Margaret Thatcher's government did use Scots as guinea pigs for the Poll Tax - despite denials to the contrary - explosive newly released documents suggest.

 

The papers show the Tory Prime Minister's advisers discussed using Scotland as a "trailblazer" for what they deemed "the real thing" - its introduction in England and Wales.

They even refer to the proposals as "the Scottish experiment".

The documents will reignite the bitter debate over the use of the Poll Tax in Scotland.

The then Chancellor Nigel Lawson has vociferously denied claims that Scots were guinea pigs for the controversial charge.

"I can understand why the fact that the poll tax was introduced first in Scotland may have led some to suppose the Cabinet in London was deliberately using Scotland as a test-bed for the tax," he has said "but nothing could be further from the truth."

The new documents show the extent to which the then Scottish Secretary George Younger backed the move.

The Tory minister was keen to avoid any re-run of the political outcry that followed the 1985/86 revaluation of the forerunner to the poll tax, rates.

Changes to rates had proved immensely controversial amid accusations that Scots had been particularly badly affected - and bolstered the push already ongoing within government for the system to be changed.

In November 1985 Oliver Letwin, now a minister in the cabinet office but then a key Thatcher adviser, wrote to the Prime Minister: "You could make all the changes to grants, non-domestic rates, capital controls and housing benefit in England and Wales, but try out the residential charge in a pure form only in Scotland, and leave domestic rates intact for the time being in the rest of the country."

He added: "This has obvious attractions: No-one can say you are being insufficiently radical, since you will be curing the disease of the non-domestic rates (which was the worst element of the old system) and trying out an extremely radical system in a significant part of the country.

"By the same token, no-one can accuse you of being rash, since you will be reserving your options on domestic rates in England and Wales."

"If the Scottish experiment worked, it could make a pure residence charge look sensible rather than extreme, and thereby pave the way for its introduction in England and Wales."

He concluded that her advisers "therefore recommend that, if you are not willing to move to a pure residence charge in England and Wales immediately, you should introduce a mixture of taxes but should rather use the Scots as a trailblazer for the real thing."

SNP MP Stewart Hosie said: "These memos reveal the arrogant and contemptuous attitude towards Scotland that is the hallmark of the Tories."

The introduction of the poll tax created huge opposition across Scotland. The charge is still controversial north of the border today.

In a separate new document, Mr Lawson wrote a scathing memo setting out the "horrifying" problems with the Poll Tax four years before it was introduced in Scotland. The then chancellor even predicted that the new charge would be "politically unsustainable".