Meeting of the Parliament 10 September 2025
Over the past 14 months, the UK Labour Government has decisively ended austerity and has already invested an additional £5.2 billion in Scotland. The UK spending review in June saw a further £9.1 billion of investment in Scotland over a three-year period.
That funding can be transformational for public services, which have been decimated by, yes, 14 years of Tory austerity, but also 18 years of SNP incompetence. The current fiscal arrangement—the Barnett formula and the pooling and sharing of resources across these islands—means that spending per person is significantly higher in Scotland than in England. The Scottish Government’s own GERS figures for 2024-25 show that spending per head in Scotland is more than £2,600 higher than the UK average.
For years, the SNP claimed that Tory austerity was the reason why public services in Scotland were so bad. It no longer has that excuse, yet more people in Tayside than in the whole of England are spending more than two years on NHS waiting lists. Scottish 15-year-olds are a full year behind their English counterparts in maths, and more than 10,000 Scottish children are living in temporary accommodation. Capital projects such as the A9 and the replacement of Barlinnie are running years—even decades—late, and costs are spiralling wildly out of control.
The largest block grant in the history of devolution has not even touched the sides of SNP incompetence and waste. No reasonable, responsible Government would put the Barnett formula at risk—that is absolutely clear—yet scrapping the Barnett formula is official SNP policy. Shona Robison told the Scottish Affairs Committee on 16 January 2025 that full fiscal autonomy was the Scottish Government’s preferred position. This very morning, the cabinet secretary told a tax conference here in Edinburgh that the SNP is “negotiating on that”.
Those words should send a shiver down the spine of every Scot. The SNP’s war on the Barnett formula would wipe £14 billion from Scotland’s annual budget. That is a quarter of our total budget, as set out in the GERS figures from the Scottish Government. Professor Mairi Spowage from the Fraser of Allander Institute said at that conference that, if we did that, Scotland would get a lot less funding. I would love to hear from Government ministers today how they think the negotiations to get rid of the Barnett formula for Scotland are going and what that level of cuts would mean for Scotland’s public services.
The approach has been panned by people who, unlike ministers, are looking at the facts. Respected institutions such as the IFS point out that drastic spending cuts and vast tax rises would be needed to balance the books were the SNP to have its way.
The SNP must recognise and learn that, as a responsible Government that works with the UK Government in a new kind of relationship, it has to take responsibility for Scotland, as a legitimate interlocutor with the UK Government. There must be an honest set of negotiations, but that has not been the case so far, with the Scottish Government having made £135 billion of spending demands since the UK Labour Government took over.
The SNP would know all that if it had bothered to do its homework first. The finance secretary admitted that no detailed work has been undertaken on full fiscal autonomy, and the Scottish Fiscal Commission told the Finance and Public Administration Committee that it has had “no instructions” on it from the Government, despite full fiscal autonomy being Government policy.
The truth is that that is a very serious misstep from a knackered SNP Government that has failed to deliver on the issues that really matter: Scotland’s NHS, schools and housing. Scotland has long suffered at the hands of the economically illiterate and fiscally inept SNP. A Scottish Labour Government will work in partnership—proper partnership—with the UK Government to translate the record investment into delivery on the ground. We will get the basics right, defend the Barnett formula, get Scotland’s NHS back on its feet and set the new direction that this country so badly needs.
I move amendment S6M-18779.2, to leave out from “notes” to end and insert:
“recognises that, as a result of the Barnett formula, spending per head of population is higher in Scotland and that full fiscal autonomy would end this arrangement.”
15:11Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.