'Give Holyrood control of our taxes'

TAVISH Scott, the front-runner for the Scottish Liberal Democrat leadership, wants the Scottish Parliament to have control over most of the taxes raised in Scotland – but he would not reveal which ones.

Mr Scott is today sending a personal manifesto to each of the 4,000 Liberal Democrat members in Scotland, setting out what he would do as leader.

Yesterday, he told The Scotsman he would not "dance to Alex Salmond's jig" by agreeing to a referendum on independence, but he did want a radical redrawing of the devolution settlement, giving Holyrood control over most taxes raised in Scotland.

Mr Scott's manifesto is based on three themes: devolving power down as far as possible, going green and standing up for personal freedoms.

The former transport minister said he wanted powers devolved from Westminster to Holyrood and then on to local government.

The Liberal Democrats have always been vague about exactly which financial powers should be devolved to Holyrood. Mr Scott went slightly further, saying: "I would look to see a broad spread of tax powers given to the Scottish Parliament."

Asked whether this would include income tax, stamp duty, VAT and corporation tax, he replied: "I think the starting point should be as many of these taxation powers as appropriate."

But the Shetland MSP was adamant he did not want to do anything to help the SNP achieve independence and he would not be changing his total opposition to an independence referendum. "It's not an issue people are talking about on the doorsteps, it's not an issue party members have raised with me," he said.

"It's one of these issues politicians like to talk about, but which people generally feel is irrelevant. I am not going to be distracted by it. If we start talking about it, we will start dancing to Alex Salmond's jig and I'm not going to do that."

Mr Scott is in favour of allowing local councils to spend more money on their own priorities and freeing up more resources for local government.

In the leadership race, he has considerable support among his parliamentary colleagues, in both London and Edinburgh, while his main challenger, Mike Rumbles, is understood to be making progress among grass-roots activists.

Mr Rumbles, the MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, hopes to secure more support than the 24 per cent he received when he stood for the leadership in 2005.

An increase of more than 35 per cent might surprise Mr Scott, particularly as this election will be fought under the single transferable vote system and, with three candidates standing, the one with the most support after the first votes are counted is not guaranteed success.

The result will be announced on 26 August.