When they were still best friends, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon emblazoned election leaflets with their smiling portraits and a big promise that the SNP would scrap the unfair council tax. That was in 2007 and the policy was key to the nationalists gaining power in Holyrood.

Roll on 16 years of complaining about not having enough levers to change the lives of Scots and nothing has been done. The council tax’s unfairness has become baked in by SNP inaction. Now, facing a £1 billion hole in Scotland’s finances next year thanks to their own incompetence, the SNP is grasping for solutions.

After years of depriving local authorities of the necessary funds and refusing to give them their fair share of cash sent by Westminster, the nationalists are turning to councils to get them out of a bind. In doing so, Humza Yousaf has come up with what Baldrick would call a “cunning plan”.

A leaked paper from the SNP-controlled, council umbrella group Cosla revealed ministers are talking about tax reform. They are looking at changes to the calculations behind council tax bands which would lead to big rises. It’s proposed to leave bands A-D alone, while raising bands E-H from 7.5 per cent to up to 22.5 per cent for the highest. The simplistic notion is that the change captures the most expensive properties, the richest people. But that’s wrong.

Firstly there hasn’t been a revaluation of properties since 1991, but new-build houses will be valued at today’s prices. The value of a three-bedroom family home in 1991 is vastly different to the same three-bedroom house built now. So this proposed change becomes a stealth tax on every new home and new estate.

New three-bedroom houses are not the preserve of the rich, but SNP ministers want to squeeze them even more to the tune of up to an extra £741. Secondly, those who are getting older and live in family homes will find it difficult to fund such a significant increase because they are on fixed incomes.

Remember, this is not with the promise of better services in return, it’s simply to fill the black hole they have created in local government finances. If this goes ahead it will be Humza Yousaf's Liz Truss moment, emblematic of the SNP’s economic incompetence.

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, SNP economic illiteracy is forcing bills higher for thousands of Scots while they obsess over independence. More radical solutions are needed. In Wales, for example, local authorities are now able to set and collect council tax premiums on long-term empty properties at up to 300 per cent. The Scottish Government is considering doubling the tax on empty homes but rural councils, crying out for houses for young people, want to follow Wales.

Calls have been made over the years for a revaluation of the tax bands to rebalance the system and make it fairer. Whatever model of local taxation is preferred, there’s no doubt reform is urgently required.

Adding to the burden faced by households during a cost-of-living crisis, with increased mortgage payments and now the prospect of increases in council tax is simply wrong-headed and shows Scots are being failed by both the UK and Scottish governments.

Jackie Baillie MSP is Scottish Labour’s deputy leader

SNP's council tax proposals: Why Humza Yousaf's 'cunning plan' could turn out to be his Liz Truss moment – Jackie Baillie

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