CUTS in Scotland are “not related” to cuts made by the UK Government, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has claimed.
Speaking on Monday, the MSP also defended Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to cut back the Winter Fuel Payment, a decision which saw the Scottish Government lose an expected £140-160 million in funding.
As a result, Scottish Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said that “faced with such a deep cut to our funding” the SNP government had been left with “no choice” but to replicate the cut and make the payments means-tested.
Previously, the Winter Fuel Payment had been universal and was worth between £100 and £300 to people of pension age.
Welsh Social Justice Secretary Jane Hutt, a Labour MS, has said the UK Government’s cut risks pushing people into fuel poverty, but Sarwar insisted it was the right move.
The Scottish Labour leader also claimed that cuts seen in Scotland were not linked to any made by his Labour colleagues in the UK Government.
NEW: @ScottishLabour leader @AnasSarwar claims budget cuts happening in Scotland are “not related” to £22billion black hole UK Gov facing. Blames @theSNP “financial mismanagement and incompetence”.@LBCNews | @LBCNewsScot pic.twitter.com/4y5GznoEIX
— Alan Zycinski (@AlanJZycinski) August 26, 2024
An LBC reporter asked Sarwar: “[The SNP] say when Labour makes cuts, they have to do the same. I mean, that's correct, is it not?”
He responded: “Well, it's actually frankly embarrassing for a party that's been in government for 17 years, wants to blame a party that's been in government for around seven weeks. And in that time we are clearing up the mess led by the Tories, a mess that the SNP want to downplay.
“Who would have thought that there's even a stronger defence of the Tories’ economic record than even the Tories themselves would come from the SNP.
“But the cuts that are happening in Scotland are not related to the £22 billion black hole that Rachel Reeves set out in her statement.
“These cuts are happening in Scotland, the freezing of budgets that's happening in Scotland, the cuts that happened, for example to Creative Scotland are all a result of a black hole in the SNP’s finances because of their waste, their financial mismanagement and their incompetence.
“The IFS [Institute for Fiscal Studies] have made that clear. The Fraser of Allander Institute has made that clear, and Audit Scotland has made that clear.”
The IFS had actually warned before the General Election that Labour’s plans for government would force the Scottish Government to make cuts to public services.
Scottish Labour pointed to an article published in December 2023, in which the IFS had said: “Recent years have seen pay increase by more than initially planned – driven by high and persistent inflation, and the Scottish Government’s attempts to avoid industrial action.”
However, the IFS said that the 4% cash-terms increase in the Scottish Government Budget – which is linked to UK Government spending – “would suggest that paying for pay deals of this scale could involve some very tricky decisions on staff numbers and/or non-pay elements of budgets in the coming year”.
Fraser of Allander Institute deputy director João Sousa did previously say that SNP ministers’ “lack of prudent planning” was a factor in cuts to non-essential spending made to fund those pay deals. But he also noted that some of it was “a consequence of the [UK’s] fiscal framework”.
Scottish Labour also pointed to an Audit Scotland report which also looked at the impact of public sector pay deals on the Scottish Government budget. It noted: "Pay costs for NHS, central government, police and fire services, and further education were £13.4 billion in 2021/22. Recent pay deals exceed the Scottish Government’s public sector pay policy. £1.7bn more than initially planned was agreed in pay deals for 2022/23 and 2023/24."
Hitting back at Sarwar, SNP Equalities Minister Kaukab Stewart wrote on social media: “What was it that Wes Streeting said again? ‘All roads lead back to Westminster’, was it?”
Streeting, now the Health Secretary in London, had defended Labour’s record in the Welsh NHS during an appearance on the BBC in May by saying: "Right across the UK every part of the NHS is in crisis and all roads do lead back to Westminster because even though this is devolved, decisions taken in Westminster have an impact on the NHS across the whole country."
Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater also panned Sarwar, writing: "Thousands of older people will struggle to choose between heating and eating this winter because of Labour.
"It was a Labour Chancellor that chose to cut the Winter Fuel Payment. It was a Labour government that chose to continue the Tory attack on devolved funding."
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Sarwar was asked about the cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment brought in by the UK Labour government, which the SNP government said it had been left with “no choice” but to follow.
Asked about the SNP’s attacks on him for failing to argue against the cuts, Sarwar said it was “a petty attack from a petty political party that wants to play petty politics”.
He then argued both that he supported the cut as the Winter Fuel Payment should not be “universal” – but that Chancellor Reeves had not wanted to make the cut but was forced to “because of a £22bn black hole in the UK finances from Tory incompetence and economic carnage”.
He went on: “I have already said I am willing to work with the SNP, I am willing to work with the charities and stakeholders that are rightly concerned about pensioner households who may face hardship this winter to see how we can have a more generous scheme here in Scotland.”
