John Swinney comes under fire from Scottish Conservatives over ‘smallest tax cut in history’

John Swinney has come under fire over what Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay has called the “smallest tax cut in history”.

The First Minister was challenged over the SNP’s tax and spending plans for the coming year at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, which include changes to income tax and separate taxes on mansions and private jets.

If the Budget is approved, taxpayers earning below the median income will save around £40 a year – or 75p a week – after thresholds for the basic and intermediate rates of income tax were increased by 7.4%.

The Scottish Conservative leader slammed the tax cuts as “miserly”.

“That wouldn’t even buy you a bag of peanuts,” Findlay said at Holyrood on Thursday.

“John Swinney’s Budget might even have broken a world record, because a Scottish Government tax adviser says it ‘may be the smallest tax cut in history’.”

The challenge comes as the SNP government has simultaneously proposed further income tax threshold freezes for the higher rate, advanced rate, and top rate thresholds in the coming years.

Freezing these higher thresholds raises additional revenue for the government as more taxpayers are dragged into paying tax at a higher rate as wages increase with inflation.

Findlay accused the SNP of giving taxpayers a “miserly cut” in order to get a “cheap and easy headline”.

For many others, Findlay said income taxes will “rise even further,” to pay for the “SNP’s out of control, unaffordable benefits bill”.

“The Scottish Conservatives will not back and cannot back a Budget that does nothing to help Scotland’s workers and businesses,” Findlay said.

“It hammers people with higher taxes to fund a bloated benefits system.”

In response, the First Minister insisted that the Budget “delivers on the priorities of the people of Scotland” by “strengthening our National Health Service and supporting people and businesses with the challenges of the cost of living”.

Swinney said income tax decisions in the Budget would mean that in 2026-27, 55% of Scottish taxpayers would be expected to pay less income tax than if they lived in England.

He told MSPs that benefits funding is “keeping children out of poverty”, adding the Budget contained a “range of measures” that would build on existing support.

“What that is a demonstration of is a Government that is on the side of the people of Scotland, and I am proud of the measures we set out in the Budget on Tuesday,” Swinney said.

Meanwhile, he said the Tories wanted to make tax cuts that would cost £1bn, with “not a scrap of detail about how that would be delivered”.