Shona Robison says cuts will ‘fundamentally damage’ public services as Keir Starmer warns of ‘painful’ Budget

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned the autumn Budget will be “painful” as the UK Government will ask the public to “accept short-term pain for long-term good”.

But Scotland’s finance secretary Shona Robison said decisions expected in October will “fundamentally damage” public services.

In a speech designed to emphasise the scale of the problems the new Labour government claims it has inherited from 14 years of Conservative rule, the prime minister said he has “no other choice” but to take “difficult decisions”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver the budget on 30 October. In it, she will attempt to address the “black hole” her party claims has been left by the previous Tory government.

Setting the scene for that statement, Starmer said: “I won't shy away from making unpopular decisions now if it’s the right thing for the country in the long term.”

He continued: “I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well: to accept short-term pain for long-term good. The difficult trade-off for the genuine solution. And I know that after all that you’ve been through – that is a really big ask and really difficult to hear. 

“That is not the position we should be in; it’s not the position I want to be in. But we have to end the politics of the easy answer that solves nothing.”

Robison described the speech as a “watershed moment” in which Labour is “no longer able to hide from the reality” of what it is planning in government.

She said: “The political choices being made by the new UK government will fundamentally damage our ability to deliver public services in Scotland. The SNP government will do everything we can to protect the services and public from the Westminster attack on Scotland’s public spending.

“While clearly the legacy of the Tory government, Labour must accept at least some of the culpability for the mess that the UK is now in. In opposition, they rowed in behind many of the Tory decisions that have damaged the economy and hurt living standards – whether that is Brexit, austerity spending cuts or attacks on the welfare state.”

Robison is set to make a statement to Scottish Parliament of her own next week, laying out further cuts to balance the Scottish budget.

In a letter to the finance committee last week, she said additional measures on top of the emergency spending controls put in place were necessary because of “the UK Treasury’s recent audit of public spending and lack of clarity over whether their decision to deliver Pay Review Body recommendations will be fully funded”.

Reeves said in July that the government would deliver pay increases for some public sector workers, but that government departments would be expected to “find savings to absorb as much of this as possible”.

In the same speech, the chancellor also confirmed the UK Government was moving to means-testing the winter fuel payment for pensioners.

The Scottish Government later confirmed it too would move away from a universal offering for the devolved version of the benefit, with social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville saying the UK Government had left her with “no choice”.

But a Scottish Fiscal Commission report today said that while UK Government decisions did contribute to pressures on the Scottish budget, “much of the pressure comes from the Scottish Government’s own decisions”.

It added the Scottish Government would face “persistent challenges” in balancing its budget because “past choices” had narrowed its “room for manoeuvre now and in the future”.

Commission chair Professor Graeme Roy said: “The 2025-26 Scottish Budget will be published later this year and will set out a more complete picture of the funding and spending position.

“The Scottish Government will need to make difficult decisions to balance the budget and ensure decisions now are sustainable in the future.”