NICOLA Sturgeon’s commitment to providing a “real, credible, affordable” plan to mitigate the effects of tax credit cuts is to be welcomed.
There have been times during the past week when the tax credit debate seems to have been more about the political enmity and proxy war between Labour and the SNP than it has been about the thousands of families in Scotland set to lose out from George Osborne’s £4.4 billion cut.
The exchanges between Jackie Baillie and Alex Neil on Wednesday’s debate on the issue did not cover our parliament in much glory.
Sturgeon and Kezia Dugdale’s commitment to lessening the impact and indeed eradicating the impact of tax credits is genuine. Even if the Labour leader’s plan is not as robust as she may make out.
But then she is the leader of the opposition who, unless there is an incredible change in polls, will not form the government next year. They get to make “back of a fag packet” promises because they will never have to make them law. There will likely be more of this in the next six months.
Labour are right to push Sturgeon on tax credits. And her promise to provide that “real, credible, affordable” plan when she knows exactly what Osborne is doing and the state of the Scottish Government’s budget is sensible. It is worth remembering Osborne is in listening mode after his cuts were, effectively, defeated in the Lords. But, for his fiscal policy to work he still needs to find those £4.4bn savings, and he needs to make it at the same pace.
He will be back. To those thousands of Scots who will lose out – up to 250,000 households according to Scottish Government figures – Sturgeon and Dugdale’s commitment will be welcome.
The Westminster Government is cutting disproportionately from the poorest and most vulnerable, while some of the most wealthy receive tax breaks.
More than half a million children in Scotland currently benefit from tax credits, and regardless of what happens, many more families will be affected by the freeze on other benefits, including the 577,000 who receive child benefit.
This is coming regardless of what happens in next May’s Holyrood elections. When our MPs speak at Westminster we urge them to think about those families rather than the election.
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