![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dailybusinessgroup.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Kemi-Badenoch-at-Tory-conference-June-2025.png\")
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch will on Thursday claim income taxes and welfare spending in Scotland are too high when she meets business leaders in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
Ms Badenoch, who will visit Aberdeen on Friday, says the income tax burden is at its highest level since devolution.<\/p>\n
She will note that nurses and teachers are being penalised while money is spent on foreign aid \u2013 a matter reserved to Westminster \u2013 and the constitution. She says Scotland\u2019s welfare bill will rise to \u00a39.2 billion by 2030.<\/p>\n
Ms Badenoch will be joined by Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay and Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Andrew Bowie.<\/p>\n
They will visit the premises of a whisky brand where Ms Badenoch will re-iterate her call for the Government to assess the impact of rising alcohol duty on pubs and the wider hospitality sector.<\/p>\n \u201cScotland needs a government that will back business, cut welfare and grow the economy,\u201d she says. \u201cInstead Scotland has the SNP, whose budget raises taxes and benefits, and leaves hardworking Scots worse off than people in the rest of the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the SNP, nurses, teachers and families are being forced to pay higher and higher taxes just to bankroll a failing nationalist agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Referring to Scottish Labour\u2019s decision to abstain in the Budget vote, she added: \u201cLabour\u2019s decision to stand aside and let this terrible budget pass shows they can\u2019t provide the alternative Scotland desperately needs. Reform just want more welfare spending.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly the Conservatives are serious about cutting taxes for working people, getting a grip on benefits, backing businesses and restoring economic growth to Scotland\u00a0and\u00a0the whole of the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Bowie said: \u201cScotland is being shafted by two tired, cynical governments that have completely run out of ideas.<\/p>\n \u201cBy allowing this damaging Budget to pass unchallenged, Labour is complicit in raising taxes on millions of hard-working Scots.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly the Conservatives will get a grip on Scotland\u2019s ballooning welfare bill and cut taxes for working people to drive the growth Scotland so desperately needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Badenoch is expected to use her visit to the north east on Friday to reiterate the Conservative commitment to\u00a0liberate Britain\u2019s\u00a0oil\u00a0and\u00a0gas\u00a0industry by ending the ban on new\u00a0oil\u00a0and\u00a0gas\u00a0licences.<\/p>\n The SNP says its Budget changes to income tax will mean that 55% of Scots will pay less tax than taxpayers south of the border.<\/p>\n Ellen Milner at the Chartered Institute of Taxation Scotland, said that the increase in thresholds for the basic and intermediate rates means the point taxpayers start paying more income tax than someone on the same salary elsewhere in the UK will increase to \u00a333,493.<\/p>\n Compared with the current tax year, this represents a maximum saving of \u00a331.75 next year.<\/p>\n \t <\/div>\n![\"Haymarket](\"https:\/\/dailybusinessgroup.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Haymarket-pub-and-offices.png\")
![\"Buzzard](\"https:\/\/dailybusinessgroup.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Buzzard-oil-well-Suncor-Energy.png\")