Burnham’s Budget just leaves Scots with a pickle
by Andy Burnham’s first Budget as Prime Minister has landed like a concrete parachute, proving once and for all that the Labour government in Westminster simply doesn’t get Scotland.
Mind you, the signs were already there as pre-Budget leaks suggested his cost-of-living plans for tariffs would reduce shopping costs by the princely sum of 40p a week. In particular, hard up families were offered cheaper gherkins.
When one of their big offers to hard pressed families is a pickle, you wonder if Labour are taking the proverbial or as out of touch with ordinary people’s lives as the Tories?
Instead of protecting families from a looming cost-of-living emergency, this financial statement has left Scots out in the cold – quite literally.
Households across the country are facing energy bills that are forecast to remain over £1,000 higher than what Labour originally promised. Expecting families to swallow that is like trying to sell sea water to a sailor.
While the Scottish Government is stepping up to replicate the one-off £100 payment for energy bill support, Westminster’s grand gestures have fallen as flat as a pancake. John Swinney didn’t mince his words, pointing out:
“This UK Budget completely fails to meet the moment. We will replicate the £100 support for fuel bills, but the UK Government has failed to cut energy bills by £300 as promised.”
To make matters worse, changes to gas standing charges threaten to hit Scottish homes hardest. Punishing people for living in a colder climate simply because Westminster looks at a map through the wrong end of a telescope is about as fair as making penguins pay a sunbathing tax.
And the hits keep coming for public finances.
Andy Burnham’s Budget delivers a staggering real-terms cut to Scotland’s budget of around £650 million in 2027-28. That includes a £550 million slash to our resource block grant and a £100 million chop to our capital budget – and it also pulls the rug from the long promised Carbon Capture and Storage project in North East Scotland.
As John Swinney sharply observed:
“The Budget also betrays carbon capture in Scotland, and will cut the Scottish Government’s budget by around £650 million next year. Yet again, Scotland has been treated as an afterthought.”
Indeed, whispering sweet nothings about green energy while quietly pulling the rug out from under Scotland’s carbon capture funding – abandoning the vital Acorn site – is a betrayal of epic proportions.
It is like promising someone the keys to a brand-new sports car, only to hand them a unicycle with a flat tyre and tell them to pedal uphill backwards.
It isn’t just government voices sounding the alarm. Roz Foyer, General Secretary of the STUC, rightly pointed out the deep industrial void in today’s plans:
“This Budget doesn’t yet offer the concrete reindustrialisation Scotland needs, nor the further devolved powers for our Parliament and local authorities that had been envisioned.”
When working people and trade unions are reading the small print and shaking their heads, you know the ship is steering straight for the rocks.
Meanwhile, the SNP Scottish Government is left footing a £160 million bill just to mitigate cruel Westminster policies like the bedroom tax – money that could have funded an extra 2,000 teachers in our schools.
Proportionally, Scotland is one of the most energy-rich nations on the planet, yet under Westminster control, we are trapped in an economic doom loop, paying some of the highest prices in Europe while our resources are asset-stripped.
Sticking with the current setup is like trying to empty the Atlantic with a thimble in a downpour. Why should an energy powerhouse like Scotland remain tethered to a sinking ship that treats our communities as collateral damage?
With the fresh start of independence, we can finally harness our vast natural wealth, lower our energy bills, build a fairer economy, and take our rightful place back home in the European Union. This budget shows it’s time for Scots to take the steering wheel into our own hands once and for all.