SCOTTISH Secretary Ian Murray has claimed it is “completely wrong” to say that Labour politicians knew public spending cuts would be needed prior to the election.
Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland, Murray echoed Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ claims that a £22 billion black hole in the UK Government’s finances had been “hidden” by the Conservatives.
The Chancellor warned on Monday of future tax rises as she announced a raft of measures to address the overspend., including cuts to infrastructure projects, departmental spending, and the Winter Fuel Payment.
Labour has since come under fire after repeatedly pledging before the General Election that there would be "no austerity" under the party.
Appearing on the BBC on Tuesday, Scottish Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said his government would need to find some £100 million to mitigate cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment, and said Labour's plans were “absolutely austerity, and there's no doubt about that”.
McKee said the Chancellor “absolutely should have known” about the need to make cuts, adding: "They’ve either been incompetent in not checking the numbers, which were readily available during the election campaign, or they’ve been very misleading about the process that’s happened here.”
Scottish Secretary Murray later said it was “completely and utterly wrong” to suggest the scale of the financial problems facing the new Government were known prior to taking office.
Speaking on the radio programme, Murray was challenged on his previous claims that talk of austerity and cuts under Labour was "mince".
He said: “[McKee] is completely and utterly wrong. He is comparing apples with pears. This is a £22bn in-year overspend by the previous government that they hid from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is the independent body which measures these things.
“Ivan McKee has got this completely wrong. It has got nothing to do with the arguments we had during the election campaign.”
Murray further said it is not the case that the Scottish Government will receive a smaller settlement as a result of the announcement.
He suggested that increased public sector pay deals in England could lead to more money for Scotland through the Barnett formula. However, McKee said the pay increases seemed to be coming from existing spending, so would not result in more money for the Holyrood government.
Murray said: "There's no wholesale cuts in this particular issue. If you look at what we've actually done, we've given 5.5%-plus to public sector workers.
"That's not austerity, that's dealing with the pay review bodies that the previous government refused to do."
Richard Hughes, chairman of the OBR, confirmed that it was only made aware of the extent of pressures on departmental budgets after meeting with the Treasury last week.
“The Treasury document also sets out its plans for further managing down these pressures over the remainder of the financial year,” he said.
“If a significant fraction of these pressures is ultimately accommodated through higher DEL (department expenditure limits) spending in 2024-25, this would constitute one of the largest year-ahead overspends against DEL forecasts outside of the pandemic years.”
