The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-15497, in the name of John Swinney, on the Scottish rate resolution.
17:20
I welcome the opportunity today to propose the first ever resolution in respect of the Scottish rate of income tax. This new power represents an important step in Scotland taking greater responsibility for our own financial affairs and being able to exercise those responsibilities within the context of the budget process. I welcome the opportunity that this power gives for real debate about issues that are of vital importance to the people of Scotland.
Parliament is aware that the rate that we set through the Scottish rate resolution is vital in determining the funding that will be available to support the Scottish budget for 2016-17. Stage 2 of the Budget (Scotland) (No 5) Bill was completed yesterday; agreeing the motion today will allow the bill to progress to stage 3, after the brief February recess.
If passed, the Scottish rate will come into effect from 6 April and will apply to the non-savings and non-dividend income of Scottish taxpayers. We need to set a Scottish rate because, on the same date, the United Kingdom Government will switch off 10p in every £1 of income tax in Scotland, thereby reducing our funding by £4.9 billion. For the first time, therefore, as part of the Scotland Act 2012 powers, we are required to set a rate for Scotland.
It is important that, unlike the other tax powers in the Scotland Act 2012, the Scottish rate of income tax is not a fully devolved tax, but remains part of the UK income tax system, so its collection will be delivered by HM Revenue and Customs, as income tax is now. The preparations to enable that to be taken forward have been the subject of extensive involvement of HMRC, in dialogue with the Scottish Government, to ensure that the necessary arrangements are in place. They have been lengthy preparations to ensure that, on 6 April, we have in place the operational arrangements to ensure that tax can be collected and utilised to support public services.
I have listened to what I would describe as the cabinet secretary’s very managerial presentation of the issue. This is an historic moment. We have an urgent financial situation. Does the cabinet secretary not feel embarrassed that he is not seizing the opportunity to put a penny on income tax to invest in education?
I thought that it might be helpful if I shared with Parliament the fact that, when we are changing tax arrangements, we have to ensure that we have the detail correct and that we have done the preparatory work to ensure that we can collect the income tax. That does not bother Mr Rennie, because he would penalise low-income households. It should matter to the Labour Party, though, because although it is trying to avoid penalising low-income taxpayers, it will end up doing so as a consequence of its lack of attention to detail.
If it is such “an historic moment”, as Willie Rennie pointed out, why are there no other Liberal Democrats here to share it?
Not for the first time, Mr Crawford has made a graceful intervention in a parliamentary debate.
For the benefit of Mr Rennie’s historical records, I did say in my first paragraph,
“I welcome the opportunity today to propose the first ever resolution in respect of the Scottish rate of income tax.”
I have been responsible for many historic things in this Parliament, not least of which has been the introduction of the first Scottish taxation in 300 years—the land and buildings transaction tax. I was the author of the historic concordat with local government, of which I am very proud and of which I remain an ardent supporter in every respect. Here I am for my hat trick, delivering the historic introduction of the Scottish rate of income tax.
Today, I ask the Scottish Parliament to agree—
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
Oh, well! I am delighted to offer Mr Findlay an opportunity to speak in Parliament. It will be interesting and, no doubt, fruity.
Oh. Come on now, John.
“I view the Scottish rate of income tax as a progressive power ... Clearly, people on higher incomes will pay comparatively more than people on lower incomes.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 13 January 2016; c 40.]
Does the cabinet secretary stand by those remarks?
Mr Findlay must spend all his time working out how to sit on the back benches hurling abuse at people left, right and centre. He does not pay attention. Of course I stand by those remarks, but I am not prepared to add to the burden on low-income households that are wrestling with difficult decisions. It is not really any more terribly complicated than that.
If I can, I will now get around to the historic moment. On this historic occasion, I am asking the Scottish Parliament to agree a Scottish rate of income tax of 10 pence. In short, Scottish taxpayers will see no increase in their income tax next year. That is the right decision that takes into account the challenges that are faced by members of the public and the fact that the power, were we to exercise it, would require us to increase income for every band of taxation, which would put a disproportionate burden on the incomes of low-income households. I am not prepared to do that as part of this year’s budget.
Today’s decision comes ahead of any powers that we might get from the Scotland Bill that is being considered by the United Kingdom Parliament. As we have previously announced, we will set out by the end of the parliamentary session how we will use the further income tax powers in the Scotland Bill. Before then, we must resolve the fiscal framework. I remain focused on delivering a framework that is fair for Scotland, fair for the United Kingdom and faithful to the conclusions of the Smith commission. I will not agree to anything that fails those tests.
The setting of the Scottish rate of income tax is inextricably linked to the structure of and measures in the budget. From when I made the 10p proposal in the draft budget, my main priority has been to protect our lowest-income taxpayers at a time when household budgets are tight. Despite Westminster’s cuts, the budget that is before Parliament includes record funding for our national health service, protection for front-line policing, protection for college budgets and significant investment in education, including higher education.
We have proposed what I accept is a challenging but fair settlement for local government, that delivers £250 million of new investment in health and social care, protects high quality school education, maintains teacher numbers and continues the freeze in the council tax. In a move that I hope all parties across the chamber will welcome, it will also deliver the living wage for care workers. Those actions and many of the other measures that are supported by this year’s budget will help to grow our economy, reform our public services and, crucially, protect household incomes.
At the heart of the debate on the Scottish rate of income tax has been the Government’s decision to act to protect the incomes of the lowest-income taxpayers, who would be directly attacked by any move to increase the rate of taxation from 10p to 11p. After a week of debate and consideration of the issue, I hope that this afternoon will be the moment when the Labour Party sets out for us the basis on which it thinks and is confident that it can deliver some form of protection for low-income taxpayers as a consequence of its decision to increase the Scottish rate of income tax. If the rebate that the Labour Party has talked about is a tax relief, it falls outside the powers of the Scottish Parliament in relation to income tax as conferred by the Scotland Act 2012. If it is a social security payment, it will be outside Parliament’s competence as defined in the original Scotland Act 1998. There are therefore significant legal questions that have to be addressed by the Labour Party in the contributions that Labour members are going to make in Parliament this afternoon.
Secondly, there is a question about whether the rebate could reach members of the public and whether the Labour Party has allocated sufficient resources to cover that. The estimates that I have done show that 1 million taxpayers, workers and pensioners could be eligible for the £100 rebate, which would therefore cost £100 million. That is more than the Labour Party says it has allocated for that particular challenge.
