Murray: SNP wrong to suggest Labour knew of financial black hole before election
The Scottish Secretary has said the £22bn black hole announced by the Chancellor does not mean a return to austerity.
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray has said it is “completely wrong” to suggest Labour politicians knew public spending cuts would be needed prior to the election.
Mr Murray echoed Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ claims that a £22 billion black hole in the UK Government’s finances had been “hidden” by the Conservatives.
The Chancellor warned on Monday of future tax rises as she announced a raft of measures to address the overspend.
Labour has since come under fire after a pre-election pledge promised no austerity under the party.
It comes as Scotland’s public finance minister, Ivan McKee, said the Chancellor “absolutely should have known” about the need to make cuts.
The Holyrood minister told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “Labour should have known about this. They’ve either been incompetent in not checking the numbers, which were readily available during the election campaign, or they’ve been very misleading about the process that’s happened here.”
Asked whether the cuts amount to austerity, he said the Chancellor had “been very clear that there will be more cuts coming on top of what’s already happened with the winter fuel payments, which is very concerning, so it’s absolutely austerity and there’s no doubt about that”.
Mr McKee added that the Scottish Government will now have “some difficult decisions to make”, after First Minister John Swinney warned the speech would mean a reduction in the funding allocation Scotland receives.
“During the election campaign Ian Murray said it was ‘mince’ that there was going to be Labour austerity cuts as a consequence of electing a Labour Government, so, when you’ve got him on your programme, maybe get him to eat that ‘mince’, because he’s been absolutely proved wrong.”
Speaking on the radio programme, Mr Murray said it is not the case that the Scottish Government will receive a smaller settlement as a result of the announcement.
Responding to Mr McKee’s claims, he said: “He is completely and utterly wrong. He is comparing apples with pears. This is a £22 billion in-year overspend by the previous government that they hid from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is the independent body which measures these things.
“Ivan McKee has got this completely wrong. It has got nothing to do with the arguments we had during the election campaign.”
Pressed on the promise of no austerity, he said: “There’s no wholesale cuts here.”
Scottish Tory MSP Miles Briggs said it was not the “truth” to say the financial problems had been left by the previous Conservative administration.
He told the programme: “This seems to now be a politicisation of the Office of Budget Responsibility by the Labour Party. I don’t think that’s good for anybody.
“The Labour Party are quite rightly now looking towards what will be their spending plans they didn’t lay out to the public, and in terms of tax increases what that will actually look like for people.
“That was something they weren’t willing to say before the election and this seems like a story just to tell the public before they (announce it).”
