THE Chancellor has been asked to “tap up multi-millionaires for a few quid” to balance the nation’s books instead of cutting benefits for disabled people.
Rachel Reeves was met with a torrent of criticism after her Spring Statement in the Commons, with SNP economy spokesperson Dave Doogan demanding she hike taxes on the wealthy to avoid further welfare cuts.
Reeves told MPs the Government’s previously announced social security cuts would save less than anticipated and outlined further cuts to Universal Credit for disabled people as part of a package of measures to avoid a deficit.
Doogan (below) said: “The Chancellor tells us the world has changed, and that if that's true, to allow her to stick the boot into disabled people, it must also be true then to allow her to review our income tax rates, perhaps commensurate with those existing in Scotland, which saw the Scottish economy grow in January by 0.3%, while the UK contracted by 0.1%.”
He argued that re-joining the EU single market could boost the economy by £30 billion and said imposing a wealth tax would bring in £40bn every year.
Doogan added: “If she's got the disabled, the Waspi women, pensioners and hospices in our crosshairs, why can she not tap up multi-millionaires for a few quid?”
Reeves replied: “The world has changed and we can see that all around us, which is why our defence is more important than others.
“That's why it's so astonishing that the SNP continue to oppose the nuclear deterrent.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn accused Labour of ushering in “a new era of austerity cuts” after the Chancellor unveiled a package of cuts totalling £14bn in order to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules.
He said: “They promised to protect people but are today punching down on the poorest. They promised to be different from the Tories but are today repeating all the same mistakes of the past.
“A new era of austerity under the Labour Party isn’t the ‘change’ that people voted for.
“If the world has truly changed then it is time to stop the economic madness of Brexit and time to rip up the straitjacket of Tory fiscal rules.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater (above) said that Labour had “made clear whose side it is on”, arguing the party backed “the super rich, the arms dealers and the corporations who are raking in obscene profits”.
She added: “They have chosen super-charged austerity and cuts for millions of people while their millionaire friends enjoy business as usual. This isn’t what Scotland waited 14 years for.”
Slater also said Labour had “totally ignored the climate emergency”, adding: “This should have been the start of a major green investment programme, but instead they left a giant climate-shaped hole.”
Sharon Graham (below), general secretary of the Unite trade union, said: “Rachel Reeves is right, the world has changed but why is it always everyday people that have to pay the price. They paid the price after the 2008 crash, the Covid pandemic and are now expected to pay the price again. It is simply wrong.”
She called on Labour to ditch their fiscal rules which have demanded public spending cuts, saying: “There is absolutely no point doggedly keeping to fiscal rules, while society crumbles around you. There will be no brownie points for a clean sheet on fiscal rules amid a broken economy.”
The top trade unionist welcomed Labour’s commitment to spend more on defence, with the Chancellor hailing plans to make the UK a “defence-industrial superpower”, but added: “Increased defence investment must not come at the expense of our public services and investment in British industry and our industrial infrastructure. Why is the sixth richest economy in the world pitting our safety against our dignity?”
And Oxfam hit out at Reeves for cutting "vital international aid and social security support for millions of people struggling at home and around the world while protecting the soaring wealth of millionaires and billionaires".
Anna Marriott, the charity’s senior policy advisor, said: “These cuts are not just numbers on a balance sheet but will cost lives and have a devastating impact on people facing conflict, poverty and climate disasters around the world. It's not about tough decisions; it's about political choices.”
