SNP commission proposes income tax breaks to get immigrants to move to independent Scotland

Skilled immigrants could be offered income tax breaks to move to an independent Scotland, an SNP review published today will recommend despite ministers last month hitting middle-class Scots with an increase in the levy.

The SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission report will suggest introducing a “Come to Scotland” golden hello including “transition relief” for some immigrants so they can offset their moving expenses against their income tax bills.

The revised economic blueprint for separation also proposes introducing financial incentives for wealthy entrepreneurs to move north of the Border, retaining an extra 5,000 international students a year and a more liberal visa system to increase immigration levels.

Andrew Wilson, the commission’s chairman and a former SNP MP, said increasing the working age population was the “greatest national challenge we have” and warned of the threat to this posed by Brexit.

However, the report was published as official figures showed the number of EU nationals in Scotland increased by 26,000 last year, after the Brexit vote, to 235,000. The number of foreigners from outside the EU also rose by 14,000 to 142,000.

It also came after Nicola Sturgeon’s government imposed hikes last month that mean 1.1 million Scots earning more than £26,000 pay more income tax than if they lived in England. A worker earning £50,000 now pays £824 more than if they moved elsewhere in the UK.

The Scottish Tories said the proposals appeared to acknowledge that high taxes put people off from moving to Scotland and questioned why workers living north of the Border now have to pay them.

On the eve of the long-awaited report’s publication, Ms Sturgeon came under fire for prioritising independence over major problems with the education system and health service. Labour’s Richard Leonard challenged her to “put the NHS before the SNP.”

Responding to Ruth Davidson’s call for her to “give it a rest” and focus on the education system, the First Minister argued that “small, independent countries across the world consistently do better than the United Kingdom.”

Ms Sturgeon tasked the commission in 2016 with examining how to increase Scotland’s sluggish economic growth rates, reduce its massive deficit and which currency should be adopted after separation.

Unusually, she is not staging a press conference today to allow journalists to question her about its contents.

But, in a statement issued by the SNP last night, Mr Wilson said a separate Scotland needs to “strike a completely different tone” on immigration from the UK as it is expected to account for all population growth over the next 25 years.

He argued that immigrants already here are “significant net contributors” to the economy, saying Scotland needs “more of this” and more people from the rest of the UK to move north of the Border.

Mr Wilson: “Our package is designed to attract people to Scotland to study and to stay here, to build a career, a and a fulfilling future for themselves. We need investors, entrepreneurs and a skilled workforce to achieve our potential.”

But Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Tories’ Shadow Finance Minister, said: “Of course we want to attract the best and brightest to come and live and work in Scotland. But you don't do that with high taxes and you don’t do it by trying to tear up the UK.

“You do it by growing Scotland's economy - something the SNP government is failing to do, largely because it is spending so much of its time obsessing about independence.” He said the report’s only purpose was to help Ms Sturgeon’s push for a second referendum.

Ms Davidson warned that Scotland’s education system will suffer if the country is dragged “back down the rabbit hole” of another independence debate.

Arguing it was “typical” of the SNP to abandon manifesto promises, such as cutting primary class sizes, she said: “Nicola Sturgeon has made clear what her priorities are – it’s independence first and everything else a long way behind.”

Mr Leonard disclosed that since Ms Sturgeon became First Minister there has been a 234 per cent increase in patients waiting longer than the “Treatment Time Guarantee” of 12 weeks.

He said: “There are serious problems right across the health service, and they are growing. That’s what the people of Scotland want the government to be focused on.”

But Ms Sturgeon said: “Across all those things, this is a government using its powers and resources to best effect to make as much progress as we can. However, we are determined to do even better.”