Scottish Budget: Don't be fooled, SNP's spending spree was only possible because of Labour

There was much for many to applaud. Indeed, after questions from opposition politicians, Robison responded several times by saying “I welcome the welcome” for various different measures.

However, as appears increasingly usual with such announcements, this was less a Budget and more a long shopping list of eye-watering spending commitments. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton praised Robison for including several of his party’s demands, but cautioned that, as always, “the devil is in the detail”. Barring an upset, it sounded like the minority SNP government may have done enough to win his party’s support for the Budget Bill to pass.

Robison’s jingling pockets

In addition to an extra £2 billion for the NHS, there was a total of £4.9bn for action on the climate and nature crises; more than £1bn in additional cash for local authorities, taking the total to over £15bn; a pledge to ‘mitigate’ the two-child benefit cap; 40 per cent business rates relief for some hospitality businesses, with 100 per cent relief in the islands; £768 million for affordable homes; funding for universal winter fuel payments for older Scots; and an extra £34m for culture.

So, who was responsible for all this largesse with taxpayers’ money? According to Robison, it was certainly not Labour with her opening remarks essentially dismissing as peanuts the extra £4.9bn that the Scottish Government will receive this year and next as a direct result of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget.

However, she later rather undercut this by trumpeting the fact that Scottish taxes in 2025/26 were now expected to bring in £777m more than previously forecast. As Finance Secretary, she really should have no trouble identifying which number is bigger.

The reason why Robison’s pockets are jingling with so much cash is the presence of a Labour government in Westminster, rather than anything good that her government has done. The real question for the SNP is how well they will use all this money.

‘Pay more and get less’

Craig Hoy, responding for the Conservatives, welcomed the extra NHS spending, but quite rightly pointed out that the accompanying commitment to restrict in and out-patient waiting lists to 12 months was a “scandal”, not something to boast about.

And he pointed out that Scotland still has the highest taxes in the UK – those on lower incomes who pay less save very little – while warning that the total cost of state benefits was “out of control”. “We are paying a heavy price for SNP waste,” he said, adding: “People in Scotland will pay more and get less.”

However, perhaps as a consequence of being a member of a minority government and therefore forced to listen to other parties, Robison has correctly identified the main priorities for extra spending and produced what appears, on first appraisal, to be a better Budget than those when it commanded majority support at Holyrood. No mention of a foolhardy council tax freeze here.

That said, her challenge to Labour in particular to back the Budget was laden with party politics. If Labour and the other parties vote against it, effectively forcing a snap election, the SNP would try to use the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel payments for pensioners, and extra NHS funding to attack Anas Sarwar and co.

Robison has astutely laid a trap – but, make no mistake, it was, with much irony, largely bought and paid for with taxpayers’ money sent from Westminster.