John Swinney under fire over ‘smallest tax cut in history’ after Scottish Budget

John Swinney has been pressed over whether this week’s Scottish Budget gives some workers the “smallest tax cut in history” – with Tory leader Russell Findlay branding the reduction “miserly” and “insulting”.

The Scottish Conservative leader challenged the First Minister after Tuesday’s Holyrood Budget effectively cut taxes for lower earners, by increasing the threshold for the basic and intermediate bands of income tax.

But Mr Findlay said that would leave workers at most £31.75 a year better off – saying this amounts to a saving of just £61p a week

“That wouldn’t even buy you a bag of peanuts,” the Scottish Tory leader said.

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

Raising the “miserly cut” at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Findlay demanded to know if the SNP leader believed his “insulting tax cut will actually help Scotland’s struggling households”.

The attack came as the Tory accused the SNP government of increasing taxes on higher earners, with its freeze on higher income tax thresholds, which will pull more Scots into these brackets.

This is needed to pay for the “SNP’s out of control, unaffordable benefits bill”, the Conservative added.

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

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

Hitting out at Labour – whose leader Anas Sarwar has already declared they will not block the government’s Budget – Mr Findlay said: “It is absolutely mind-blowing that Labour and other so-called opposition parties will let this SNP boorach of a budget pass.

“Don’t the people of Scotland deserve lower taxes, fairer benefits and a government focused on economic growth?”

Mr Swinney said 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”.

He insisted income tax decisions in the Budget would mean that in 2026-27 “55% of Scottish taxpayers are now expected to pay less income tax than if they lived in England”.

The First Minister went on to say that showed “the people of Scotland have a Government that is on their side”.

Referring to polls putting his party on course to win the Holyrood elections in May, the SNP leader added that “all the current indications show the people of Scotland want to have this Government here for the long term”.

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

The First Minister said: “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.”

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

With the weekly leaders’ question time clash coming less than 48 hours after the draft 2026-27 Budget was unveiled, the First Minister also faced questions from Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, who insisted that the proposals “lacks ambition for Scotland”.

Pressing his SNP rival, the Scottish Labour leader said: “While he brags about his £6 a year tax cut for the lowest paid, one million Scots including nurses, teachers and police officers face being forced to pay more.

“Even his own tax adviser says this is a political stunt. So why does John Swinney believe that someone earning £33,500 has the broadest shoulders and therefore should pay more tax in Scotland?”

Mr Swinney, however, said that many public sector workers would be better off in Scotland.

He told the Scottish Labour leader: “A band six nurse at the bottom of the scale will take home an additional £1,994 after tax compared to the same band in England.

“A qualified teacher at the bottom of the band will take home £6,365 more after tax in Scotland than the equivalent in England. There are the facts for Mr Sarwar.”