Middle-class Scots are being ‘driven out’ by taxes, says MP

MIDDLE-CLASS Scots are being ‘driven out’ of the country by the SNP’s stance on tax, a parliamentary committee has heard.

MP Christopher Chope spoke out during a meeting of the Scottish Affairs Committee, warning that people have already started to move south to England.

It comes as the SNP has hiked its property tax for higher earners, while refusing to raise the threshold beyond inflation for higher-rate taxpayers, who it is claimed could be more than £300 a year worse off than if they lived in England.

With many f earing these rate changes are just the beginning, Mr Chope said people who have worked hard and done well now feel ‘hostility’ in Scotland.

The MP for Christchurch in Dorset, one of the English members of the Scottish Affairs Committee, addressed it last week. He said: ‘I come across people who are moving to Dorset.. moving to Dorset from Scotland because they don’t like the prospect of changes in Scottish economic policy, and particularly taxation.

‘So they are being driven out of Scotland by Scottish Government policy.’

The retired couple the Conservative MP was referring to are in their sixties and left over fears about tax. Speaking after the meeting, Mr Chope said they felt certain they would be hit with higher rates and had decided to go before they were older.

He said: ‘They felt in that category of people who the Scottish Government have got in their sights to penalise. They felt hostility towards their sort of person – middle class people.

‘There is an attitude that, if you have done reasonably well, then we need to make you have a larger contribution towards our taxes.’

The couple, who are both professionals, could not be contacted for a comment on their move from Scotland.

However, it has already been warned that companies and individuals could end up fleeing over higher rates of tax as more powers to set these are devolved under the Scotland Act.

Under Finance Secretary John Swinney’s controversial stamp duty replacement, Land and Buildings Transactions Tax, homes costing more than £ 145,000 have been removed from the tax entirely, but people buying properties over £333,000 face a higher bill than those south of the Border.

Middle-income Scots face a double tax bombshell over the 40 per cent tax band, the threshold for which Chancellor George Osborne has raised from £43,000 to £45,000 next year and to £51,000 by 2021-22.

But Nicola Sturgeon will raise it only by inflation, to £43,387, which means, when National Insurance is factored in, the Tories claim Scots workers will be more than £300 a year worse off than English people.

Mr Chope joined the Scottish Affairs Committee, headed by SNP politician Pete Wishart, because he wanted to speak up for the Union, having been galvanised by the independence referendum in 2014.

On the couple he has met in Dorset, he said: ‘I am sure they are not unique. They are an example of what is already happening in Scotland.

‘If policy is having that effect on people who are in Scotland already, it will also be having an effect on people who might have been thinking about moving to Scotland.’

An SNP spokesman said: ‘ We will take no lectures on tax from the Tories, who want to charge Scots for prescriptions and to bring in tuition fees of £6,000 for a university degree.

‘Our proposals will protect public services, put a stop to Tory tax cuts for the rich and protect those on low incomes from Labour tax rises.’

‘They felt hostility to middle class’