Labour claims that paying for the new Forth crossing could threaten Glasgow's new Southern General Hospital were dismissed as "baseless scaremongering" by the government yesterday.
Labour claims that paying for the new Forth crossing could threaten Glasgow's new Southern General Hospital were dismissed as "baseless scaremongering" by the government yesterday.
Ministers are asking the Treasury to reschedule Scotland's capital allocations during the bridge-building years to prevent the cost impacting on other capital projects such as schools and hospitals.
Labour interpreted this as meaning that without this help from the Treasury, going ahead with the £2bn bridge could mean that the new Southern General would not be built.
An aide to Finance Secretary John Swinney said: "This is typically baseless scaremongering from Labour. The SNP Government is absolutely committed to building the new Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
"We have asked the Treasury to give us the flexibility in our capital budget to provide cover for the building of the new Forth crossing.
"The only cuts the people of Scotland need be concerned about are the threatened Labour cuts from Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, which would see half a billion pounds a year slashed from the Scottish budget - a plan that the SNP Government is determined to see stopped in its tracks."
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said: "John Swinney's threat to cancel plans for schools and hospitals is disgraceful. The Scottish Government's basic competence is now in question.
"Their big idea for funding new capital projects, the Scottish Futures Trust, has been an embarrassing failure.
"In the past 18 months, the SNP have failed to commission a single new school using the SFT. Now they seem to be saying that projects funded by conventional procurement are also under threat."
But Mr Swinney's aide said Mr Gray would do better to support the SNP Government in securing flexibility from the Treasury.
