FINANCE Secretary John Swinney last night urged the Coalition not to press ahead with another round of spending cuts, and focus instead on investing for growth and jobs.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow's Finance Quadrilateral in Belfast, when the finance ministers of the three devolved administrations will meet Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, Swinney said Westminster's "wrong-headed" austerity measures had failed to restart the economy and it was time for a different approach.
As part of the latest spending review, George Osborne is looking to cut another £10 billion in 2015, with Scotland's budget falling by several hundred million as a consequence.
Only 10% of the £10bn has been identified so far by Whitehall departments.
Citing calls by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund for the UK to relax its austerity programme, Swinney said the Chancellor had to stimulate growth and "end the attacks on vulnerable people in Scotland".
He said: "We must not allow Westminster's wrong-headed approach to ruin Scotland's economic recovery or to create further inequality in our society.
"The Chancellor's approach has been criticised by the OECD, IMF and numerous commentators.
"New research shows that Westminster's welfare cuts have driven more people than ever to food banks as families struggle with austerity. This is simply not acceptable in what should be a wealthy and productive society.
"The UK spending review is a prime opportunity for Westminster to realise the error of its ways and follow the international advice that they should be investing in capital projects and investing now."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article