Scottish tax bands to be scrapped under Reform, says Malcolm Offord

Reform UK would bring income tax bands in line with the rest of the UK if it were to gain power at Holyrood in May, Malcolm Offord has said.

The party’s leader in Scotland said it would reduce the number of tax bands in Scotland from six to three and cut rates by 1p immediately.  

He said over the next parliament Reform would seek to reduce rates by 3p.  

Offord argued this would be funded by £2bn worth of savings raised from spending cuts on public bodies, economic development, and environmental protection.

Reform suggests that realigning the tax bands would cost £1.2bn and an additional £850m to reduce the rate by 1p.  

Offord claimed the party has identified “highly dubious environmental protection, economic development and 132 unaccountable quangos” that he says are “unrepresentative to the public”. However, he refused to name them.  

“We've got £9bn of money being spent, we think, where we're not getting value for money,” he said.

“We think we can get £2bn out of that in order to invest in our economy, invest in the most productive people in our economy, to grow the economy for the first time.”

Earlier this month, finance secretary Shona Robison announced in the Scottish budget changes to income tax thresholds – a lever that was not pulled in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget in November.  

Robison set out the government’s plans to raise the thresholds for the basic and intermediate rates. However, there are no plans to increase the higher, advanced, and top rates.  

Offord admitted that Reform has not had a “line-by-line” look through the Scottish Government's books to see what would be cut to fund his proposed tax cuts.  

He said: “All we can be very clear about is that there’s been a huge amount of overlap, duplication, and waste.”

Earlier today, Reform announced former Conservative MP and home secretary Suella Braverman had defected to the party.  

It follows recent defections by former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, and Andrew Rosindell.