Scottish Budget: Shona Robison pledges to ‘scrap’ the two-child benefit cap

The Scottish Government will begin mitigating the two-child benefit cap ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, Shona Robison has announced.

Delivering the Scottish budget for 2025-26, the finance secretary said the “pernicious” policy would be abolished for Scottish families early in 2026.

The cap – introduced by the Conservative UK Government in 2017 – restricts welfare support provided to families after the first two children.

Labour has repeatedly refused to abolish the policy since entering government this summer, despite calls to do so.

The UK government instead launched a taskforce to look at all options to reduce child poverty, which is set to report back in the spring.

But Robison said her Westminster counterparts “haven’t delivered”, so “this SNP government will”.

Estimating that doing so would lift over 15,000 Scottish children out of poverty, she said: “We will mitigate the two-child cap.

“The detailed work of building the system will start with this budget, but implementation requires the cooperate of the UK Government. They control the Department for Work and Pensions which means they control the data – we don’t.

“But we have a year, and we’ll work as hard as possible in 2025 so we can start paying families as early as we can in 2026. That is more than reasonable. But be in no doubt: the cap will be scrapped.”

The announcement will likely cause significant problems for Scottish Labour, particularly as leader Anas Sarwar has previously voiced his opposition to the two-child cap.

He has insisted his party was “pushing at an open door” for the end of the policy.

The finance secretary also announced record funding in health and social care for next year, with a £2bn increase for health boards, taking the total to £21bn.

Of this, an extra £200m will be directed towards waiting times reduction. Robison said the government would ensure that by March 2026, no one would wait longer than 12 months for an outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

Local government will also receive an extra £1bn, taking the total to £15bn. Robison said this means there would be “no reason for big increases in council tax” next year, though she did not institute a freeze on tax rises.

Other announcements include:

• £800m for social security benefits
• £768m for affordable housing, plus £4m for homelessness prevent
• A £150m uplift to education and skills, including £29m for an additional support needs plan
• An extra £34m for culture spend
• £4.2bn for justice, plus extra in the capital budget to replace Inverness and Barlinnie prisons
• £2bn for colleges and universities
• £7bn for capital spending to push forward the “green reindustrialisation of Scotland”

On tax, the finance secretary confirmed no changes would be made to income tax rates or bands, though the threshold for the basic and intermediate rates would rise by 3.5 per cent.

A 40 per cent rates relief for hospitality premises liable for the basic rate will also be implemented, while the basic property rate will be frozen.

The ministerial statement is just the start of the parliamentary process. Ministers will need to secure the support of at least one other party to pass the legislation implementing this budget.

The two most likely partners for such a deal are the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton welcomed increases to funding for social care, housing and mental health, but said that “does not guarantee our support”.

He called for transparency on how much cash has been left in reserve for the purpose of budget negotiations.

Green finance spokesperson Ross Greer, while welcoming some measures, also said there was more to do to ensure his party’s support. He pointed to a “huge cut” to core council services and said it fell short on nature restoration.

He added: “If they want Green support, significant further changes will be required. This budget will need to do much more for people and planet.”

Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy said the budget contained “half-hearted attempts to fix the problems that they themselves have created”.

He added: “The budget confirms that the SNP has wrecked public services. John Swinney is out of ideas and his government is running out of time.

“The NHS is on its knees and needs urgent reform. We welcome today’s budget increase for healthcare, but our NHS needs more than money. It needs leadership and a serious plan from this government.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s finance spokesman Michael Marra said it was “not enough” for ministers to simple reinstate budgets following cuts in the previous year.

He accused the Scottish Government of doing “more of the same” which was “sending Scotland ever faster in the wrong direction”.