Thirdly, the Labour Party must tell us how much the rebate would cost to administer. It costs more than £40 million to administer council tax reduction and housing benefit in Scotland; the Labour Party believes that the rebate can be administered for £1 million. That tells us how much detail the Labour Party has gone into on the issue. The only conclusion that I can draw is that it is unlikely that anyone would receive the rebate that Labour is talking about. It is a posturing intervention from the Labour Party—it is not a credible plan for Government and it comes from a party that is not even fit to be in office.
It is crystal clear that when it comes to the taxation of newly qualified nurses, newly qualified teachers, police officers, firefighters, office workers, bus drivers and shop workers it is not the wealthy whom Labour is targeting. Labour is targeting working people who are busting a gut to make ends meet. This Government will not punish those individuals.
Our budget is designed to support the creation of a strong and sustainable economy, to reform public services and to tackle economic inequality. Our commitment to maintain the Scottish rate of income tax at 10p in the pound enables us to give support to individuals to do exactly that. It is a budget that mitigates the worst impacts of the UK Government’s welfare cuts and austerity agenda, because it includes £38 million for the Scottish welfare fund, up to £343 million for the council tax reduction scheme and £35 million to ensure that nobody pays the bedroom tax. It allocates £33 million to raise attainment, funds 600 hours of free childcare for all three and four-year-olds and vulnerable two-year-olds, and invests more than £1 billion in higher education. It increases the resources that are available to national health service boards and invests an additional £250 million in integrating health and social care services. It protects family budgets by freezing the council tax for the ninth year in a row, and provides meaningful pay rises for our lowest-earning public sector workers, including through our commitment to the Scottish living wage.
That is the difference between this Government and the parties that argue for a tax increase: we want to give low-paid people a pay rise, and those parties want to give them a tax rise. This Government is on the side of working people and is supporting them in their efforts to make ends meet in their households. We will not increase their taxes; we will invest in public services and protect household incomes.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Scottish rate of income tax for tax year 2016-17 is 10%.
17:32
Today, this Parliament makes a decision for the first time about the Scottish rate of income tax. Real financial responsibility has come to the Parliament, and with it come real choices that speak to who we are and what we value. Today we have a choice: we can choose to use our powers to end Tory austerity and invest in our country’s future, or we can choose to do nothing and preside over hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts. We choose to use our powers.
This is something that Nicola Sturgeon used to believe in. She used to say that more powers meant fewer cuts, but now her Scottish National Party Government will vote with the Tories to continue the cuts. It could be so different. If we choose today to reject the do-nothing proposal before us and instead say that we want to set the rate of income tax just a penny higher than George Osborne does, we would stop not just council cuts but cuts in this year’s Scottish budget altogether. We can increase it in real terms by more than £100 million.
I have heard SNP members ask why we are being asked to pay for Tory austerity. Talk about missing the point. We are being asked to pay not to have Tory austerity.
What about the cuts to come in years 2 and 3? They are hidden from sight because John Swinney does not want to tell us how bad it will be, but make no mistake about it: if the SNP votes for the status quo tonight, the cuts for 2016-17 will be as nothing in comparison with the future—and they will be John Swinney’s cuts.
Will the member give way?
I will give way in a minute.
I have heard extraordinary claims from Scottish National Party members—including Kevin Stewart—in the past few days, denying that the cuts are being made at all. The First Minister said that it is reprofiling, Kevin Stewart said that spending is increasing once we strip out the technicalities, and John Swinney said that it is simply an accounting change. It is not reprofiling or a technicality, and it is not an accounting change. These are cuts, started at Westminster and continued by the SNP in Scotland.
I remind Ms Baillie that Labour MPs trooped through the lobby in the House of Commons to vote for austerity. She mentioned the status quo, but her backing of the status quo with the Tories is one of the reasons for the mess that we are in now.
I simply say to Kevin Stewart that, when the cuts hit his constituents in Aberdeen, they will not be a technicality. When he votes with the Conservatives tonight, we will be absolutely clear about whose side he is on.
I am holding up a document that members may recognise from earlier today. Let us look at John Swinney’s own council: SNP-controlled Perth and Kinross. I am holding up the budget documents, which I am sure he has had time to read. On the council’s agenda are cuts to childcare; cuts to early years teachers; cuts to maths and English teachers; cuts to the range of subjects that pupils can take; cuts to local charities that help children; and cuts to the supply teaching budget so that, if teachers are off, classes will need to be cancelled and schools may even need to be closed. That is the reality of cuts in SNP-controlled Perth and Kinross.
What Jackie Baillie has got there is the work of council officers—[Interruption.]
Order.
The Labour Party guffaws, but that is what is called detailed work. Where is the detail from the Labour Party on implementing its tax proposals? Will we get any of that from Jackie Baillie today?
Do you know what is fascinating about that? It is a typical SNP distraction from the pile of cuts—[Interruption.]
Order.
From the pile of cuts. Look at them! [Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear Ms Baillie.
From the pile of cuts that are proposed in the cabinet secretary’s own backyard.
The cabinet secretary might not listen to me; I understand that. However, a raft of experts, from David Bell to the Institute for Public Policy Research, have told him that he does not need to cut, and that there is a fair alternative. If he will not listen to them, or to me, will he at least listen to those who are being affected by cuts in his own local area?
John Swinney says that he is concerned—of course he is—about the £19 a year that low-paid workers would pay in extra tax. Can he tell me how much extra a year council tenants in his local area will pay as a result of the cuts that his local council has proposed? No, he cannot—there we go. It is £73 a year, so it is the poorest, the youngest and the oldest—indeed, anyone who uses public services—who will suffer because of John Swinney’s refusal to use the powers that he has.
On Radio Scotland—
Will the member give way?
I will bring in John Swinney in a minute. On Radio Scotland, he suggested that the poorest would face double the extra tax paid by the richest. Let me just remind members of that. He said:
“for an individual who is on the national living wage ... the amount of tax that they pay would increase by 5%”—
we heard that from the First Minister earlier—
“But somebody earning £200,000 would see the amount of tax they pay increase by 2.6%”.
I will take an intervention from John Swinney now, if he can tell me what those figures are in cash terms.
Jackie Baillie should be able to work that out for herself. The issue—[Interruption.]
Let us hear the Deputy First Minister.
The issue that matters is the impact on the pay packets of individuals, and that impact will be disproportionate on low-paid individuals in society. Can Jackie Baillie not understand that point?
