Anas Sarwar accused the SNP of siding with oil and gas giants over hard-pressed workers in its opposition to a windfall tax on excess profits.
Speaking at the Scottish Trades Union Congress’ annual conference, the Scottish Labour leader offered his strongest defence yet of his party’s proposal to extend the tax.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party wants to raise the windfall tax on fossil fuel firms from 75% of excess profits to 78% while also extending it to 2029.
First Minister Humza Yousaf claims the move was just a bid to plug a financial black hole caused by plans to build new nuclear plants.
Tories in the north-east also condemned Labour’s plan – then squirmed when Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt went ahead and extended it in his Spring Budget anyway.
In his Dundee speech on Monday, Mr Sarwar said the SNP had “hiked taxes” on hard working Scots to “pay for their own catastrophic failure to grow the economy”.
He said: “While taxes rise for workers the SNP is fighting tooth and nail against a windfall tax on the enormous excess profits of oil and gas giants.
“The choice before the SNP was clear – side with hard-pressed workers or side with multinational energy giants.
“And they sided with the profiteers not the people.
“If Humza Yousaf thinks a nurse has broader shoulders than Shell and BP, then I do not know what planet he is on.”
No answers on GB Energy HQ
The MSP also used his address to highlight the party’s proposal for a new national energy firm, dubbed GB Energy.
Labour has so far committed to basing the headquarters for the new body in Scotland, but has refused to say if this would be in the north east.
Asked whether the HQ would be based in Aberdeen, Mr Sarwar said: “Aberdeen and the north-east is of course an energy hub, we want to work in partnership with the industries there.
“We have got a commitment for GB Energy to be headquartered in Scotland, there’s lots of bids and pressure to put it in different parts of the country.
“The main thing is getting it established, having it here in Scotland, creating jobs and building energy security.
“We’ll continue to listen to the strong case being proposed by Aberdeen as well as in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other places.”
‘Nerve’
Kevin Stewart, SNP MSP for Aberdeen Central, said: “Anas Sarwar has some nerve to talk about supporting workers, when the Labour Party’s plans for a windfall tax puts up to 100,000 jobs in the north-east at risk – throwing our oil and gas workers on the scrapheap.
“Only the SNP can deliver for the north-east, and the whole of Scotland, with a windfall tax that supports households in Scotland through the cost of living crisis and puts money back into our communities.”
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