SCOTLAND’S £1 BILLION BLACK HOLE: HOW THE SNP’S HIGH-TAX, ANTI-GROWTH BUDGET IS KILLING OUR FUTURE

Today, Shona Robison stood up in Holyrood to deliver what may be her final Budget as SNP Finance Secretary. With a straight face, she declared that Scots would be “better off” under SNP rule, that the economy was built on “wealth creators” and that this was a bold, progressive blueprint for growth. But behind the stage-managed optimism lies a grim fiscal reality, Scotland’s finances are cracking, and this Budget does nothing to fix the structural rot at the heart of SNP economic policy.

Yes, Ms Robison scattered money around the chamber. She promised an extra £1.5 billion for public services, a record £17.6 billion for frontline NHS spending, new walk-in GP clinics on high streets, £5 billion for renewables and decarbonisation, £200 million for the A9, £1 billion for the Scottish Investment Bank, more ferries, more culture, more foreign aid, more international development, more retraining schemes and more council spending. She even dangled free sport in the summer. It was a blizzard of announcements designed to create the illusion of abundance.

But illusions do not fill a £1 billion black hole.

The respected Fraser of Allander Institute has already warned that Scotland’s capital and infrastructure budget is in deep trouble. Even after extra cash from Westminster has been poured into day-to-day spending, there is still not enough money to build the roads, hospitals, prisons and energy infrastructure that a modern economy requires. “Something will have to give,” the economists said, and they are right.

Ms Robison’s attempt to pretend otherwise was almost comical. She trumpeted £200 million for dualling the A9 but stretched to 2035. That is not delivery, it is delay dressed up as investment. Businesses in the Highlands and north-east know exactly what this means. Another decade of dangerous roads, slow journeys and lost opportunities, while the SNP keeps pushing the completion date ever further into the future.

The same is true across the board. When capital budgets are squeezed, it is always infrastructure that suffers first. New hospitals get postponed. Transport upgrades get shelved. Public buildings crumble. Yet without infrastructure, there is no productivity, no growth and no competitiveness. You cannot build a 21st-century economy on potholes and press releases.

And why is Scotland in this position? Not because it lacks resources. Not because Westminster has starved Holyrood of cash. Labour’s new government has handed Scotland an extra £10.3 billion in recent funding rounds. The problem is how the SNP chooses to use the money. Scotland is now the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom for working people. Middle-income earners between £40,000 and £50,000 are now facing marginal tax rates close to 50 per cent. Hard-working Scots know they are paying more every month than they would in England and getting less in return. Ms Robison boasted that 55 per cent of Scots pay less tax than if they lived south of the border, but that is a sleight of hand. The people who create jobs, invest, innovate and drive growth are being punished, not encouraged.

The Finance Secretary crowed about “progressive taxation”, new council-tax bands on homes worth over £1 million and even a tax on private jets. It all sounds wonderfully radical, but it is economically illiterate. Chasing a small number of high earners and mobile investors may be politically fashionable, but it is disastrous for the tax base. People with money, skills and businesses can move and they are moving. That is why Scotland’s economy is flatlining. That is why investment is lagging. That is why entrepreneurs are looking elsewhere. And that is why the SNP is forced to squeeze capital budgets while pretending to be pro-growth.

The business community saw straight through today’s spin. Retailers, hospitality firms and small businesses are being crushed by costs that have spiralled out of control. Ms Robison boasted that 96 per cent of retail and hospitality will pay zero or reduced rates under the Small Business Bonus Scheme, but that merely highlights how many firms are struggling to survive at all. Even the oil and gas sector, which the SNP loves to demonise, was thrown a grudging bone in the form of retraining funds, an implicit admission that their ideological war on North Sea energy has already destroyed jobs and investment

And then there is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. At a time when families are struggling with bills, inflation and falling living standards, Ms Robison found £16 million for international development and more for overseas aid. Charity may begin at home, but under the SNP it seems to start everywhere else. The SNP likes to chant the slogan that Scotland is “an economy based on wealth creators”. But actions speak louder than words. You do not create wealth by taxing enterprise into submission. You do not attract investment by making Scotland the most heavily taxed place in the UK. And you do not grow the economy by pushing ever more people into dependency while driving out the people who pay the bills.

So, we are left with a grotesque paradox. Scotland taxes more, grows less and still cannot afford its own infrastructure. That is why there is a £1 billion hole in capital spending. That is why the A9 crawls towards 2035. That is why hospitals are delayed and projects cancelled. This is what anti-business, anti-growth government looks like.

The tragedy is that it did not have to be this way. With competitive taxes, sensible spending and a genuinely pro-enterprise culture, Scotland could be booming. Instead, we are trapped in the SNP’s high-tax, high-spend cul-de-sac, heading steadily towards stagnation and decline. Behind today’s glossy rhetoric lies a simple truth, the money has run out. Scotland deserves better than this slow-motion economic vandalism. Without growth, there is no future, and the SNP is suffocating the very growth we need.