Budget to bring 'era of growth' for Scotland - Murray

Next week's Westminster Budget will "herald an era of growth for Scotland", Ian Murray has insisted - with the Scottish Secretary saying SNP ministers at Holyrood must ensure any additional cash they receive from Westminster goes towards frontline services.

He was speaking as Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver what will be the first Budget from a Labour Chancellor since 2009 on Wednesday.

While Reeves has made clear the economic situation left by the previous Conservative UK government will mean difficult choices, she has said her Budget will "start to rebuild our economy".

The Scottish government's Finance Secretary, Shona Robison, told BBC Scotland News that there must be increased investment in public services and infrastructure.

Murray said: "No-one should be in any doubt about the scale of the challenge the Labour government inherited when it comes to the public finances.

"The Tories left us a £22bn black hole, emptying the reserves meant for disasters and emergencies three times over."

Amid speculation the chancellor is to change debt rules to spend billions more, Murray added: "This Budget will herald an era of growth for Scotland, after years of damaging austerity from the Tories, made even worse for Scottish public services by the incompetent SNP."

Holyrood Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced £500m of savings in September, amid what she described as "enormous and growing pressure on the public finances".

But Murray insisted a "chaotic SNP" had been forced into "emergency in-year cuts".

He said: "While Labour cleans up 14 years of Tory mess, the SNP created a mess of their own making, having wasted £5bn over their years in office due to their own buy now, pay later policies.

"For three consecutive years, services have endured emergency in-year cuts from the chaotic SNP.

"Labour will end this short-term, populist politics and fix the foundations for the long-term. There will be no return to austerity.

"The SNP must ensure any additional funding for public services reaches the front line, bringing down waiting lists in the NHS and raising attainment in our schools - it can't be used to plug the gaps. Scots rightly expect results."

Scottish Finance Secretary Shona Robison told BBC Scotland's The Sunday Show that Wednesday's UK government budget had to deliver investment in public services and infrastructure as well as an end to austerity.

She added that this funding would help to grow the economy and would allow investment in net zero commitments.

Robison said she would also use extra funding to tackle poverty, through investing in affordable housing.

Public services also required more funding in order to be sustained, she added, noting that there were council workers' pay deals to fund too.

Robison also said she had written to the chancellor regarding her concerns about the speculated increase in National Insurance contributions for employers.

Rachel Reeves is expected to announce the rise in her first budget, which she says will ensure working people in Britain are better off.

Robison said: "We value the people that work in our public services very much.

"We need to make sure, in that regard, that the NI employers contribution increase is fully met for Scotland, with our higher level of public services and indeed our higher levels of pay."

Scottish Conservative shadow finance secretary Craig Hoy said Murray's desperate efforts to rewrite history "are fooling no one".

He added: "Labour were warned repeatedly during the election campaign that their sums didn't add up, yet now they are trying to pass the buck for their own policy decisions.

"It was Rachel Reeves who chose to ditch universal winter fuel payments for pensioners at the same time as caving into Labour's union paymasters and agreeing double-digit public sector pay rises.

"Hard-working Scots already pay more in tax than those in the rest of the UK, so the last thing they need is a further hammering from Labour in Wednesday's budget."