SNP’s Scottish Budget is a lost opportunity - Ian Murray

First Minister John Swinney looks on as Finance Secretary Shona Robison presents the Scottish Government's Budget. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesFirst Minister John Swinney looks on as Finance Secretary Shona Robison presents the Scottish Government's Budget. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
First Minister John Swinney looks on as Finance Secretary Shona Robison presents the Scottish Government's Budget. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Last year 1172 people lost their lives to drugs misuse. 111 of them were here in the City of Edinburgh. Last week the SNP Government proposed cutting funding for alcohol and drug treatments and mental health services.

The UK Budget unveiled by Rachel Reeves at the end of October, which SNP MPs at Westminster voted against twice, provided an extra £4.9 billion for SNP government to spend on our public services in this financial year and the next.

It was the largest budget settlement in the history of devolution, and showed the enormous value of having Scottish MPs on the government benches rather than languishing in opposition. We fought hard for those resources for Scotland.

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Their budget last week was an opportunity to reform, to be bold, to do things differently. An opportunity to use the powers of devolution combined with the windfall provided by the Labour Government to make real change.

But the SNP squandered it. Instead of investing in the foundations of our economy, they chose to neglect them, cutting funding for growth agencies - Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. How is this going to turn around a decade of low growth and productivity?

Talk of growth and productivity might seem technical, but it affects everything from living standards to money for our public services. It has real consequences and is about real jobs.

This is not a budget for the future, but instead an attempt to fix the mistakes the SNP has made in the past. It was a hugely political budget about the 2026 elections rather than putting Scotland first.

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For years, the SNP have mismanaged the Scottish Budget and wasted taxpayers’ money, leaving a growing black hole in the public finances.

Audit Scotland, the Fraser of Allander Institute and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have all previously criticised the SNP for its failure to respond to the pressures on Scotland’s public finances - with this budget the SNP has done precisely nothing to fix the mess they have made.

There was an announcement around the two-child cap but as they spin this as lifting the cap, in reality they are only committing to funding a feasibility study. We will engage with the Scottish Government in good faith on this in the hope that they aren’t using poorer families as a political pawn. In reality they allocated no money to this.

Additional money for the health and social care budget is very welcome but even here, the SNP’s ambitions are still shockingly low, with their target seeming to be that by March 2026 patients will only have to wait a year for treatment. I don’t think that will provide much comfort to the 1 in 6 Scots on a waiting list. My constituency team and I speak to such people week-in week-out. They deserve better.

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Meanwhile, the housing funding outlined is still lower than it was two years ago, as Scotland remains in the grip of a housing emergency.

At a time when Scotland’s public services are struggling and people are feeling the squeeze on living standards, the SNP were handed the largest budget settlement in the history of devolution by the UK Labour Government to turn things around.

This budget provides no vision for Scotland. Scotland needs a new direction at Holyrood.

Ian Murray MP is Secretary of State for Scotland

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