I absolutely can, and I suggest that the cabinet secretary calms down, because what I have to say is worth listening to. For the low-paid worker—[Interruption.]
Order!
They do not want to hear this, Presiding Officer, which is why they shout louder.
I think that this is instructive. For the low-paid worker, the 5 per cent figure represents £19 a year; for the person on £200,000, it is an extra £2,500 a year. That is 132 times more than what the low-income taxpayer would pay. I have to say, Presiding Officer—[Interruption.]
Order, Mr Swinney.
For someone on a six-figure salary to tell low-paid workers that he is protecting their incomes when he is really protecting his own is just plain wrong. This is a progressive power—John Swinney said so himself. Our £100 payment, which is deliverable and affordable, protects the low-paid and makes things fairer. [Interruption.]
Order! Let us hear Ms Baillie.
I know that there are SNP MSPs who believe that this is the right thing to do, and I ask them to search their conscience and think of the opportunities that children will miss out on, the thousands of jobs that will be lost and the impact on the future prosperity of our nation. It sometimes seems that when the SNP decides how to vote on something, the only reason that really matters is whether Labour supports it. We have seen that with tax credits; we even saw it this week with organ donation, and that is truly depressing.
I implore the Scottish Government not to let personalities and politics get in the way of doing the right thing today. I ask members to reject this motion, reject the hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts that it lays at the doors of our schools and choose the alternative of investing in our children and the future prosperity of our country.
17:42
At the risk of being accused of giving a managerial contribution, I want to start by saying that I think that we should pay tribute to all the work that has been done by the Scottish Government and HMRC over the past couple of years since the passing of the Scotland Act 2012 to ensure that we are in place and ready for the devolution of income tax, at least in part, on 1 April. A huge amount of work has been done by both sides. They have tackled it very successfully and it shows what can be done when everyone puts in the right amount of effort to do the best thing for Scotland.
It is refreshing, though, to get back to some of the bread-and-butter issues of politics. It is like going back to the good old days of 2007 to 2011, when the Conservative Party and the SNP were good friends and worked together to do the very best for Scotland. I am extremely heartened by the passionate defences that Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, despite the political pressure and the challenges that both have faced over the past week or so, have given both at First Minister’s questions and just a few moments ago. I do not think that I have ever heard Nicola Sturgeon or John Swinney be quite as passionate about any political issue as they have been in opposing this awful tax increase that has been put forward by the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.
In light of what the member has just said, will he concur with the impression that I have formed that the script being followed by Mr Swinney and Ms Sturgeon is all but identical to the words that David Cameron spoke last week in the House of Commons about this policy?
I am almost in danger of agreeing with the Labour Party, which makes this a very unique debate. At the end of the day, we seem to have some kind of new taxpayers alliance between the Conservative Party on this side of the chamber and the fiscal conservative party taking up the bulk of the middle of the chamber. That has to be good news for a progressive, competitive and outward-looking Scotland, which is entirely what is required.
We did not reach that view lightly. Tax-cutting instincts were gnawing away at me and Murdo Fraser and we gave serious consideration to proposing a tax cut. Having reviewed all the evidence that came to the Finance Committee and having listened carefully to a number of witnesses, we have settled on the view that it is correct to keep tax at the same amount. We will take great pleasure in voting alongside the Government come decision time to keep tax exactly as it is.
Although I was hugely impressed by the contribution of Ben Thomson, who argued for a 2p tax cut and was extremely persuasive, the consequences of paying for that tax cut—his suggestion was to increase council tax—were politically unpalatable at that time. There were others who suggested a tax increase—NHS Health Scotland, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and one or two others. However, by far and away the largest number of contributions, and ultimately the most persuasive, were those who said that the tax should remain the same. They were concerned about acting too quickly, about complexity for employers and about the mobility of labour at a time when the economy is in recovery mode. For all those reasons, and all the points put forward by various witnesses, we firmly believe that the correct decision is to keep tax the same.
I want to throw out a serious challenge to the Labour Party, because if we are going to propose tax changes, particularly in very short order, creating a new tax policy over the course of a weekend, there are serious questions that need to be asked. What behavioural analysis has been done by the Labour Party on the implications of a tax increase across all the bands in just a few weeks’ time? There will be economic consequences. For example, if high earners alter their behaviour, we could face a challenge—we only have 11,000 additional rate payers in Scotland. If there were some kind of shift by even a small percentage of those taxpayers, there would be a big impact on the overall tax take.
We looked at the matter carefully, and at paragraph 43 of our report, the Finance Committee concluded:
“The Committee recommends that it is essential that future decisions on taxation policy are fully informed by relevant behavioural analysis.”
That recommendation was unanimous and was not a decision taken lightly. I ask those in the Labour Party who have yet to speak in the debate or who are making closing speeches what behavioural analysis has been done. Do they think that they would get all the £490 million that they suggest or will they only get a smaller fraction, which would mean that the sums do not add up? One of the Scottish Parliament information centre papers included a suggestion—it was not the original work of SPICe—that the impact of a 1p change in either direction would be £345 million, rather than the £490 million that has been suggested. If that turned out to be correct, it would create a hole in Labour’s budget.
We oppose such an increase in principle. We do not think that hard-working people in Scotland should be paying more in tax than those in the rest of the UK. We think that that would put an additional burden on people, particularly those on the lowest incomes, which would present a challenge, not just to those individuals and their families, but to the economy and the wellbeing of Scotland as a whole. We think that it sends out entirely the wrong signal to the world that, having been given a tax power, the first thing that we do—in an almost unthinking fashion—is to put that tax up.
For all those reasons we reject the proposals put forward by the Labour Party and their friends in the Liberal Democrats. We support the position taken today by the Scottish Government. When it comes to decision time, we will be supporting the income tax rate resolution.
We now move to the open debate.
17:49
My colleague Bruce Crawford pointed out that, despite Willie Rennie saying that this is a historic occasion, no other Liberal Democrats have come to the chamber—it appears that they decided to go home to their constituencies and prepare for dinner.
Willie Rennie said earlier today that the First Minister should get on the phone to Aberdeenshire Council to address education spending. Perhaps he should get on the phone to the council because, as the council’s leader informed me today, the Liberal Democrats submitted a motion for the budget that would have resulted in £430,000 less from the administration budget being spent on education.
Members: Oh.
Order.
Willie Rennie, that great defender of education, should consider that.
Did I hear that correctly? Is Mark McDonald saying that Willie Rennie was complaining about the education budget while his colleagues in Aberdeenshire Council were proposing to spend less on education? Even by Rennie’s standards, that is incredible.
