In the main, he succeeded.
The £2 billion raised by taxing bankers’ bonuses will help fund a £2.5 billion growth package for small businesses. However, given that receipts from this tax were almost four times more than expected, does it follow that bonuses paid to bankers were also four times higher than expected?
The guarantee of a job or training place for under-24s has been extended to 2012, whilst the winter fuel allowance payment of £250 (£400 for the over-80s) has been guaranteed for another year and the child tax credit will rise by £4 a week for families with a young child from 2012.
Meanwhile, Shelter Scotland said they were “thrilled” by the decision to extend the existing rate of mortgage interest support for the unemployed until the end of the year.
Labour have paid for this by freezing personal tax allowances, inheritance tax allowance, and introducing a new upper rate of 50 per cent from April on income above £150,000 a year, while personal tax allowances for those earning more than £100,000 will be tapered until those on more than £112,950 lose their allowances altogether.
The doubling of the stamp duty limit for first time buyers to £250,000 will be of little interest to Scots. In the last quarter of 2009, the average house price in Scotland was £155,618, with a mere 7 per cent of Scottish first-time buyers paying stamp duty when the threshold was £175,000, compared with a quarter when the threshold was at £125,000. Just 2 per cent of first-time buyers in Scotland paid more than £250,000 for homes last year.
The true challenge for Scottish first-time buyers is scraping together a deposit. On average last year they had to find £24,573, compared with £9,738 two years ago. The average first-time buyer provided a 25 per cent deposit in 2009, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, compared with 10 per cent in 2007. An estimated 90 per cent of last year’s first-time buyers benefited from parental assistance.
There was, however, good news for Scotland with announcement that savings would be made by moving 15,000 civil servants out of London over the next five years, with Scottish secretary, Jim Murphy insisting that he wanted at least 1,000 posts for Scotland.
In addition, the new £2 billion Green Investment Fund, a fund to develop renewable energy, provides enormous opportunities for Scotland. With our expertise in the energy sector built up over two generations and the ‘advantage’ of our weather, Scotland is well placed to become the world centre for the development of scaleable renewable energy technologies. Similarly, support for the computer games sector will have a significant impact in Scotland.
It is up to the Scottish government to decide how the £82 million extra funding for Scotland allocated through the Barnett consequentials is spent, although £6 million of that will be ring-fenced. Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman, Andy Kerr, has urged the Scottish government to reinstate the abandoned Glasgow Airport Rail Link project. This would undeniably create an additional 1,300 jobs, though the sustainability of investing in making it easier for people to fly, rather than in the Glasgow cross-rail scheme or upgraded rail links with England is questionable to say the least.
Quibbles aside, the key lesson of the recession, according to Mr Darling, has been that “government should not stand aside, but instead help people and business achieve our ambitions”. Interventionism and, even if slightly patchy, redistribution. Smashing.