Robison appeals for ‘clarity’ from Chancellor ahead of Scottish budget

Scotland’s Finance Secretary has appealed to Chancellor Rachel Reeves to give her “clarity” on how much cash she will have to spend in what will be a “challenging” Scottish budget.

Shona Robison made the plea as she also urged Rachel Reeves to deliver a budget for “investment and opportunity” when she sets out the Labour Government’s tax and spending plans next month.

Ms Reeves will present the first Labour budget since 2009 on October 30, with the Scottish Finance Secretary saying she wanted to see measures that would allow Holyrood to “tackle child poverty and grow our economy”.

Ms Robison said: “We’d like to see new rules around borrowing that support investment in public services.

“We want the UK Government to work hand-in-hand with the devolved administrations to provide the funding to deliver on our priorities.”

With the draft Scottish budget due to be unveiled on December 4, Ms Robison also said she needed “clarity” from the Chancellor about how much she would have to spend in that.

Speaking at Holyrood, she told MSPS: “I will be presenting the Scottish budget on December 4 and I have already told Parliament that this will be a challenging budget.

“However despite it being only 71 days away from our budget I simply don’t know yet how much funding we will have for next year, and I am looking for the Chancellor to give some clarity on October 30.”

Ms Robison, along with the finance ministers from Wales and Northern Ireland, is due to meet the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones ahead ok the UK budget, saying she would be stressing “Scotland’s priorities for the UK budget” to him.

Her comments came as she urged the UK Government to “fully fund” public sector pay awards on a recurring basis, saying here that the more cash the Scottish Government gets from Westminster to help meet the pay bill for workers such as NHS staff and council employees, the less cash she would have to take from the ScotWind fund – which was meant to efforts to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises.

Ms Robison also appealed to the UK Government to use its budget next month to “think again” on plans to means test the winter fuel payment, meaning hundreds of thousands of pensioners will lose out on the cash.

And she said that abolishing the two-child limit on some benefits “should be an easy choice” as she urged Ms Reeves to “consign this dreadful policy to the dustbin”.

However, Scottish Labour economy spokesperson Daniel Johnson branded the Holyrood debate a “political stunt” from the Scottish Government.

He told the Finance Secretary it was “a little bit strange having a debate about the budget five weeks before it is published”, adding that since Labour had won he general election, First Minister John Swinney has met with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, and the Chancellor.

Mr Johnson said: “That might have been the appropriate time, if the budget was so important, to raise it.”

Adding that Tuesday’s Holyrood debate on the UK budget had been tabled by the Scottish Government “at the very last minute”, the Labour MSP added: “Let’s not pretend that this is some serious attempt at discussion.

“Let’s not pretend it was anything other than a political stunt.”