SNP budget sticks to tax, spend and hammer enterprise

If there is one word that sums up the SNP’s latest Scottish Budget, it is predictable.

- Stephen Kerr Scottish Conservative MSP

Blind leading the blind... John Swinney and Finance Secretary Shona Robison

Painfully so. More spending. Higher taxes. Bigger government. Fewer incentives to work, save or grow a business, And once again, a blizzard of rhetoric designed to distract from the absence of serious economic leadership.After nearly two decades in power, this SNP Government has learned one trick: spend more public money and hope nobody asks where the growth is supposed to come from. It is not a strategy. It is a habit.

Scotland is now the highesttaxed part of the UK for many working people. This Budget does nothing to change that.

In fact, it doubles down. Ministers boast about being “progressive”, but what that means in practice is penalising aspiration and making it harder for people to get ahead. People notice that, even if the Government pretends not to.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the continued expansion of the Scottish Child Payment. Supporting families in need is the right thing to do.

But designing a benefit system that actively discourages people from accepting a pay rise, taking overtime or going for promotion is not compassionate. It is careless.