The next Scottish Parliament must demand a “more ambitious and flexible settlement” with Westminster, Holyrood’s outgoing Finance Secretary has said.
Shona Robison, who is stepping down as an MSP at May’s elections, used the debate on the Scottish Government Budget to urge whoever succeeds her in the job to be “bold and ambitious”.
As part of that she said there needs to be changes to the fiscal framework, which governs financial relations between Holyrood and Westminster.
These were reviewed in 2023 and while Ms Robison said “meaningful progress” was made then, she added: “I have always been clear it cannot be the end of the journey.
“With a further review now beginning, the next Parliament will have the opportunity and responsibility to argue for a more ambitious and flexible settlement.”
She made the call as she insisted the current arrangements mean that “many critical levers still sit with Westminster”.
Ms Robison said the situation with funding growth for Scotland “set to slow significantly in the years ahead” showed how Holyrood “remains heavily dependent on UK Government decisions”.
She insisted it had been an “honour and a privilege” to serve at Holyrood for 27 years, saying while she had held a number or ministerial roles, serving as both health secretary, social justice secretary and deputy first minister over the years, being Finance Secretary had been the “most rewarding by far”.
She said this was “because it is where the tools sit to enable delivery, to drive real change and to support real transformation across government and society as a whole”.
She said the Budget, which was passed by 66 votes to 29, with 24 abstentions, would “continue to protect the majority of tax payers” in Scotland while also “supporting the investment needed in our public services”.
The Scottish Government is “maintaining our commitment to shield those on lower incomes with more than half of taxpayers expected to pay less than they would elsewhere in the UK”, she stated.
Meanwhile, she said SNP ministers had “continued to protect the core elements of the social contract that the people of Scotland rely on every day”.
“We’ve kept prescriptions free, we’ve maintained free tuition, we have continued to expand free school meals, we have protected free bus travel for under-22s and over-60s, and we have provided free baby boxes to give every child the best start in life.”
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: “This dreadful Budget will do nothing to tackle the doom loop of ever higher taxes Scots will be forced to pay to fund the SNP’s bloated benefits bill.”
With the Tories voting against the Budget at Holyrood, Mr Hoy criticised the Finance Secretary for “dragging more and more people into paying a higher tax rate”, with thresholds frozen on the higher rates of income tax.
“By the end of this decade the SNP’s financial mismanagement means a staggering 30% of Scots will be paying the higher rate or more,” he stated.
“The nationalists’ high tax and high welfare spending approach is simply unsustainable and means more tax rises or swingeing cuts to public services – or a lethal combination of them both – are on the way.”
Labour abstained in the Budget vote, with finance spokesman Michael Marra hitting out at the “knackered SNP Government” for the “harm that they have wrought on Scotland’s public services and Scotland’s finances”.
He said: “This Budget contains none of the transformative change that Scotland needs after two decades of the SNP.”
Adding that “this Budget of half measures will not last the year”, he predicted there would be an emergency budget from the new government after May’s Scottish election.
