Photo by HM Treasury

Budget battle lines drawn

Labour demands cash injection in Scottish policing, but SNP dismisses ‘disappointing’ budget

By Alan Roden

Budget battle lines drawn

Labour demands cash injection in Scottish policing, but SNP dismisses ‘disappointing’ budget

Photo by HM Treasury

By Alan Roden

Rachel Reeves’ budget has sparked calls for extra cash to tackle the crisis in Scotland’s policing and justice systems.

Following the unveiling of the Chancellor’s spending plans, the Scottish Government will receive an extra £820 million, according to the Treasury.

Reeves’ Scottish Labour colleagues said some of this money must be used to “back hardworking Police Scotland officers and staff”.

But SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison has described the extra funding as a “small amount” in the context of a £60 billion annual budget.

The Holyrood administration has also claimed the extra money “won’t even cover half the shortfall” from the cost of the Chancellor’s hike on employer national insurance which was announced last year.

Robison will unveil her own spending plans in early January.

Chief Constable Jo Farrell has already appealed for “urgent support”, with a request for an extra £138.6 million in 2026/27 to strengthen the front line.

This would provide funding for 850 officers and 348 staff.

And the Scottish Police Federation has said policing in Scotland is “unsustainable” and there is a public safety risk unless the Scottish Government’s budget “marks a turning point”.

“There can be no excuses for the SNP”

 Scottish Labour MSP Pauline McNeill

For the current financial year, the SNP administration provided an increase of £90 million for policing, taking the total spend to a record £1.64 billion.

But Scottish Labour justice spokesperson Pauline McNeill told 1919: “The UK Government has backed Scotland’s public services with an extra £820 million for the Scottish Government – on top of the extra £9.1 billion already committed at the spending review.

“The Chancellor has made the fair and necessary choices to deliver on our promise of change. She has been clear that she will not return Britain back to austerity, nor lose control of public spending with reckless borrowing.

“Scottish Labour has been clear that we would restore community policing and get police back on Scotland’s streets, freeing up 360 officers to return to the front line by cutting thousands of wasted hours in A&E departments and in our courts.

“With more than £10.3 billion additional funding handed to the Scottish Government since Labour came to power at Westminster last year, there can be no excuses for the SNP.

“They must use this money to tackle the crisis in our justice system, back hardworking Police Scotland officers and staff, and bolster public safety across the country.”

Measures contained in Reeves’ budget include the abolition of police and crime commissioners – roles which do not exist in Scotland – and reducing councillor numbers by around 5,000, saving over £250 million over five years.

“It is a disappointing budget”

SNP Justice Secretary Angela Constance

The UK Government claims it is also “clamping down on consultancy in the Home Office, with funding repurposed for frontline police”, and has funded the provision of 3,000 more neighbourhood and community support officers in England who will be in place by the end of March 2026.

But Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the UK budget was “disappointing”.

“Scotland needed a step change from the UK Government with investment in public services and instead we got a chaotic mess,” she said.

“We have continually urged the UK Government to fully fund the £400 million shortfall in additional costs of employer national insurance contributions they imposed on Scotland’s public services, including our justice services. They didn’t do in this financial year and won’t in the next.

“This increase in funding for Scotland’s budget won’t even cover half the shortfall from the cost of the UK Government’s hike on employer national insurance.

“This year we will invest £4.2 billion across the justice system and we will continue to work with partners across the justice system to understand their 2026/27 budget requirements.”

Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives want the SNP to cut income tax.

Leader Russell Findlay said: “Instead of raising the benefits bill, we believe Scottish taxpayers deserve to keep more of their own hard-earned money.

“They deserve fairness. They deserve a break from higher bills.”

Relief after the chaos

By Magnus Gardham 
Former Scotland Office special adviser

Got there in the end. That, at least, was the snap verdict of the Chancellor’s backbench colleagues, who waved their order papers wildly at the end of her 65-minute budget speech.

They have endured a miserable few weeks as downbeat briefings, followed by clumsy un-briefings, sparked fears of a political disaster for Labour and dented confidence in the government.

And the drama didn’t end on budget day, with claims that Rachel Reeves misled the public followed by this month’s resignation of the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

“The most chaotic lead up to a budget in living memory,” taunted Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the Commons as she highlighted the pre-budget blunder that led to this resignation – the early publication of the OBR assessment.

When the spending plans were finally announced – as we knew to expect – Reeves avoided the poisonous step of increasing the basic rate of income tax in clear breach of Labour’s manifesto.

Instead, she revealed a plethora of smaller taxes that Labour can argue will hit those who can afford to pay more. And, of course, a freezing of thresholds until 2031 which will bring more people into tax and into higher rates.

Those rates do not apply in Scotland where income tax thresholds are devolved to Holyrood.

“The Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card”

But the Chancellor’s move goes a long way to explaining the genuinely positive reaction from Labour MSPs. They had faced the unhappy prospect of explaining complex intergovernmental fiscal rules – and why they would cost the Scottish Government £1 billion – had Reeves raised the basic rate by 2p.

With the Holyrood election looming ever larger, the Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card.

The two-child benefit cap was popular with the public, but appalled Labour.

By axeing it, in what was easily the most heartfelt section of her speech, Reeves delighted her own side but also removed a potentially devastating dividing line between Labour and the SNP.

SNP ministers were committed to mitigating the impact of the cap, starting just weeks before the election, and were preparing to hammer Labour – sorry, make that “callous Labour” – for the £155 million it would have cost them next year.

The Scottish Government will now save that cash and have an extra £820 million to spend, to the end of the spending review period in 2028, through the Barnett formula.

Reeves tried to credit Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar with the windfall. “Because he asked us to,” she told the Commons.

That is not really how the Barnett formula works and the sum, reflecting UK spending, was a lot less than last year’s bumper £3.4 billion transfer.

It will not stop SNP claims of austerity in the run up to next May but then, nothing would.

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