NICOLA Sturgeon hs confirmed the four nations summit on coronavirus has produced "nothing substantial yet" following the session this afternoon.
Speaking to the BBC, the First Minister said the meeting with the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland had been "frank" but positive.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said he agreed broadly with Ms Sturgeon's assessment, despite her criticism of the UK Government's attempt at a "power grab".
Ms Sturgeon said: "Both I and indeed the First Minister of Wales made clear that if we are to have good faith discussions about working together where we can then that's not helped by the power grab and the UK Government trying to muscle in on devolved spending."
She added the test of whether the meetings were going to be successful would be "whether it changes any of the decisions of the UK Government that impact on the devolved nations" explaining: "Scottish Government's put forward some very specific suggestions around the extension of furlough, the need for there to be stability and certainty in public spending, for example, the importance of a green recovery, and a number of other things.
I made clear if these summits are going to be worthwhile then we really need to see...not any of us getting everything we asked for, but real progress around these issues."
Mr Jack said nothing had been ruled out when asked about whether the furlough scheme could be extended after September.
The Scottish Secretary said: "What we've said is we have an open mind, as we've had in the past where we've extended it.
"We have an open mind as to the situation we find ourselves in now.
"Who knows where we'll be at the end of September. I hope we will have opened up all of our businesses across the UK, and will be in a much better place, but if a variant comes and gets round the vaccine it effectively puts us back to square one."
He said the meeting had been "very constructive" and confirmed there would be more taking place.
In support of the union, Mr Jack said the sessions were about how "we can learn from what's happened and how we can work better together, acknowledging that although there are a devolved administrations there are also two governments in those devolved administrations and it's incredibly important that we work constructively together to improve the livelihoods of people."
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