Deputy FM Responds to Chancellor’s Statement
The SNP has accused the UK government of “cutting public services to the bone“, after the Chancellor ushered in another decade of austerity cuts at the UK budget.
The Spring Budget provided less in Barnett consequentials from health than in-year health consequentials of 2023-24, and failed to deliver more capital funding for infrastructure.
Deputy First Minister and Finance Secretary Shona Robison described the Budget as having failed to deliver the funding Scotland needs for public services, infrastructure and cost of living measures.
On energy, it has been widely reported that even the Scottish Conservatives are furious at Westminster’s plans to tax Scotland’s natural resources as a means to fund tax cuts in England.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has said the Tories are “slashing money for public services to fund a further tax cut that will put money in the pockets of high earners… paid for, in part, by a raid on the North East“. He accused the Chancellor of abandoning struggling families.
In contrast, earlier this week the Scottish Parliament passed the 2024/25 SNP budget – delivering on funding the Scottish Government’s key missions of equality, opportunity, and community. Key measures in the Scottish Budget include:
- Supporting household budgets by fully funding a council tax freeze
- Funding free school meals, free childcare and wiping out school meal debt
- Uprating Social Security Scotland payments by 6.7% – including increasing the Scottish Child Payment to £26.70 a week
- 5 billion for NHS recover, Health and social care – giving our NHS a terms uplift in the face of UK government austerity
- A 5.6% increase to Police Scotland’s day to day budget
- Over £66 million to anchor a new offshore wind supply chain
- £12 hourly wage for Nursery and Social Care staff
- Funding to start the next phase of duelling the A9
The SNP has set out actions the Chancellor could take at the UK level to tackle the cost of living crisis – including the reintroduction of Mortgage Interest relief and the £400 energy bill rebate, the scrapping of energy bill standing charges and the capping of supermarket prices.
This Spring Budget from the Chancellor will see Tory tax breaks benefit the richest most, while the cost of rising bills, rents and mortgages wipes out any benefit for ordinary struggling families.
GRAEME
Scotland’s budget has already been slashed, and the renewed austerity of this budget will only worsen matters as services are cut to the bone and Scotland misses out on the green energy gold rush – threatening up to 100,000 jobs in our energy sector.
Despite Westminster’s economic negligence and attack on public service funding, the SNP has prioritised protecting household budgets and our NHS in the face of unprecedented financial pressure while also backing business to grow our economy sustainably.
But Scotland is held back by Westminster’s wrongheaded policymaking and lack of ambition – we endure a broken economic model and a recklessly hard Brexit, both of which Labour also back and which only the SNP will stand up to.
Today’s UK Spring Budget is nothing short of a betrayal of public services across the UK. Our hope had been the Chancellor would have eased pressures on services – not least by providing more funding for capital. This would have helped support our NHS and the delivery of more affordable housing, but it would also have created jobs and economic growth, as well as helping secure a just transition to net zero.
DEPUTY FIRST MINISTER & FINANCE SECRETARY, SHONA ROBISON
When more support is desperately needed for public services and infrastructure, for greater cost of living measures, and for money to aid our efforts to reduce carbon emissions – Scotland has been badly let down by the UK Government.
Today’s statement provides not a single penny more for capital funding. And the Barnett consequentials from health that were signalled by the Chancellor are actually less than the in-year health consequentials of 2023-24 and less than what is needed to address the pressures we face. I can guarantee that this Scottish Government will not be passing on this UK Government cut to our NHS.
The National Insurance cut fails to offset the crippling effects of the Cost of Living crisis. There is also little detail of the spending cuts needed to pay for it. Even before today’s Spring Budget the Institute for Government described its spending plans as a ‘fantasy’, with no detail on where cuts will fall. Today’s statement merely adds to that: according to the UK Government’s own financial watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury may not even have the headroom available that today’s commitments are based on.
Public services up and down the UK are in real need of investment, and they’re being sacrificed to deliver unsustainable tax cuts.
Background
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the Spring Budget highlights the risks to the forecasts, such as uncertainty around inflation, interest rates and productivity growth. The OBR also points out that the forecasts are based on the UK Government’s assumption of no real growth in public spending per person over the next five years, despite the Chancellor committing to increase spending on some major public services in line with or faster than GDP.
