Russell Findlay has called on the SNP to strike a budget deal with his Scottish Tories as he set out his plans to exempt pubs and restaraunts from business rates.
Scottish Tory Russell Findlay has called for John Swinney to hand pubs and restaurants 100 per cent rates relief in next week’s budget.
Mr Findlay told The Scotsman that “there’s a deal to be done” by the SNP with the Conservatives if the Scottish Government is serious about bringing forward spending plans that suit businesses.
Alongside the relief for pubs and restaurants, Mr Findlay has set out plans for 40 per cent rates relief for Scottish retail, hospitality and leisure venues and reductions in income tax and LBTT.
Mr Findlay, who was speaking at Eusebi Deli in Glasgow, said his proposal would affect around 6,500 pubs and restaurants and would cost roughly £70 million.
But he said it was worth paying “in the grand scheme of the Scottish Government’s budget”, if SNP ministers were “serious about mitigating ways of harm they have caused and Labour have continued to cause”.
Pressed by The Scotsman over the likelihood of SNP ministers adopting his proposal, Mr Findlay said: “Why not? I think if John Swinney was in any way serious about recognising the damage he and his former first minister predecessors have done to Scottish business, they would seriously look at the proposal being put forward.”
“Businesses like this are tearing their hair out. They wake up every single day to find either the socialist SNP government in Edinburgh or the socialist Labour government in London have found another creative way to make life evermore difficult for them.”
He added: “We’ve had 17 years of not just the SNP taxing businesses with punitive taxation and further regulations, burdens and obstacles but also increasing the income tax on hard-working Scots.
“What we’re proposing – the flagship point in our budget proposal is we would get rid of the income tax bands which would allow those earning up to £45,000 in Scotland to keep more of the money they earn.”
Asked whether he would prefer the SNP to do a deal with the Greens or the Lib Dems, Mr Findlay said: “The Greens are a malignant entity in the parliament. They have stated in the past they don’t believe in economic growth.
“I think they would rather we all lived in caves. They have no regard for business or the private sector. They are completely harmful and clueless to Scotland.”
He added: “I would rather John Swinney seriously sat down with us, myself and Craig Hoy and looked at what we’re proposing instead of just dismissing it out of hand.
“He is in receipt of a record block grant. On top of that, he is taxing hard-working businesses to the hilt.
“If he was in any way serious, he ought to know that there’s a deal to be done.”
Asked about the Scottish Government having to find an extra £100m in this financial year, partly to fund public-sector pay deals, Mr Findlay said: “The SNP government has long lived beyond its means and it’s played a con trick on the good people of Scotland by constantly whining. about their block grant.”
But Mr Findlay warned more money is spent per head in Scotland than the rest of the UK, accusing the SNP of having “squandered that money”.
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