I can only refer to what is in the budget spreadsheet that was sent to me today.
I received another piece of information today. My constituency office was in receipt of a letter from Kezia Dugdale in which she made a personal appeal to me ahead of today’s debate and pointed out that she believes that the estimated cuts to Aberdeen City Council are £14 million. I therefore looked back at The Press and Journal of 25 January, which announced to a fanfare that Aberdeen City Council had managed to come up with £20 million of savings in just one week. Indeed, council leader Jenny Laing said that crucial services such as schools, housing and care homes would be protected along with jobs. She said:
“Our finance team have also told us that we can save money by looking closely at our departmental budgets. We also believe that we can mitigate cuts to services by looking at non-critical areas of spending.”
There we have it—the council is able to make £20 million of savings without having to touch the front-line services or jobs that the Labour Party tells us are the only things left to find savings in.
The Finance Committee undertook a great deal of consultation on the Scottish rate of income tax. At no point in that process—not in the taking of evidence, the discussion of the report or the voting on the report—did the Labour Party indicate that it supported a change to the SRIT beyond it being set at 10p. Only two days after the SRIT recommendation was put in the report, the Labour Party changed its position. Either it did not know what its position was going to be when it agreed to the report or it was simply misleading us during that process.
We have not yet heard at any point in the process how the rebate would work—in nine minutes of exposition, Jackie Baillie failed to outline how it would work. The detail matters. It matters to people who are being told that they would be protected from a tax increase by a rebate to know how they could claim that rebate. Would there be data sharing between HMRC and councils? What would the cost of that be? Would people have to present payslips in order to receive the rebate? Would there have to be means testing? What would happen if people’s tax codes changed during a financial year or if people received overtime payments beyond their salary?
All those details are important; all those details matter. The simple fact is that, when the people of Scotland look at the Labour Party, they see right through it.
17:53
This is a truly historic day—it is a hat trick for Mr Swinney, but there is an utterly miserable response. The language that has been adopted by Mr Swinney and his back-bench colleagues is similar to the language that is adopted by those on the right. “Tax is theft” was almost the language that was being adopted.
The only people in the chamber who have been happy this afternoon are the Conservatives, who clapped enthusiastically throughout Mr Swinney’s speech. When Gavin Brown was speaking, SNP members were squirming, because he eloquently set out how the two parties are coming together in a taxpayers’ alliance.
Will Mr Rennie take an intervention?
Not just now.
If we look at the facts, we see that John Swinney is adopting many of the tax policies that George Osborne has adopted. In fact, John Swinney is undercutting George Osborne in many areas. We have heard about income tax today, where John Swinney is matching the chancellor down to the last penny, but he is also matching the chancellor on second homes and undercutting the chancellor on air passenger duty—
Will the member take an intervention?
Not just now.
John Swinney is undercutting the chancellor on the council tax. Even George Osborne is allowing the council tax to go up, but not John Swinney. I was expecting a condemnation from Gavin Brown on that front.
The SNP is not living up to this truly historic day. It is a great opportunity to address the urgent financial position that we face.
Will the member take an intervention?
Our councils face a £500 million cut, but the SNP is not doing a single thing. SNP members sit down and take no opportunity to change the climate at all.
Mark McDonald rose—
Mr McDonald.
The SNP has powers that it has argued for decades for. Throughout its existence, its members have been living for this day, and what do they do? Absolutely nothing. How disappointing, how despondent and how miserable is that?
Although, on this historic day, there is greater flexibility for John Swinney to do as he wishes with the amount of money that we are spending, he imposes a vicelike grip on local authorities, with £408 million of fines.
Give way.
That is £408 million of fines if authorities do not obey John Swinney right down to the last penny. A £1 increase in council tax would result in £408 million of fines. Although he has greater flexibility, he is tying down local authorities.
Will the member give way?
No.
I will move on to the progressive aspect. It is clear that John Swinney is so desperate to do nothing that he is spinning a story about the tax. If we compare this year with next year, we see that, thanks to the tax thresholds going up, somebody who is on £100,000 will pay 30 times as much as somebody who is on the median wage pays.
Give way.
Mr McDonald, the member is not giving way.
Thirty times as much seems progressive to me. Someone would have to earn more than £19,000 to pay any extra money next year compared with this year.
Under the proposal for the penny for education—money hypothecated for education—the richest 12 per cent of people in this country would pay 42 per cent of the extra revenue. That seems pretty progressive to me, and I would have thought that a party that claims to be progressive would adopt that policy, too.
The SNP ignores the social benefits of the £475 million investment. It is almost as if the investment would go into a black hole and nobody would benefit from it, whereas there would be an expansion of nursery education, a big boost to the pupil premium, the reversal of cuts to colleges and the stopping of cuts to schools.
You need to close, Mr Rennie.
That would have a transformational effect. Today we should be enjoying and celebrating the fact that we can undo the damage, but SNP members sit and do absolutely nothing.
I remind all members that they have four minutes.
17:58
Throughout the history of the Labour movement, socialists, trade unionists, co-operators and others have campaigned for and delivered or helped to deliver publicly funded services that are paid for collectively through taxation, so that those without the wealth and power to buy services privately can access quality education, housing, social services and so on. However, those services are under all-out attack, through a combination of Osborne and Cameron’s grinding austerity and John Swinney’s austerity plus.
Despite being named UK council of the year in 2006, my council—West Lothian—has, under the cabinet secretary, suffered consecutive cuts amounting to £100 million. It makes me want to weep when I see what has been done to public services across Scotland, with 60,000 job losses and no partnership action for continuing employment—PACE—team or task force sent in to help the council staff who are losing their jobs.
Education, social work and environmental services are all being cut. Only last week, we saw the nauseating spectacle of the education secretary posing for photos in a library in the same week as she voted for another £500 million of cuts, which will inevitably mean that many libraries will close.
As politicians, we have a decision to make. Do we sit back and do nothing while we watch lifeline services being cut, or do we do something about it? This Parliament was not established just to pass on bad decisions from elsewhere; it was established to be a bulwark against them and to enable parties to work together to protect and improve our services, not make them worse.
In the circumstances that we have witnessed, there is a political choice to be made. The choice is between more austerity and more cuts to vital services, with the low paid and the poor suffering most—and, as Angela O’Hagan told the Welfare Reform Committee, women being disproportionately affected—or taking action and using the powers of the Parliament.
