‘A SNP MSP has claimed an independent Scotland could guarantee a couple with children a minimum income of more than £37,000 a year,’ the Daily Record reported breathlessly this week, as it covered the SNP’s latest plans for an independent Scotland.
Then came the clincher: ‘Neil Gray admits the plans have not been costed.’
Neil Gray is an SNP MSP and deputy convenor of the party’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission, which has published its final report: A Route Map to a Fair Independent Scotland.
One of the report’s key recommendations is for a pilot of a minimum income guarantee. Gray, referencing work done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, suggests that an independent Scotland could effectively guarantee a minimum income of £18,700 per person per year for a couple with children, and £19,200 for a single person, via a combination of minimum wage, tax allowances, benefits and pension.
The report assumes that Scotland leaving the UK is the key to achieving a number of positive outcomes, including the eradication of poverty. It favours the scrapping of council tax and the introduction of a land value tax. It views a wealth tax as ‘worthy of investigation, as part of a wider review of tax’. It also wants to see a higher state pension.
With no attempt to consider whether an independent Scotland would have the means to pay for the report’s recommendations, it is difficult to take it seriously. James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, correctly points out that it is ‘a campaign tool designed to win support for independence as much as anything else’.
Another problem with the report is that many of its proposals could be implemented now.
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