Salmond: jobs warning

The government's plans to introduce an aggregate tax on quarrying could cost 2700 jobs in Scotland, the SNP has claimed .

Alex Salmond, the party's leader at Westminster, told a Westminster Hall debate that the new tax "threatens to devastate the Scottish quarrying and construction industry".

The new levy, which comes into effect on April 1, is targeted towards the environmental costs associated with quarrying operations. But the SNP says it is a "stealth tax" which will do serious damage to the economy.

"The aggregates levy is a flat rate tax which takes no account of the different price of aggregates throughout the UK. While the tax will only lead to a 12-16 per cent rise in aggregates prices in Southeast England, Scottish aggregates prices will rise by 40-50 per cent," Salmond said before the debate.

"And its introduction is being delayed in Northern Ireland, because of the economic damage it threatens there."

The levy, which was announced in the chancellor's 2000 budget, "is the most anti-Scottish tax since the poll tax", says Salmond.

The government says the levy will encourage the use of alternative and more environmentally friendly sources.

Ministers say that quarrying leads to noise, dust, visual intrusion, loss of amenity and damage to biodiversity.

The Treasury says that the tax - which will raise £385 million to be used to establish a new "sustainability fund" - delivers no get gain to the chancellor.

Paul Boateng, the financial secretary to the Treasury, is expected to speak for the government during today's debate.