We have made our choice. We have chosen to say that there should be an increase in taxation of 1p. That is not only a progressive move but a redistributive move. As the IPPR has said, under the proposals, the poorest 30 per cent of households would see increases in income, with the richest paying significantly more than now. It has also said that, in Scotland, matching the UK Government’s tax plans would reduce tax for the rich but not for the poor. Scottish Government ministers, realising that they are on the wrong side of the argument, have resorted to scare tactics, with talk of tax bombshells and tax grabs—language that is straight out of Tory headquarters.
The public services are the services that civilise us as a society.
Will the member give way?
No, thank you.
They are the services that educate our children, care for our elderly, look after the vulnerable and keep our streets clean. I find it utterly immoral that politicians on six-figure salaries mislead and scare the poor and low paid into believing that they would be worse off when not only would they be financially better off but their families’ lives would be better, too, as a result of improved services.
It is the double standards that make things worse. Although the SNP rightly demands no detriment in the negotiations over the fiscal framework, it imposes detrimental cut after cut on local government.
You need to wind up, Mr Findlay.
If the cabinet secretary wants proof that he is on the wrong side of the argument, he need only look at the grinning faces of Murdo Fraser, Alex Johnstone and Ruth Davidson as we vote tonight, when the SNP will join the Tories in putting the knife into more local government jobs.
18:02
It is an honour to speak in the first debate that is actually setting the SRIT.
As has already been said, the Finance Committee spent a lot of its time during the budget study this year considering the Scottish rate of income tax. As I said in the budget debate, I come at this issue from the position of someone who would like more taxation powers to be available to this Parliament in order to provide better public services and to help reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.
It is worth looking at the current income tax rates in the UK and Scotland—and let us remember that national insurance contributions are effectively an income tax, although they get less publicity. At the bottom end, we go very quickly to paying 20p income tax plus 12 per cent national insurance, which is 32 per cent in total by the time we get to £11,000. Meanwhile, people at the top pay 45 per cent income tax and 2 per cent national insurance, which gives 47 per cent. Therefore, our whole income tax system goes from 32 per cent at the bottom to 47 per cent at the top, so we have a pretty hopeless and non-progressive system to start with.
It seems to me that, if we had control of income tax and national insurance, we could and should have a much more progressive system, which could perhaps start at 10 per cent at the bottom and go up to something like 60 per cent combined tax and national insurance at the top.
Right now, however, we face a decision for just one year: 2016-17. Should those who work for low wages, already taxed at 32 per cent—the marginal rate—have to have their taxes increased to 33 per cent? I think not.
The Finance Committee considered whether we could raise the SRIT. The first question was whether the SRIT was progressive. I continue to believe that it is progressive.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
The reality is that it is not progressive enough. Clearly, a lot of people on low incomes would be hit hard.
That point came up at the Finance Committee and the Scotland Bill Committee in 2011 or thereabouts, when we asked Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers whether they would allow us the powers to make a more progressive tax system, and they absolutely refused. It is, therefore, a bit rich for the Liberal Democrats to tell us to do something about it.
We have the Labour and Lib Dem proposal to raise tax by 1p. I think that the Lib Dems had at least thought about it before they spoke about it. Certainly, Labour did not mention that proposal at the Finance Committee, as has been said. On the surface, it seems attractive that we could get another £400 million or something like that. Labour suggests a rebate of £100 for those at the lower end, but we still do not have answers to the questions about the practicalities of that. Could the local authorities handle that system? What would the cost be—£1 million or £40 million? We do not know. Would those who needed most help be properly targeted and receive the money? Or would there be the same kind of bureaucratic burden as there was with pension tax credit, where a third of people missed out on what they were entitled to because of the horrible system involved? In addition, would such payments themselves be taxable?
There might be answers to those questions, but neither the Finance Committee nor, I suspect, anyone else has looked thoroughly at them because they were not raised before. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and other witnesses at the committee supported keeping the Scottish rate at 10p. I think that one of the reasons for that is that we should be getting more powers in a year’s time.
You need to bring your remarks to a close.
The question is not whether we are stuck with the SRIT for ever and ever but whether we can we live with it for a year, until we get proper, decent powers that allow us to be more progressive as we go forward. I would like to make income tax more progressive and raise the rates for those who can afford to pay, but the powers that we have for this year are just too blunt and there is too much risk of damaging those at the bottom.
18:06
There is no doubt that this is a debate in which there are real choices on the table. When we vote at half past 6 tonight, we can vote to pass on £500 million of spending cuts to our local councils and communities, or we can go down the alternative route of the Labour option of protecting public services, investing in education, investing in young people and supporting our communities.
Not only has the SNP’s response to that option been disappointing, but the quality of SNP members’ debating points has been very poor. We have seen the SNP scare machine in full operation, and at the front of that machine has been Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s question time. She has repeatedly put out the myth that people on low pay of £11,000 would be adversely affected by the Labour policy, but that is simply not true.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
We need honest debate, not dishonest facts like that.
I am always grateful for debating tips from James Kelly. In the spirit of honest debate, can he explain in detail in his last two and a half minutes how the rebate system would work? Those low-paid people to whom he is promising it deserve that at the very least.
The thing about the SNP—[Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear Mr Kelly.
The thing about the SNP in this discussion is that it is all about how it is too hard, and that we are too wee and too small a Parliament. Where is the SNP’s ambition? Why does it not stand up to the issues? [Interruption.]
Order.
When it comes to half past 6 tonight—
How will the rebate system work?
When it comes to half past 6 tonight, Mr Stevenson should think of the class assistants in his constituency who will be out of a job, the teachers who do not have the photocopying facilities for the kids and the parents who are watching the investment being drained away from their schools, and see whether he can discover the backbone not to support the SNP motion.
Assuming that the whole idea is legal and that it can be delivered for one fortieth of the cost of other similar exercises, and assuming that Labour is in the unlikely position of being able to deliver the policy, will James Kelly give a guarantee to the people on lower incomes on how long it would take to get the rebate from the point at which they would apply, given that there is no infrastructure in place? What are the lowest-paid people in society and those who are most likely to be dealing with their finances day to day to do in the months that it would take for the Labour Party to implement a 5 per cent slash in their income?
Thank you very much for your speech, Ms Adamson.
Members: Where is the answer?
Order. You need to bring your remarks to a close, Mr Kelly.
Let me make this point after that speech. The policy will benefit those on the minimum wage—
Members: How?
