Labour’s candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran has given his backing to the party’s plans for a ‘Robin Hood Tax’.

Labour say the ‘Robin Hood Tax’, a 0.5 per cent tax on transactions in the financial sector, would generate £4.7billion per annum, meaning £26bn to be spent on public services like the NHS by the end of the next parliamentary term.

Labour have also proposed an increase in Corporation Tax to 26 per cent which will raise an additional £15bn a year, part of a wider strategy that includes a crackdown on tax avoidance and shutting down the tax loopholes used by corporations to avoid paying tax in the UK and the party will draw up a list of tax havens and introduce sanctions against them.

Kilwinning man and North Ayrshire and Arran candidate Christopher Rimicans said: “Britain’s tax system is deeply unfair. Those with the broadest shoulders can pay to avoid paying their fair share of tax whilst the rest of us have no choice. That needs to end.

“The Tories have ignored the systematic abuse of our tax system by big corporations and the rich but Labour won’t. We will deliver a system that works for the many, not the few.

“The financial sector caused the economic crash in 2008 but working people have paid for it through the Tories austerity policies. It is time that this unfairness was corrected and Labour’s Robin Hood Tax will do exactly that. By introducing a small tax on financial transactions, we can raise billions of pounds that will be spent on public services.

“Only a Labour Government will deliver an economy for works for people across Ayrshire.”