The Scottish Greens do not fear an early election, Lorna Slater has said as she indicated that her party would find it difficult to back John Swinney’s budget.

"The Greens are polling very well at the moment. We have a lot less to lose from a snap election than the SNP do,” she told BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show.

Ivan McKee, the Scottish Government’s Public Finance minister, accused her of playing politics.

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Mr Swinney’s minority government needs the support of at least one other party to get their budget through parliament.

The Greens have backed every SNP budget since 2016, but after the bad-tempered end to the Bute House Agreement and the Scottish Government rolling back on a number of policy commitments, that looks unlikely.

Ms Slater, the co-convenor of the party, said: “I'll be honest, they've cut all the Green stuff that we put in it.

“We worked really hard within government to make sure there was funding for nature restoration, to make sure that we had funding for things like Zero Waste Scotland, all the net zero, transportation, active travel.

The Greens worked really hard to make sure our core priorities were funded, and we had to make difficult decisions for that to be the case.

“The SNP have now rolled back on all of that so it doesn't look like they're they're wanting our votes, so they need to get the votes from another party in the chamber.”

She said it was “hard to imagine who is going to sign up to this budget, because I think the SNP now are in a difficult place.”

Ms Slater said it was “unlikely” that the Greens would back the budget.

“It looks like the SNP have changed direction away from that more progressive, more urgent action on the climate to something to something else. As soon as the Greens are out of the room, the SNP backtrack on everything.”

Asked if she would be comfortable with a snap election being called if the SNP budget failed to pass, she replied: “Well, certainly the Greens are polling very well at the moment. We have a lot less to lose from a snap election than the SNP do.”

Appearing on the programme later, Mr McKee seemed relaxed. “Of course, we'll have conversations. Lorna is going to come and play politics. Of course she has. But the reality is, this government is focused on the First Minister's four missions, growing the economy, providing excellent public services, tackling climate change and the move towards towards net net zero, and tackling child poverty.”

Asked if he was confident at this stage that you will get the budget through, Mr McKee said: “This happens every year. You remember, I'm sure we had the Greens in government for a short period of time, but for most of the last 17 years, this has been an annual process.

“The Scottish Government, the SNP government, works with other parties as a minority government, in most cases and most years, to find common ground.

“And we've managed to get agreements from most of the other parties at various time periods for them to support us.”