—by £81 a year and those on a living wage by £51 a year. It will help the very low paid in our communities; it will help our councils, teachers, parents and pupils. It will invest in their future. I ask members to make sure that they vote down the SNP motion.
18:10
What a day for the Parliament’s sound system to be on overcharge. It has not helped the atmosphere in the chamber.
Many points have been made about the historic nature of the decision that we are about to make—the Parliament’s first decision on substantive tax powers. I am afraid that I just do not buy that. Since 1999, this Parliament has had the ability to make tax policy at local level to provide for local services but we just have not used it. Session after session, we have been deadlocked for one reason or another.
Since the first session of Parliament, the Greens have been advocating radical changes to local tax policies. Even in the 2011 election, when we saw the Tory cuts coming down the line and John Swinney came to us all and said, “Look, we’ll have to implement a public sector pay cap, because the alternative is to lay people off”, we were willing to say, “Let us raise revenue and let us do it at the local level.” I am pleased to see that other parties are now saying that it is time to raise revenue. I still say that we must be willing to raise revenue if we want to protect our public services and the people who deliver them from those cuts.
We must continue to make the case for doing that at local level. We have seen a continued constraint—an ever-tightening grip—of national tax policy against the local flexibility that used to exist. Just as we predicted in 2011, fees and charges now represent a larger proportion of local council income than the council tax, which is the least progressive way of funding those services. That approach is going to be continued.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that I do not have time.
In the 2016-17 budget, the Greens are advocating a tax-raising package roughly equivalent to what the Labour Party believes that it could put forward. We proposed, through an amendment to the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, to raise revenue from derelict and vacant land. The minister told us that that could be done with existing legislation, so let us get on with it.
We also propose unfreezing the council tax and using the council tax multiplier to ensure that high-value properties, which are undertaxed, pay their fair share. The consequence would be that lower-value properties would end up paying less. That is the better way to raise revenue and to protect public services.
When Kez Dugdale spoke eloquently about the value of education in this week’s Labour Party debate, she cited the views of Stiglitz and Piketty, both of whom have advocated that wealth taxes must be part of our tax base. I am afraid that to continue the council tax freeze and raise income tax would narrow the tax base on income rather than on wealth, as well as shifting further from the local to the centre. That is the wrong direction to take it.
Doing nothing is not the only alternative to an income tax rise of a penny in the pound as the Labour Party and the Lib Dems suggest. The Greens have proposed radical and local alternatives that would raise the revenue that we need.
If two things were different, I would be at least willing to look at the income tax proposal. If I was convinced, after listening to everything that I have heard, that we could have in place a system for delivering the rebate in a little more than six weeks and for the start of a new financial year, I might be willing to listen.
You need to bring your remarks to a close.
If I was convinced that there was a means of preventing very high-income individuals from dodging the taxes, I might be more willing to listen.
I am not convinced that that those two criteria have been met. Therefore, I continue to say that we must raise revenue at the local level and include revenue raising from property wealth, not just from income.
18:14
It has been an interesting debate. We have had some pretty woeful and dreary speeches from the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, who are just determined to increase the tax burden on the people of Scotland. We have also had some excellent speeches from SNP members, who advanced some good solid Conservative values and analysis.
Mark McDonald—I had not realised that he is quite so right of centre—told us how easy it is to make £20 million-worth of savings in a council over a week without hitting front-line services or jobs. I look forward to having a cup of coffee with him later to discuss how we can do a bit more of that in councils up and down the country.
I would not wish to take the credit because that great “right of centre” rhetoric about how easy it was to make £20 million of savings was not mine: it was the rhetoric of the Labour leader of Aberdeen City Council.
That is the first time in Mark McDonald’s life that he has not wanted to take the credit. I suspect that it is also probably the last. I congratulate him on that.
I thank John Mason for his speech. He rightly pointed out that in many ways national insurance is an income tax by another name. He also pointed out that when we combine national insurance with income tax, we find that we are already a heavily taxed country and there is no need to increase income tax any further. He was right to focus on the bureaucratic mess that could be created by the Labour Party’s determination to introduce a rebate.
I appreciate Gavin Brown’s point that people at the bottom end are highly taxed. Does he accept that the people at the top end are taxed too low?
John Mason cannot even take credit when he is being given it. His speech was excellent all the way through. I ask him not to spoil it with interventions of that nature because it does him no credit at all.
I am a little surprised by the SNP, but pleased by the approach that it has taken to taxation over the past couple of weeks and will take at decision time. I was told as a young man—it turns out wrongly—that the SNP was a high-tax party. Based on the debate, that does not appear to be true because not only are the front-bench members saying that we should keep taxes at the same level as the rest of the UK, but the back-bench members are saying it, too. Since the issue arose two weeks ago, not a single SNP MSP in debate, in public or in private has suggested that taxes should go up. It is not just the front-bench members who like the taxes to be at the same level as the rest of the UK, but the entire back-bench group, which gives me hope for Scotland. A number of years ago, when Alex Salmond was First Minister, he said that he approved of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies. I did not realise that the entire SNP membership approved of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies.
As I said in my opening speech, we will vote with the Government. We are very pleased that income tax in Scotland will not be higher than it is in the rest of the UK.
18:18
We have, indeed, reached an historic moment: a few minutes from now, the Scottish Parliament will vote for the first time on the Scottish rate of income tax and, a few weeks from now, the Scottish Government will collect it. For those of us who have supported devolution as a process and not an event, it marks another significant milestone. For those who have argued that the Scottish Parliament could be a proper Parliament only with powers to raise money as well as to spend it, it is more than a milestone: it is a moment of truth.
There are members throughout the Parliament who have been here from the beginning. Perhaps they share my sense that Parliament as an institution has grown and matured over those years: fighting to be heard in its infancy, jostling for space as it grew, learning to do new things as its confidence developed and now, in its middle teens, taking ever greater responsibility for funding its own expenditure.
However, surely this is the coming of age—the point at which we can make meaningful decisions about how much money ministers have to spend and the point at which tax rates that are set in this place have a direct impact on the population. We in Labour celebrate that new level of responsibility and the new powers, because we know what we want to do with them. Now that the devolved Scottish Parliament is coming of age, it is doing so just in time to do the job for which it was intended because, of course, the Conservative Party again holds the levers of power. As we have just heard, it is as committed as ever to cuts in spending and cuts in taxes, but this time it is faced by a Scottish Parliament that has the powers to defy austerity and to express the will of the Scottish people, if we so choose.
