ANAS Sarwar has clashed with one of his own Scottish Labour MPs over the issue of introducing a wealth tax.
Brian Leishman, the MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, will table a bid at the party’s Scottish conference next month to introduce a wealth tax policy.
He told The Scotsman that a two per cent tax on the wealthiest could help fix growing inequality and challenged the assertion that it would lead to big companies leaving the UK.
He added that it was a popular policy and could have prevented some of the backlash the new Labour Government and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has received over pursuing cost-cutting measures such as scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners.
“In order to equalise society, eradicate poverty and improve social mobility for the many people in society that need it, an annual wealth tax at two per cent on multi-millionaires and the international billionaire class. Let them pay,” Leishman said.
But Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar fired back, dismissing the idea out of hand in comments to the newspaper.
“My fear would be that if we go down an ideological route where in actual fact we need to expand the level of middle earners in Scotland, as well as those big businesses - we don't have the same lumber and level of big businesses as for example, the City of London,” he said.
“It could inadvertently damage us here in Scotland."
Sarwar, whose share in his family's cash-and-carry wholesale business was valued at between £2.7 million and £4.8m in 2016, added: “Instead, we have to use the levers that we have - whether that be around tax, planning, around our taxes system, our enterprise agencies, around regional economic development.”
Scottish Greens spokesperson for equality Maggie Chapman hit out at the refusal to consider a wealth tax.
She said: “Austerity is a choice. There is more than enough money to end cruel cuts like winter fuel payment and to mitigate the two-child benefit cap and build a fairer economy, but it is being selfishly hoarded by a small number of ultra-wealthy people.
“Times have rarely been as good for the millionaire and billionaire class, who have profited like bandits while people and families across our country have struggled.
Chapman added: “Anas Sarwar has already made far too many excuses for Keir Starmer. He has looked the other way while Labour has kept the cruel Tory two child cap, cut winter fuel payments plunging pensioners into poverty and betrayed hundreds of thousands of working class WASPI women.
“If Labour are remotely serious about ending the financial pain that households and families all over the UK are feeling then they can ask the rich to pay more and invest in people, communities and the public services we all rely on.”
The clash also comes as the SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison highlighted in Holyrood on Tuesday last week that a potential wealth tax was considered in the Scottish Government tax strategy.
She added, however, that this would require “additional powers through agreement with the UK Government” and that it “will not happen in the short term and will not raise revenue in this session of parliament”.
Robison previously highlighted the limited powers she had to further put up taxes after delivering her Scottish Budget statement last year.
But the party has faced criticism, including from the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), for failing to impose a wealth tax on the super-rich.
It’s a move that the STUC claim could pump £3.7 billion into the public purse.
