“It takes a strong leader to collaborate with others in an effort to bring about real change.” – Germany Kent

(My speech at the 2024 Scottish Labour Spring Conference fringe event on land reform, hosted by REVIVE)

Devolution has meant that Scotland has more responsibility than power. Tax powers as they are have limited scope to effect meaningful change to an unequal society.

Our most powerful devolved tax – income tax – has proven extremely hard to use and eats a lot of political capital – chiefly as it’s too easy for the very rich to avoid and everyone else doesn’t get paid nearly enough.

But income inequality is far outstripped by wealth inequality both in Scotland and in the UK and in a capitalist economy where those with wealth can use it to rent-seek off the backs of the folk who worked to earn it, we have a problem where it matters less who gets paid how much, it’s who hoards it after that.
We need a system of wealth taxes to rebalance our economy, cut down on the dragon’s hordes of the multi-billionaires who could never hope to spend it usefully in a lifetime and to ensure that assets are more efficiently used for the benefit of all of us.

Scotland has a lot of power to do good here if we choose to and while this isn’t the time or the place to discuss what we could do if the Scottish Parliament had more powers, it most certainly is the place to discuss what we can do now.

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