Scottish Budget: SNP ministers are at war with each other after discovering the price of their own incompetence – Jackie Baillie

Next year, voters will have the chance to oust half of the Tory-SNP double-act ruining the country, and serve notice on the other

In a blind panic after the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, Humza Yousaf declared a council tax freeze in Scotland next year at his SNP conference. The First Minister’s flailing attempt to appeal to the voters abandoning the SNP was entirely uncosted, unplanned and without a thought for Scotland’s finances.

If the First Minister had bothered to consult councils or civil servants, he would have learned about the £400 million-plus funding gap this would create and the risk of cuts to already decimated local services. It was straight out of the SNP playbook, making announcements on the cheap and expecting communities to shoulder the costs. It seems that only in the throes of the budgetary process has the First Minister realised the money has to be found from somewhere. A reported £1.5 billion budget black hole will have to be filled by cuts.

For years, SNP ministers have been racking up expenditure as if they were on holiday with a parliamentary iPad. There are the running meters on the CalMac vessels, the £586 million given as guarantees to the Fort William aluminium smelter, and Prestwick Airport to name a few. And the SNP’s failure to budget for proper pay deals amid a cost-of-living crisis means some £1.7 billion of additional spending on pay now has to be budgeted for across future years.

Humza Yousaf's decision to freeze council tax next year dramatically increased the size of the Scottish Government's financial black hole (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

New tax band looms

The trouble for the Scottish Finance Secretary is that the UK Autumn Statement included none of the Barnett consequentials that she was banking on to cover the money already spent by the SNP in a gamble that has not come off. Instead working people in Scotland will pay the price.

After weeks of ministerial wrangling, it seems a new tax band will be created but we already know it won’t come close to plugging the funding shortfall. The Cabinet is clearly at war, with some ministers exasperated at their own government’s incompetence trying to brief their way out of trouble in the media.

Some are determined to defend their patch and future prospects as they see diminishing returns from backing their leader. But SNP ministers who have presided over years of economic stagnation are not capable of turning around the mess they’ve created.

The ghost of Christmas past, and possibly Christmas future, has been haunting their deliberations, with Kate Forbes on manoeuvres. She’s gone public, warning against increasing taxes on middle-class Scotland, the opposite of what the Yousaf Cabinet appear to have decided to do.

More cuts to services already down to the bone

Anyone in Scotland earning over £28,000 already pays more tax than their equivalent in England. Under the SNP’s proposals, working people will be squeezed further, paying even more.

Ahead of the Budget, business organisations are warning how tax rises would affect Scotland’s competitiveness and economic prospects. But bigger than that is the inevitable deterioration in public services and the direct effect that will have on pupils, pensioners, parents and everyone else who uses council facilities. Services have been cut to the bone, now councillors will have to take a hacksaw to what is left.

SNP and Tory mismanagement of the country’s finances has left us looking at a bleak budget and a bleak Christmas. The New Year brings a chance to oust the Tory half of this incompetent double-act, and serve notice on the other.

Jackie Baillie MSP is Scottish Labour’s deputy leader