A LABOUR minister has accused a Scottish newspaper of having “made up” a claim that Keir Starmer would set aside a £150 million “war chest” to help tackle poverty in Scotland.
In a tense interview with Scottish Secretary Ian Murray, BBC Sunday Show host Martin Geissler challenged the Labour MP over the decision to axe winter energy payments for pensioners.
He raised a Sunday Mail story from after the election which said that Murray would gain access to £150m of diverted money to bypass Holyrood to fund anti-poverty schemes.
Murray (below) was previously quoted in a separate story which mentioned the £150m figure, as saying: “This funding will help create jobs across the country and unlock opportunities across Scotland, especially in deprived communities who have been let down by the Tories and the SNP for too long.”
But now he has claimed the story was a fabrication.
He said: “You’ve been given £150 million by the UK Government to fight poverty in Scotland, a specific war chest of £150m, that co-incidentally is how much this policy is going to cost in Scotland.
“I presume, feel free to tell me you are going to do this, I presume you are not going to use that whole £150m to offset all of that policy. But are you going to use some of that £150m to help the pensioners who are going to be pushed into poverty because of this?”
Murray replied that the “key” priority for the Scotland Office was tackling poverty, but added: “I don’t have a £150m war chest, that was a front page newspaper article that everyone seems to have run with, it was a journalist that made up that figure, not me.”
He added: “I don’t have a £150m war chest, that was a front page headline from a journalist who made that figure up.”
Murray later accepted the figure was not "made up" but had been based on a calculation on the funds which would be available to him if Levelling Up funds were repurposed by the Scotland Office.
Geissler (above) tried to change topic by asking about Labour’s previous criticisms of the SNP for implementing cuts in Holyrood but an agitated Murray interjected after the BBC host said: “So it doesn’t sound like you’re going to do anything as the Scotland Office to specifically offset this policy for people in Scotland.”
Murray then accused the BBC of making up the figure, which had originated in the Daily Record, saying: “Well, I can’t do anything with Martin with a figure you pluck out of the air that’s not true, so that’s the answer to that question.
"I’m not accepting that you’re just flippantly saying that I’m not going to do anything. I don’t have a £150m that you’ve made up”
SNP Treasury spokesperson Dave Doogan MP asked why Murray did not correct the newspaper which reported the £150 million figure before the country went to the polls.
He said: “Of course the Labour Government shouldn’t be riding roughshod over devolution, but the fact remains, they knowingly allowed people in Scotland to be told that Labour would invest £150 million which they are now washing their hands of.
“It’s no wonder the Labour Party is collapsing in the polls when you can’t believe a word they say."
Scottish Tory chair Craig Hoy added: "This was a desperate attempt to rewrite history by Ian Murray to explain away the calamitous start made by Keir Starmer’s Labour Government.
“The public can see that Labour are lying about the state of the economy they inherited to justify their shameful decision to abolish universal winter fuel payments.”
A spokesperson for Murray said: "The Scotland Office hasn’t been allocated any money to spend directly in Scotland, it is not yet a spending department. That requires a fiscal event like a budget which would require legislative change.
“The previously reported £150m figure was based on a calculation of levelling up fund spending in Scotland.
“Since the election we have discovered a £22 billion in year black hole in public spending.
“Labour’s manifesto committed to restoring decision making over these funds to representatives of the devolved nations and Ian [Murray] wants the Scotland Office to work directly with the Scottish Government and local councils in Scotland to drive economic growth in our communities.”
A spokesperson for Reach, the publisher of the Sunday Mail, said: "No figures have been made up by our journalists in Scotland.”
