Afternoon summary
Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure in the dispute over the nurses’ strikes, with a senior Tory MP telling him to compromise and increase the pay rise on offer while a health minister insisted unions’ demands could not be met. There is more detail on our separate live blog about the nurses’ strike.
John Swinney, Scotland’s finance minister, has told MSPs in his budget speech that anyone earning more than £43,662 in Scotland will pay an extra penny in the pound in income tax. He said that cash would go into the NHS, and he presented it as an example of how the Scottish government was making progressive choices and rejecting austerity. His full statement is here.
Updated
Scottish Tories claims tax rises for higher earners risk undermining 'potential for economic growth'
Liz Smith, the Scottish Conservatives’ finance spokesperson, is responding to Swinney now.
She says Swinney should stop blaming all his economic problems on the UK government. She says the increase in the block grant to Scotland more or less covered inflation.
She says the SNP government has had the power to vary income tax rates for a long time, and for years it never used them.
And she expresses concern about the tax gap that will open up between higher earners in Scotland and people on lower salaries. She told Swinney he risked “undermining the potential for economic growth”. And she asked if the Scottish government had conducted an analysis of whether this might lead to higher earners leaving Scotland.
In response, John Swinney, the Scottish government’s finance secretary, said that a few weeks ago Smith was urging him to follow the policies in Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.
Updated
