The combined effects of the highest taxes in the UK, together with huge fiscal transfers from Westminster under the Barnett Formula, mean the Scottish Government is now receiving 30% more per person than equivalent spending across the rest of Britain. Why then are our services and outcomes so much worse than the rest of the UK? Why is Scotland’s NHS in crisis? Why do we have the worst drug deaths in Europe? Why is education failing? Why is child poverty rising? The answer is obvious. We’ve suffered 17 years of SNP failure and incompetence, always blaming Westminster for everything that went wrong and always focusing on their obsessive plans to break up the UK, rather than concentrating on their day job of running the country.

Back in September Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced up to £500m of cuts she said were necessary to balance the Scottish government’s books. As usual she condemned the UK government for “prolonged” Westminster austerity, but added that public sector pay hikes, inflation, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine were also to blame. No mention of SNP bungling! On 4^th December Shona Robison will have to deliver her own budget. Following Chancellor Rachel Reeve’s red budget briefcase revelations last month, Scotland now has a £1.5 billion windfall thanks to Barnett formula consequentials. Scottish businesses and industries are reeling from Rachel Reeve’s rise in the national minimum wage and employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NIC). They will be desperately looking for help from Shona Robison.

Thanks to the SNP, Scotland is the highest taxed part of the UK. Business and industry will want to see Scottish tax rates brought into line with those South of the border so that we may remain competitive and attract top talent to help generate economic growth. But there is a real fear that Ms Robison will throw the windfall cash at inflation busting public sector pay deals. The Scottish government’s budget will also need to help those sectors worst hit by Rachel Reeve’s proposals, including leisure, hospitality, tourism and farming. Bringing Scotland’s business rates down into line with England would assist the bricks and mortar businesses like retail, leisure and the hospitality sectors in particular, who are faced with increased employment costs thanks to Rachel Reeves. On the net zero agenda there is also room for a revised Scottish government approach to planning laws, which until now have absurdly blocked the construction of new nuclear power plants. This would provide a massive boost to jobs and economic prosperity in the energy sector and be a major contributor to cutting carbon emissions. The business sector will also be hoping for effective investment into infrastructure and education, particularly in areas that have been historically under-funded.

It is time the SNP government started to listen to our business leaders and entrepreneurs. If they had done so over the past 17 years, Scotland could have avoided the ferry debacle, the deeply flawed deposit return scheme, the attempt to close 10% of Scotland’s seas to all forms of fishing and commercial use, and other nonsensical ideas they signed up to in the ludicrous Bute House Agreement with the Greens. Now that the daft ban on wood-burning stoves has been ditched, Shona Robison should incinerate all the SNP’s ideas for breaking up the UK and concentrate on rebuilding Scotland’s economy.