Greens' manifesto pledges would 'cement Scotland as highest taxed part of the UK'
Party proposes paying for universal services by more tax increases
The Scottish Greens manifesto would lead to “even larger” tax increases and would “cement Scotland’s position as the highest-taxed part of the UK”.
On Tuesday the Greens unveiled their 2026 election manifesto, including introducing free bus travel, dental care and non-residential social care for all, expanded free childcare, and 40,000 new green energy jobs.
The party proposes paying for these universally free services by taxing the wealthy, landlords, supermarkets, large retailers selling alcohol and tobacco, gambling companies, large online retailers and private schools. It also wants to scrap council tax and replace it with a new residential property tax.
However the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says all of the spending increases planned by the Scottish Greens “would require even more revenue than would be generated by the increases in taxes that the party seems to have assumed”.
David Phillips, head of devolved and local government finance at the IFS, said: “While the manifesto omits specific revenue estimates, the proposals set out seem unlikely to raise enough revenue to fund all the additional spending that would be required to deliver the Scottish Greens’ plans.
“To pay for those, increases in taxes would probably have to be even larger than suggested, or cuts made to other day-to-day spending that the Scottish Greens deem lower priority.
“And big tax increases to fund new, universal free entitlements - to childcare, dental care, domiciliary social care and bus travel - would make the tax rises that already look likely to be needed to maintain the existing services in the longer term more difficult.”
Mr Phillips said its plans to reform council tax “would address serious shortcomings with the current system”, but said “proposed increases and reforms to land and buildings transaction tax would make a bad tax bigger and even more damaging”.
He added: “It is clear the Scottish Greens see tax as a tool not just to raise revenue but also to reward certain activities and penalise others - sometimes justifiably, but often in ways that would less justifiably distort and reduce economic activity, and would seriously complicate the Scottish tax system.”
The IFS’s report says a substantial part of the Greens’ spending plans are devolved to councils and therefore “would increase the amount of tax revenue councils needed to raise”.
It also warns the party’s proposals for business rates would “significantly complicate the system and distort business investment decisions”.
The report also warns that some of its policies for universal free access to services “understates costs” as they are based on out-of-date data, and because demand for these services would likely increase.
The IFS report added: “The manifesto proposes a substantial increase in property taxes for mid and particularly high-valued properties, landlords and many businesses in order to further substantially expand the Scottish welfare state (already more expensive than that in the rest of the UK).
“However, delivering the full set of spending increases planned by the Scottish Greens would require even more revenue than would be generated by the increases in taxes that the party seems to have assumed.
“That means a government implementing its plans would likely need to seek to raise even more revenue, or make cutbacks to spending deemed lower priority - on top of the cuts already inherent in the current Scottish Government’s plans.
“More generally, the scale of change proposed is huge - whether plans could be delivered over a parliament, even if funding were available, is far from clear.”
The Scottish Greens have been approached for comment.
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