IN the last 17 years, the SNP in government have a record on progressive taxation and universal benefits that marks them out as better than all the other large parties in Scotland and across the UK. They’ve managed to find a way to preserve the hugely beneficial free higher education tuition, prescriptions, bus travel and, in 2021, their manifesto seemed to promise greater childcare for all, council tax exemptions for all 18-to-21-year-olds, free dental care, free breakfasts and lunches all year round for all primary-aged children, and to abolish charges for all social care services received at home.
Since the dramatic, though thoroughly undeserved, Labour win in July, there are signs of a shift in thinking and in action among SNP leaders. The Scottish Government chose not to keep the universal winter fuel payment in the immediate wake of UK Labour’s recent attacks on the poor, including the immediate means-testing of the benefit for this year. They have also announced an reversal on free bus travel for asylum seekers and have U-turned on free school meals for all.
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These shifts in direction, in the wider context of the known views of deputy leader Kate Forbes, published last year in her “National Strategy for Economic Transformation” discussion paper, which has nothing to say on progressive taxation or benefits and which Adam Ramsay of Open Democracy described as “just as dangerous as her conservative views”, can only concern those of us who know that progressive taxation combined with universalism across the benefits programme is essential if we are to create a better Scotland.
Only one party in Scotland now puts universalism clearly at the heart of its agenda: the Scottish Socialist Party, who in 2003 had six MSPs, who launched more bills aimed at greater social justice per head than any other party in Holyrood and who must surely anticipate a return to parliament as they find themselves alone on that left-of-centre ground long abandoned by Labour and, it seems, by the SNP, as they fear electoral disaster in 2026 if they are seen as too soft on the poor and is not pro-business enough.
Space here does not permit a full account of the case for universalism, but the key argument is simple and, critically, cannot be undermined with any rational attack.
In September 2012, Robin McAlpine of the Jimmy Reid Foundation (now sadly just the Reid Foundation) wrote: “We’ve had the debate: universalism won. If Scottish Labour wants to open up a debate on universalism, I welcome it. It’ll be a brief debate and universalism will win. Again.”
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The extensive report, which reviews around 60 sources of evidence from across Europe and beyond, offers one of the most robust sets of findings I have seen in 40 years of reading research.
To put it simply and briefly, universal benefits are far cheaper and fairer to administer, significantly stimulate the economy and make it more stable, provide a higher and more progressive tax base, and all of the best places to live and work in are strong universal welfare states.
Just think of two over-65s on the free bus to Glasgow, from their warm home in Kilmarnock, arriving in the city. They have a meal out and buy book tokens for their student grandchild, who came up earlier that day on the same free bus. They study in a top university at no cost and will, thanks to that opportunity, go on to develop the knowledge and skills to boost the Scottish economy and Scottish culture, creating the wealth to pay for the universal benefits that helped to make it all possible, and the wider culture making it all worthwhile.
Simple.
John Robertson
Scottish Socialist Party
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