So, is this the time of “Alba gu bràth” or is it more a case of
“Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie”?
Sadly, the motion that is before us is indeed a mouse, and a very timid one at that, because John Swinney asks us to do nothing with those brave new powers. Instead, he asks us to vote for a Scottish rate of income tax of 10p in the pound—the same rate as that which has been set by George Osborne at Westminster—and not to break with the Tories’ austerity, but instead to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in passing on their austerity policies to Scotland’s schools and public services.
That is disappointing enough in itself. After all the rhetoric about austerity from Mr Swinney and his colleagues, this was their first best chance to show that they really meant it, but they have fallen at the first hurdle. Not only have they done that, they have spoken with great passion—greater passion, perhaps, than ever before—against the very prospect of increasing taxation in order to protect public services.
I have listened carefully to what Lewis Macdonald has had to say. Can he tell Parliament exactly what the details of his party’s proposed rebate would be?
I would be delighted to do that once we have heard from the SNP whether it supports the principle of raising tax to address austerity. [Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear Mr Macdonald.
The truth—as has been so amply demonstrated by SNP member after SNP member—is that the SNP is so embarrassed by its taxpayers alliance with the Conservative Party that it will not address the principle at all but will only go on endlessly about the detail.
Will Mr Macdonald give way?
Mr Stewart, sit down.
It is the case not just that the SNP will not defend a policy of progressive taxation but that it will go through extraordinary contortions in order to denounce those of us who believe that progressive taxation is the right thing to do.
I listened once again to Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s question time today, when she appeared to deny that income tax is progressive at all. She said that teachers and nurses would be much worse off than she would be, because their tax rise of £140 would be twice as bad, statistically speaking, as her own tax increase of £1,447. If ever there was a case of someone who earns a six-figure sum arguing against tax increases on the basis that they would really penalise someone else more, that was it. I have no doubt that the support for that argument among SNP members will have gladdened Tory hearts once more.
Will Mr Macdonald give way?
The member is in his final minute.
The only fly in the ointment was that Gavin Brown almost gave the game away when he suggested that the flaw in Labour’s proposals is that an increase in income tax might scare away some high-tax paying citizens from Scotland. That is a perfectly legitimate point of view and it is the only point on which the Tories do not agree with the SNP. The Tories recognise that income tax imposes a greater burden on people on higher salaries, but the SNP wants to pretend that the opposite is the case and, to be frank, that is a disgrace.
You need to bring your remarks to a close.
There is a choice before Parliament at this historic moment—it is a choice especially for those who are not Tories but who voted with the Tories last week. We can postpone using any of our new powers into the indefinite future or we can use them now in order to stop the cuts that are being delivered by John Swinney on behalf of the SNP Government, who is passing on the cuts that have been sent down to him by Westminster. We in Labour are proposing that we should resist those cuts and that we should do so in the way that we have described. I hope that others will vote accordingly later today.
18:25
I welcome the opportunity to close this historic, landmark debate, which has been very interesting and spirited. It looks to me as if Gavin Brown has had a very enjoyable afternoon taking part in it.
It has not been obvious to me that Gavin Brown and I have been on much the same wavelength on taxation. [Interruption.] The Labour Party’s guffawing is misplaced. Mr Brown has been far from at the front of the queue in applauding the tax decisions that I have taken on the land and buildings transaction tax. I had the first opportunity in 300 years to set a tax in Scotland, of course, and I related it to the ability to pay and delivered progressivity where nobody in the United Kingdom—not even the Labour Party—had attempted to do that. We should be a bit sceptical about some of the rhetoric that we heard from Mr Brown on the issue.
The one thing that I am pleased about is that the Conservatives have returned to the position that they occupied in 2007 to 2011 as the lobby fodder of the Scottish National Party Government for our decisions. That is a very welcome return by the Conservative Party to that position.
John Mason made a fascinating contribution to the debate. He looked at the actual cash impact on individuals in low-income households. He did not try to pretend that there is an easy answer to the issue, which the Labour Party has tried to do; rather, he confronted the issue and recognised the difficulty that an increase in taxation would cause to individuals in low-income situations. He made a point, particularly in relation to the speculative rebate about which we have heard a great deal, about the difficulties of ensuring that people in low-income situations secure the benefits to which they are entitled. That is a common problem for people on low incomes, and it seems to be casually disregarded by the Labour Party.
The other thing that the Labour Party has casually disregarded is the fragility of incomes of individuals who are in low-income situations in our country. Jackie Baillie marshalled the difference in the costs of a tax increase for people on higher incomes versus for people on lower incomes. Her numbers were correct in that respect, but so are my numbers on the proportional increase in the tax bill of individuals with lower levels of income being double that of individuals at a higher rate. The casual disregard of the impact on lower-income individuals demonstrates that the Labour Party is not on the side of low-income households in our society.
John Swinney comments on our casually disregarding, but he seems to be casually disregarding the personal allowance, which takes a large proportion of people who get under £11,000 out of paying any tax. We are offering others a rebate, which he also seems to be casually disregarding.
What Lesley Brennan has just confirmed is that the Labour Party is, of course, quite happy to increase taxes for people who earn just £11,000. I am not prepared to do that as part of the budget.
Lesley Brennan also said that there is the rebate. In nine minutes and 23 seconds of beautiful oratory to the Parliament, Jackie Baillie said this about the rebate: it is workable. That was the level of detail that Jackie Baillie gave us—that was it.
When Clare Adamson invited Mr Kelly to tell us in his speech how that rebate would be paid to members of the public, he did what he always does in such situations: he just shouted back, “Irrelevant.”
Mr Rennie criticised my managerial style. Well, I am sorry about my managerial style, but on 6 April I have to make sure that people can have their tax collected, and I have to make sure that if there is a rebate, it can be paid. On the basis of what I have heard from the Labour Party, it has not a scintilla of a legal or operational basis for paying that rebate—we did not hear about one today.
I give way to Johann Lamont.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, where people—[Interruption.]
Let us hear, Ms Lamont.
—where people on low pay may be losing their jobs, losing care support for their mothers and losing opportunities for learning in schools, does not the cabinet secretary accept that council services disproportionately support people on low incomes? That is what £500 million of cuts means—disproportionate attacks on them.
That is precisely why the Scottish Government is investing £250 million of new money in health and social care to support the delivery of those services.
Will Mr Swinney take an intervention?
I am bringing my remarks to a close.
