Kate Forbes defends 'formally unallocated' Covid budget millions

Scotland’s finance minister Kate Forbes has said £537 million from the UK Government that has not yet been allocated to dealing with the fallout of the Covid pandemic was “fully committed”, though could not state where the money would be spent.

Scottish Labour's Jackie Baillie demanded the Scottish Government spend an unallocated £500m.

She told MSPs the funding would be listed in the Scottish Government’s spring budget revisions in February next year, but that transport subsidies and self-isolation payments were examples of where it would be spent.

Ms Forbes, who made a statement in Holyrood, said demands by Labour and Conservative politicians to spend the £537m unallocated in the current budget were misplaced. She suggested they did not “fully understand” the budget process, which was “retrospective”.

Ms Forbes said: “This funding is fully committed to the Covid response and will be formerly allocated to the spring budget revision. The residual Scotland reserve position is currently £229m and although not formally allocated, it is already being redeployed against existing high priority commitments and there is no available headroom.”

She also took a shot at the UK Chancellor for not producing an autumn budget. Ms Forbes said the move threw the Scottish budget for next year into doubt, as it would be based on estimates.

However, Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said the UK Budget delay was as a result of the Covid pandemic, and the Scottish Government had set its own budget “amid similar circumstances” earlier this year.

He added: “She referred to the unprecedented £6.5 billion from the UK government and £500m is formally unallocated – so how much is currently unspent? The entire amount? Or if it’s fully committed, to where is it committed and when will we get this detail?”

Ms Forbes said it was “precisely because of the global pandemic” that she was appealing for “clarity” from the UK Government. She added: "I am in conversation with the Treasury in the hope they will be able to provide some form of accurate figures in autumn because I cannot set a budget based on estimates.

“As to the £500m, all of that money is deployed I can say with complete certainty. In terms of the full raft of details – that will be confirmed in the spring budget revision in February, but examples are continued support for bus and rail transport systems and continued support for self-isolation payments, but every single penny has been committed.”

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour's finance spokesperson, said that if there was “no headroom” and all the money had been deployed, the finance minister should “be telling us now where that money is going to, and how much will be going to local government, who have reported a budget gap of £350m much of which is Covid related”.

Ms Forbes said she was in discussions with Cosla to ensure “they get additional money”. She pointed to £383.2m of direct funding already committed, “£257.6m approved by Parliament on 27 June and the remaining is to be allocated following agreement on distribution methodology with Cosla”.

Responding to Ms Forbes comments a UK Government spokesperson said UK Government schemes have supported more than 930,000 jobs in Scotland, a third of the workforce, during the pandemic and through Barnett consequentials Scotland had received “an additional £6.5 billion to cope with the pressures of the pandemic.”

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