The UK Spending Review fails to deliver for Scotland, Finance
Secretary has said.
Spending levels for public services will fail to offset the
impact of proposed cuts to welfare support and the rise in
National Insurance contributions, the Finance Secretary warned in
response to the Chancellor's statement.
said:
“This Spending Review is business as usual from the UK
Government, which is yet again treating Scotland as an
afterthought and failing to provide us with the funding we need.
“Today's settlement for Scotland is particularly disappointing,
with real terms growth of 0.8% a year for our overall Block
Grant, which is lower than the average for UK Departments. Had
our resource funding for day-to-day priorities grown in line with
the UK Government's overall spending, we would have £1.1 billion
more to spend on our priorities over the next three years. In
effect, Scotland has been short-changed by more than a billion
pounds.
“This all comes on top of the UK Government's failure to fully
fund their employer National Insurance increase, depriving us of
hundreds of millions of pounds in funding, and their proposed
cuts in support for disabled people that will push 250,000 people
into poverty, including 50,000 children.
“It is also disappointing that despite apparent briefing to media
in advance, we are still awaiting clarity on funding for the
vital Acorn project in the North East of Scotland.
“We made extensive representations to the UK Government on our
priorities for the Spending Review, including calls for an end to
spending that bypasses devolution, but there has been limited
opportunity to engage with them. It appears that the continuation
of local growth funding – which fails to match the European
Structural Funds it was supposed to replace – will come directly
from Whitehall, yet again bypassing devolved governments.
“We will now take the time to digest the detail of this statement
and will set out our formal response on 25 June as part of the
Medium Term Financial Strategy.”
