 13th November at a “Financial distress in local authorities – Oral evidence” session.
On the https://lgiu.org/publications/ page for sure there is the “The state of local government finance in Scotland” report published 13th December, along with a string of other pertinent reports which may be of public interest, but not to BBC Scotland, or Liz Smith….
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