Osborne’s austerity Budget is Robin Hood in reverse says Stewart Hosie

Reports signalled the Chancellor was set to cut tax credits to poorer families and cap benefits at £20,000 a year for those outside London, while scrapping inheritance tax for couples with assets worth up to £1 million. Stewart Hosie, the SNP deputy leader, said: “George Osborne is more concerned with deeper cuts to public services and reducing people’s incomes – acting like Robin Hood in reverse.”

Buoyed by the No vote in Sunday’s Greek referendum, anti-austerity campaigners across Britain are to stage “Oxi to Osborne” protests today against the first Conservative Budget since 1996.

Organisers from the People’s Assembly group said interest in about 40 planned protests – including one in Glasgow’s George Square – had soared since the Greeks overwhelming rejected austerity.

Earlier yesterday, the First Minister warned cutting tax credits to 2003 levels – as the Tories are expected to do – will reduce the income of Scotland’s poorest families by £425m and threaten economic recovery north of the Border.

Nicola Sturgeon said 500,000 children in Scottish families who receive tax credits would lose out if the cuts go ahead.

She argued that tax credits “form an important part of the tax and welfare system, designed particularly to support working families on low incomes” and if they are cut the poorest children and households will be substantially worse off in a move which would be “economically counter-productive”.

“We want to support people to get into work and to stay in work and the tax credit system provides important practical help to families on low pay,” she said.

“These are people who are in jobs and often working very hard for relatively little pay. It is unfair that their children are the people made to pay for the mistakes of the austerity approach – not to mention economically counter-productive.

“When people are in work, they spend their wages in the local economy, leading to a virtuous circle. Cutting child tax credits back to 2003 levels, as we expect the UK Government to do, will risk threatening Scotland’s economic recovery.”

She added: “The deficit needs to be reduced but this should be done in a more gradual manner with more resources allocated to a programme of additional investment in our economy, rather than risking a financial body-blow to hard-working parents and their children.”

Hosie, the SNP Treasury spokesperson, added: “The Chancellor has set himself the task of tackling the UK’s productivity weakness in his first true-blue Tory Budget. I hope that any plans he announces are more successful than his record on deficit reduction, in which he totally failed to meet any of the targets he set himself.

“But according to the leaks so far, the reality is that George Osborne is more concerned with deeper cuts to public services and reducing people’s incomes – acting like Robin Hood in reverse.”

“The likely changes to be announced for tax credits will simply cut household budgets, which as the First Minister has pointed out will hit the poorest families with children hardest.

“And while he seems to think that businesses will simply raise wages to take the strain, it is completely wrong-headed when his own Government doesn’t even pay the living wage.”

Labour have also raised concerns about the anticipated content of today’s Budget, highlighting the looming tax credits cuts and the refusal of the Tories to rule out slashing the top rate of income tax from 45p to 40p for those earning more than £150,000 a year .

Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray MP added: “The Tories came to office claiming that this Government would be on the side of working families. Before the Budget has even been published it is becoming clear that, once again, it is working people who will bear the brunt of this Government’s cuts.

“With their proposed cuts to tax credits, the Budget risks cutting the feet from under people who do the right thing, go out to work every day and try to do the best by their families.

“Nearly 300,000 families in Scotland, including half a million children, will be affected by George Osborne’s cuts to tax credits, at the same time as he refuses to rule out a further tax cut for millionaires.

“This Government needs to be tackling the root causes of the rising welfare bill – low pay and rising housing costs – to bring down the deficit in a sustainable way.”

Tax credits, which include child tax credits and working tax credits, were introduced in 1998 as a response to rising child poverty, caused by low wages and high living costs. They provided £2 billion additional cash to households in Scotland in 2013-14, with two-thirds going to help parents in low-paid work.

But the Scottish Government yesterday warned a 10 per cent cut in child tax credit would cost families north of the Border £150m a year, while a 10 per cent cut in all tax credits would leave households £250m worse off.

Reducing child tax credits to 2003 levels would result in the loss of £650m, or £425m if this was adjusted for inflation, according to SNP ministers.

Today’s protests include a mass “die-in” outside the Commons to protest at the impact of welfare cuts. Speakers are expected to include Marina Prentoulis, a British-based Greek academic and member of the radical Greek governing party Syriza, and Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn.