THERE is “no austerity underway” under the Labour Government, a UK minister has claimed, as he said the SNP should check the dictionary.
Michael Shanks, a Scottish Labour MP and Energy Minister, insisted that the SNP Government had seen “absolutely no impact on the bottom line” of its budget from his administration’s spending decisions.
Speaking to Holyrood magazine, Shanks was asked about the SNP’s claims that Labour had brought in a new era of austerity.
He said: “I think they need to look up a dictionary for what austerity means.
“They’re very good at talking about where their budget has been cut over the last few years; they’re not very good at recognising where it has increased.
“There is no austerity underway at the moment – we’ve made one significant budget decision around the Winter Fuel Payment which so far has had absolutely no impact on the bottom line of the Scottish Government’s budget.”
He added: “The SNP are flailing around trying to find excuses for the fact they’re having to make incredibly tough decisions largely because of their own mismanagement … For 17 years we’ve been told it’s all Westminster’s fault – the public are absolutely fed up of it.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has reportedly asked UK Government departments to find billions of pounds in cuts, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned of a “painful” budget ahead.
Incidentally, the Oxford English Dictionary defines austerity as: “Restraint in public spending; [specifically] a programme of government measures designed to reduce public spending and conserve resources.”
Elsewhere, Shanks accused the Scottish Government of having “squandered” an offshore wind opportunity presented by ScotWind, the UK energy minister has said.
In an interview with Holyrood magazine, Scottish Labour MP Michael Shanks said Scotland had missed an opportunity that had “enormous potential”.
In June 2022, the leasing of Scotland’s seabed for offshore wind raised £755 million following an auction. However, critics including then-Alba MP former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said it could have raised much more.
The auction, which was overseen by Crown Estate Scotland (CES), had set a cap on price at £100,000 per square kilometre (km2) – a ten-fold increase on the originally planned £10,000 cap. However, similar auctions south of the Border brought in a reported average of £361,000 per km2.
In the interview with the Holyrood magazine, Shanks said the SNP Government were doing “exactly the same” as the UK Government had with oil and gas funds.
The Scottish Labour MP said: “It’s a shame really. ScotWind has got enormous potential, and we really want it to succeed as it’s important for our energy objectives. I think it could have probably achieved more money than it got in the first place.
“But the second part of this is that the SNP challenged UK governments for generations on Scotland’s oil and what the legacy of that was.
“The legacy was that it was funding day-to-day services for 60 years. The [SNP] are now doing exactly the same within years of gaining that ScotWind inheritance.
“It’s a significant amount of money that can’t be found again to plug day-to-day spending. It’s a missed opportunity.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “While some additional ScotWind funding has been provisionally allocated to address financial pressures, we are doing all we can to minimise use of this funding.
“This is necessary because of the incredibly difficult financial situation facing the Scottish Government, which is why we are calling on the UK Government in its autumn Budget to change their fiscal rules and deliver more funding which will allow us to invest in public services and infrastructure.”
