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Budget fails the Highlands - for The Inverness Courier
GORDON Brown’s last budget was much hyped, but in fact does very little to help in the areas that the Highlands needs most.
The proposal to reduce the rate of fuel duty for rural areas would have a real benefit for Highland families, who pay more their fuel, drive further, and have fewer public transport alternatives. I will pursue this matter again when the Finance Bill is debated.
The big news of the budget was the apparent income tax cut, in fact a financial sleight of hand. Because of lower average incomes in the Highlands and Islands, this package will, in fact, mean that a higher proportion of the region’s residents will lose out as a result of the tax changes introduced by Gordon Brown last week.
That is because in addition to the 2p cut in the basic rate, the lower 10p rate is effectively doubled to 20p. Any taxpayer who earns less than approximately £18,500 will pay more tax. Because average wages in the Highlands are substantially lower than the UK average, a greater proportion of Highlanders will pay more tax than in the rest of the UK.
At the same time as paying more tax, thousands of low income Highland families are strugging with the chaos and uncertainty of the tax credit system. Endemic overpayments and errors means that a system that rightly aims to boost the incomes of the poorest is, in many cases, causing real hardship.
If fairness really was Gordon Brown’s watchword, we would have seen real reductions in the tax burden on the lowest income tax payers and real reform of the tax creidt system to provide stability and end poverty. Instead, Gordon Brown seemed more interested in wrong-footing David Cameron than in helping low income families struggling in an ever more unequal society.
TROOPS HOME
With the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq passing last week, there is still no commitment to bringing British troops home from Iraq. I believe that the war in Iraq was illegal and wrong and the decision to go to war based on misinformation. But whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of going to war, there is a growing consensus that the time has come to start bringing our troops home.
It is striking that it has taken a electoral earthquake in the US to wake the UK government up to the need to change policy in Iraq.
It is a sad reflection of the fact that under Tony Blair, much of our foreign policy seems to been contracted out to the Bush administration.
The British service personnel are doing their job valiantly and with the high degree of professionalism that we have come to expect. But when the head of Britain’s armed forces, Sir Richard Dannatt, says that Britain’s troops should come home “sometime soon” then everyone should sit up and listen. We need a plan for a phased withdrawal, to start as soon as possible.
Posted on: 27/03/2007
