Offord refuses to rule out independence referendum after 10 years

REFORM'S new Scottish leader has promised £3.7billion of tax cuts if he upsets the odds and becomes First Minister in May.

- BY DAVID WALKER

Malcolm Offord also vowed to slash the bloated state by taking cash from “highly dubious environmental protection, economic development and 132 unaccountable quangos” to pay for the policy.

But he ruled out major public sector job cuts when making this announcement at a press conference in Bishopton yesterday.

Mr Offord promised to “incentivise our own people” to turbocharge the Scottish economy and bring it at least on par with the rest of the UK. An entrepreneur himself, he bemoaned the fact Scotland's economy is lagging behind England.

In his first keynote speech, he promised to realign Scotland's tax system with the rest of the UK — and then go further and institute a 1p-in-the-pound cut across the board. In the first five years of a Reform government, two further 1p cuts would be instituted so Scots tax rates would be 3p lower than the rest of the UK. The party believes the realignment would cost £1.2bn, with £850m more for each 1p cut, meaning a total of £3.7bn would have to be found within the first Holyrood term.

Currently, anyone earning over about £30k pays more tax than they would if they lived in the rest of the UK, with the gap rising in every tax band.

Mr Offord said: “I spend a lot of my time speaking with business owners of SMEs in Scotland.