Monday November 24th 2025
West Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
The hike in National Insurance payments has cost West Lothian Council an extra £8.8m in its wage bill.
At a meeting of the full council, SNP opposition group leader Councillor Janet Campbell branded the increase a “jobs tax” and raised a motion demanding the council write to Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, asking for its revoke.
The motion was passed after the Conservative group – also critics of the NI increase – refused to back a Labour amendment.
The council has agreed to “Write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and demand she removes the increase she made to Employers National Insurance – Labour’s Jobs Tax. This has removed circa £7M from West Lothian Council’s budget alone, not to mention the local Voluntary Sector, Police and Fire & Rescue services.”
Councillor Campbell told the meeting: “Lets call this jobs tax what it actually is – yet another broken promise from the UK Labour Government, which is too busy infighting and briefing against one another to respond to the needs of ordinary working people.
“Amid a cost-of-living crisis, Labour’s tax hike is the last thing ordinary people and local businesses need. It is yet another example of Westminster letting Scotland down.”
The motion further added: “Council further notes the disastrous impact of Labour’s Job Tax on jobs, seeing businesses pay on average £850 per employee on top of rising energy costs – despite Labour’s promise to bring energy costs down when in opposition.
Labour’s amendment confirmed that the cost calculation of NI in general services was £6.6m with an additional £2.2m in commissioned services. The Government has provided just over half that £8.8m- £4.798m.
That leaves a shortfall of £4m. Labour’s amendment called “To instruct the Chief Executive to write to the First Minister requesting that he provide with immediate effect £4 million to West Lothian Council from the non-utilised £1 billion underspend.”
The amendment added: “Audit Scotland earlier this month reported a £1 billion underspend by the Scottish Government despite an extra £5.3 billion being provided by the UK Government.
“The Scottish Government received £6.3m local authorities north of the border received not one penny [to save] Armadale, Broxburn and Bubbles in Livingston.
“The UK Government allocated £1.6bn to local authorities south of the border last year to repair potholes in roads, Scottish Government received £160m and an equitable allocation to West Lothian Council would have been £4.5m but received not one penny, the evidence is clear potholes in West Lothian are not a priority of Scottish Ministers.
“Scottish Ministers, including West Lothian’s own Cabinet Secretaries Angela Constance MSP and Fiona Hyslop MSP sanctioned clawing back £10m from the reserves of West Lothian Integrated Joint Board and then wonder why local facilities cannot continue to be supported. Where did the money go?
However a second amendment, from the four strong Tory group, turned its fire on both the larger parties stating: “With these two economically illiterate Governments, West Lothian faces: higher taxes, less jobs, higher bills, more unemployment, poorer services and a bleaker future.
It added: “West Lothian Council instructs the Chief Executive to write to Rachel Reeves, asking that National Insurance Contributions are brought down to the levels that were in place when the Labour Party came to power, and the Chief
Executive writes to John Swinney, demanding that taxation levels are to be in line with the rest of the UKs and business rate relief is passed on fully in line with the rest of the UK.”
In a vote the SNP won out against first the Labour amendment, when the Tories abstained, and then the Tory motion when 11 Labour members refused to back administration colleagues.
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