THE SCOTTISH Government has claimed that the Chancellor has “bypassed devolution” as part of his £30 billion of funding he unveiled yesterday.
Kate Forbes, Scottish Finance Secretary has said the Scottish Government will only receive £21 million of extra funding following Rishi Sunak’s announcement.
But the UK Government has disputed the claim, insisting Scotland will receive £800 million as part of the deal – with economic secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, stressing the funding will have “a significant effect across the Scottish economy”.
In the mini-budget, Mr Sunak announced a series of measures including a VAT cut on food, hotels, pubs, restaurants and attractions from 20 per cent to five per cent from July 15 until January 12, while restaurants will also benefit from a scheme offering people cut-price meals Monday to Wednesday in August.
READ MORE: Sunak to give firms £1000 for each employee returned from furlough
He also outlined plans to help young people into work, along with a £1,000 bonus for company bosses for each worker they bring back from furlough and keep in a job.
Ahead of the financial statement, Ms Forbes teamed up with her Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts to plead with the UK Government to hand over more funding or devolve more borrowing powers in order for all parts of the UK to better respond to the Covid-19 crisis.
But speaking on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Ms Forbes stressed that the £800 million cited by the UK Government includes money from funding announced over the last few weeks.
She said: “An economic crisis of this scale requires an ambitious and a practical response and I think there was an element to welcome, the temporary cut to VAT for example.
"But overall of the £30 billion announced, the Scottish Government will only receive £21 million and that is less than 0.1 per cent.
"So it lacked the funding and the powers to the Scottish Government to allow us to tailor our response to the economic crisis, essentially it bypassed devolution."
READ MORE: Kate Forbes joins forces with Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts in plea for powers
"There was not any new consequential funding of note to the Scottish Government for economic stimulus." But Mr Glen disputed the claims.
He said: "We made a whole range of interventions based on things we know will work to support, create and protect jobs.
"I think the interventions that we have made should have a significant effect across the Scottish economy.
"You have a tourism sector in Scotland that is about one in 20 jobs, I think the VAT cut will have a massive effect in tourism and hospitality and I am glad we have taken a range of different steps that will affect the economy of the United Kingdom in different ways in different places."
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel