Budget Resolutions
Scottish voters were promised change, but instead this Budget delivers a real-terms cut of £650 million to Scotland’s block budget. It treats Scotland as an afterthought, syphons off our energy wealth and fails to protect hard-working families facing a bitter cost of living crisis this winter. Rather than delivering economic growth or protecting the vulnerable, this is a Budget of broken promises. Turning first to the cost of living crisis, during the election campaign Labour explicitly promised to cut household energy bills by £300, yet under its watch, energy bills are forecast to surge by 27% this coming January, taking average annual bills to £2,192, before climbing further to £2,389 by April. Scottish families will face energy bills a whopping £1,275 higher than Labour promised.<span id="645" class="column-number" data-column-number="645"></span> Even worse, the Chancellor’s decision to replace standing charges with higher gas unit prices creates a deeply unfair geographical penalty. Recent YouGov polling shows that 84% of people in Scotland already had to turn their heating on this year, compared to 59% in London, and independent analysis from the Scottish Parliament confirms that over 800,000 Scottish households face higher gas bills under these changes. Scots are effectively being forced to pay higher bills to subsidise warmer homes in the south of England. This Budget ignores the 142,000 Scottish households who rely on heating oil, leaving them exposed to soaring fuel costs with negligible support. At the pumps, drivers face a similar squeeze. Since July, diesel has rocketed by 34p per litre to over £2 a litre in many locations, leaving diesel drivers £130 worse off each year. Regrettably, the Prime Minister and Chancellor are frankly asleep at the wheel. Nowhere is Westminster’s contempt for Scotland’s economic future clearer than in the decision to axe grant funding for the Acorn carbon capture project in Peterhead. Despite explicit promises that capital was secured, the Government have removed Acorn grant funding. Out of the £200 million promised by Ministers, a mere £12 million in grant funding was delivered, with the rest now being converted to a loan or—possibly, maybe—equity proposals. This continues a 20-year history of Westminster betrayals, from Gordon Brown to the Tories, and Acorn being snubbed, with carbon capture projects being left on the scrap heap all over the place. The decision deals a direct blow to a just transition. In its Budget documents, the Treasury has banked £5.1 billion in revenue from Scottish oil and gasfields. Over decades, more than £400 billion in oil and gas revenue flowed from Scotland’s waters into Westminster’s hands, with the Chancellor admitting that a Scottish sovereign wealth fund would today be worth £1 trillion, had that wealth been properly invested, as Norway chose to do. Every single penny generated from Scotland’s natural resources should be reinvested in Scotland to secure a genuinely just transition to a renewables future.