Johann Lamont talked about the real world. In the real world, if a party makes a promise to deliver a rebate on 6 April, it has to be capable of delivering it. There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that that could be done.
Mr Findlay was giving us a lecture from his high moral standpoint on the back benches that we should not be misleading the people, but the Labour Party is misleading the people. To avoid anyone misleading the electorate, I point out that if Labour’s proposal went through, taxes for people earning incomes as low as £11,000 would go up. That is a penalty for low-income households in our country.
James Kelly also accepted in his speech that individuals on low incomes would be adversely affected. This Government will have nothing to do with that.
Mr Findlay said that, in the course of the debate, there would be grinning faces from Ruth Davidson, Murdo Fraser and Alex Johnstone. I just pose Mr Findlay and his colleagues the question: what were they thinking when the Ruth Davidsons, the Murdo Frasers and the Alex Johnstones were standing shoulder to shoulder, grinning away in happiness in the better together alliance? Were they not worried about the smiles of the—[Interruption.] Does Mr Macdonald want to intervene?
No, you are winding up.
I am sorry; I cannot allow Mr Macdonald to interrupt the grinning spectacle of the better together alliance.
The Labour Party sold out the poor in this country by getting into bed with the Tories and they are paying the most terrible price for it. Those in the Labour Party should be ashamed of themselves. [Applause.]
That concludes the debate on the Scottish rate resolution.
The question is, that motion S4M-15497, in the name of John Swinney, on the Scottish rate resolution be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
There will be a division.
For
Adam, George (Paisley) (SNP)
Adamson, Clare (Central Scotland) (SNP)
Allan, Dr Alasdair (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Beattie, Colin (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
Biagi, Marco (Edinburgh Central) (SNP)
Brodie, Chic (South Scotland) (SNP)
Brown, Gavin (Lothian) (Con)
Brown, Keith (Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) (SNP)
Burgess, Margaret (Cunninghame South) (SNP)
Campbell, Aileen (Clydesdale) (SNP)
Campbell, Roderick (North East Fife) (SNP)
Carlaw, Jackson (West Scotland) (Con)
Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
Constance, Angela (Almond Valley) (SNP)
Crawford, Bruce (Stirling) (SNP)
Cunningham, Roseanna (Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
Davidson, Ruth (Glasgow) (Con)
Dey, Graeme (Angus South) (SNP)
Don, Nigel (Angus North and Mearns) (SNP)
Dornan, James (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP)
Eadie, Jim (Edinburgh Southern) (SNP)
Ewing, Annabelle (Mid Scotland and Fife) (SNP)
Ewing, Fergus (Inverness and Nairn) (SNP)
Fabiani, Linda (East Kilbride) (SNP)
Finnie, John (Highlands and Islands) (Ind)
FitzPatrick, Joe (Dundee City West) (SNP)
Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
Gibson, Rob (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)
Goldie, Annabel (West Scotland) (Con)
Grahame, Christine (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (SNP)
Harvie, Patrick (Glasgow) (Green)
Hyslop, Fiona (Linlithgow) (SNP)
Ingram, Adam (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
Johnstone, Alex (North East Scotland) (Con)
Johnstone, Alison (Lothian) (Green)
Keir, Colin (Edinburgh Western) (SNP)
Kidd, Bill (Glasgow Anniesland) (SNP)
Lamont, John (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (Con)
Lyle, Richard (Central Scotland) (SNP)
MacAskill, Kenny (Edinburgh Eastern) (SNP)
MacDonald, Angus (Falkirk East) (SNP)
MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
Mackay, Derek (Renfrewshire North and West) (SNP)
MacKenzie, Mike (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
Maxwell, Stewart (West Scotland) (SNP)
McAlpine, Joan (South Scotland) (SNP)
McDonald, Mark (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
McGrigor, Jamie (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
McKelvie, Christina (Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse) (SNP)
McLeod, Aileen (South Scotland) (SNP)
McLeod, Fiona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP)
McMillan, Stuart (West Scotland) (SNP)
Milne, Nanette (North East Scotland) (Con)
Mitchell, Margaret (Central Scotland) (Con)
Neil, Alex (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Paterson, Gil (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
Robertson, Dennis (Aberdeenshire West) (SNP)
Robison, Shona (Dundee City East) (SNP)
Russell, Michael (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Salmond, Alex (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Stevenson, Stewart (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)
Sturgeon, Nicola (Glasgow Southside) (SNP)
Swinney, John (Perthshire North) (SNP)
Thompson, Dave (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP)
Torrance, David (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
Urquhart, Jean (Highlands and Islands) (Ind)
Watt, Maureen (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
Wheelhouse, Paul (South Scotland) (SNP)
White, Sandra (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP)
Wilson, John (Central Scotland) (Ind)
Yousaf, Humza (Glasgow) (SNP)
Against
Baillie, Jackie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Baxter, Jayne (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Beamish, Claudia (South Scotland) (Lab)
Bibby, Neil (West Scotland) (Lab)
Brennan, Lesley (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Chisholm, Malcolm (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (Lab)
Dugdale, Kezia (Lothian) (Lab)
Fee, Mary (West Scotland) (Lab)
Findlay, Neil (Lothian) (Lab)
Gray, Iain (East Lothian) (Lab)
Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Henry, Hugh (Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Hilton, Cara (Dunfermline) (Lab)
Kelly, James (Rutherglen) (Lab)
Lamont, Johann (Glasgow Pollok) (Lab)
Macdonald, Lewis (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Macintosh, Ken (Eastwood) (Lab)
Malik, Hanzala (Glasgow) (Lab)
Marra, Jenny (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Martin, Paul (Glasgow Provan) (Lab)
McCulloch, Margaret (Central Scotland) (Lab)
McDougall, Margaret (West Scotland) (Lab)
McInnes, Alison (North East Scotland) (LD)
McMahon, Michael (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Lab)
McMahon, Siobhan (Central Scotland) (Lab)
McNeil, Duncan (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab)
McTaggart, Anne (Glasgow) (Lab)
Murray, Elaine (Dumfriesshire) (Lab)
Pearson, Graeme (South Scotland) (Lab)
Pentland, John (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
Rennie, Willie (Mid Scotland and Fife) (LD)
Rowley, Alex (Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
Smith, Elaine (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab)
Stewart, David (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
The result of the division is: For 74, Against 35, Abstentions 0.
Motion agreed to,
That the Parliament agrees that the Scottish rate of income tax for tax year 2016-17 is 10%.