Anas Sarwar has accused Nicola Sturgeon's government of "hiding pots of money" as he urged to the First Minister to do more to deal with the cost of living crisis.
The Scottish Labour leader today set out his plan to help struggling families get through the current crisis which involves freezing rent, cancelling school meal debt, ending evictions during the winter months, halving rail fares across the country and curbing bus costs.
Sarwar said the SNP/Green government was sitting on a £241 million reserve that could be used to help families struggling to get by this winter.
Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland (GMS), he said: "They have been hiding money, it has been happening every year. We see it happen a bunch of times when the Scottish Government sets a budget.
"They say that there is no more money to spend, and therefore any other suggestions has to come from cuts. Then they manage to pull money out of a hat in order to do a deal with the Greens to get their budget through.
"They've done it every single year for as long as I can remember. Let's stop that tactic of hiding pots of money.
"Let's instead open up the books and get directly to see transparency and let's make sure we're using every penny to support people across the country.
"If they do that, they'll have our support."
Responding to Sarwar's £241 million claim, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise Ivan McKee told GMS that there needs to be money in reserve so the government doesn't "run out"
He added: "For someone that was in business Anas Sarwar is not understanding the numbers very well.
"The Scottish budget is a budget that is running on tens of billions of pounds. So clearly there needs to be money there so we don't run out of money at any particular time.
"So of course there is money there. That number moves around as we go through the year and spend money on different aspects."
McKee was asked by host Gary Robertson what the current figure is at the moment, however he was unable to say.
He added: "That's the whole point of the emergency budget to have a look and see exactly what the position is at the moment because that's obviously moving as we move through the financial year."
