John Swinney's 'baloney' claim over the SNP and Labour blame

John Swinney has insisted Labour’s claims they didn’t know the state of the finances until they picked up the keys to No.10 is “baloney” as he claimed the funding crisis facing his government is not the fault of the SNP.

The First Minister was speaking to journalists ahead of giving his first keynote speech as leader to the SNP conference in Edinburgh.

Mr Swinney ramped up his attack on the Labour UK government over the state of the Scottish Government’s budget - with vast cuts and delays to funding expected to be announced on Tuesday.

EFirst Minister John Swinney talks with Stephen Flynn, leader of the SNP Westminster group, before he addresses delegates on day two of the SNP conference at Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

But the First Minister was adamant the Scottish Government has “lived within our means”, adding that “the SNP’s properly managed the public finances and balanced the books since 2007”.

Mr Swinney bluntly admitted that “we face an acute financial challenge”.

The FM said his government’s choices that will be set out “will be consistent with” his priorities of ending child poverty, strenthening the economy, tackling climate change and improving public services.

He added: “Although money is very, very tight, we’ve got to use the resources available to us as effectively as we possibly can.”

First Minister John Swinney. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Asked whether any concrete steps to tackle child poverty that the FM can take ownership of, he said that “there will be John Swinney approaches to tackling child poverty” set out in the programme for government.

Turning to Labour, Mr Swinney said Westminster was largely to blame for the tight restrictions placed on budgets.

He denied the situation was “an SNP crisis” and said: “We’ve lived within our means every single year and we’ll live within our means this year.

“But there’s going to have to be some tough choices on the journey to do that.”

Mr Swinney said that he warned Labour was headed into more austerity, and suggested the UK government was being disingenuous with the stark economic picture coming as a surprise.

He said: “The government that proposed ‘change’ is continuing the same fiscal approach as the Conservative government, which I think is, frankly, the last thing that Scotland requires.

“I warned about all of this during the election campaign.

“All of the Labour stuff that this is all a terrible surprise and nobody knew is complete baloney - it was all mapped out for them during the election campaign.

“I was in the door (of Bute House) an hour and i could see how difficult it was.”

Responding to claims by Labour that the SNP’s spending has spiraled out of control and money was being wasted, Mr Swinney said that in all his time in Holyrood, Labour has “pressed me to spend more on this, more on that, more on transport”.

It comes as Anas Sarwar admitted there is a “long hard road” ahead for Labour to deliver the positivity of the party’s election promises but doesn’t think the gloomy financial picture will ruin his chances for Holyrood in 2026.

The Scottish Labour leader was speaking after he launched an attack earlier this week on the SNP for pointing the finger at his party for the SNP government’s budget deficit this year that has led to controversial cuts to arts and nature funding and the reinstatement of peak rail fares.

A cut to winter fuel payments by Ms Reeves has impacted Scotland, with the SNP replicating the move.

But Labour has come under fire for its dire economic scene-setter - amid criticism the party is continuing austerity from the Conservatives.

Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, Mr Sarwar rejected the claim, insisting Labour is “going to take a serious grown-up approach” to the economy and reject the “sticking plaster approach” he accused both the SNP and Tories of pursuing.

The Glasgow MSP has stressed his strategy for taking Labour into victory in the 2026 Holyrood election is a focus on the economy.

He said: “One of the biggest gaps we've had in public policy here in Scotland is that we have rightly had a huge focus on social policy, but we have not had an equal focus on economic policy.

“Scotland's budget is now directly linked to our growth here in Scotland and also, through the fiscal framework, the size of us on the medium wages - both of which the SNP has failed to properly plan for.”

Labour has stressed that by growing the number of people in the medium wage base, the benefits to the economy will grow exponentially.

Mr Sarwar added: “We are going to put economic policy and economic growth front and centre - that increases the size of the cake rather than the cake shrinking year after year and the slices getting thinner and thinner.

“We are a country now that is bureaucracy-heavy, we have lots of layers of management where there are talking shops, where there are discussions - when instead, that money can be spent on frontline services and frontline staff.”

Asked if Labour's Westminster record will put people off voting for him in 2026, Mr Sarwar rejected the notion.

He said: “I think what people will appreciate is the huge sigh of relief we've got at getting rid of a Tory government, secondly, that we've ended the economic incompetence and carnage across the UK and that we finally have a serious grown-up government that is going to get on and fix the fundamental talk of stabilising our economy - growing our economy.

“That is not going to be an easy process and we have never pretended it was. We are not going to be able to fix every problem straight away.”

Mr Sarwar added: “There’s no magic wand, nothing is fixed overnight.

“This is a long, hard road but we only start that journey for change if we elect a Labour government and that journey has already begun.”