Skip to main content
SNP Scottish government will ‘look at every lever’ to avoid benefit cuts, says Robison
Screen grab of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivering her spring statement to MPs in the House of Commons, London, March 26, 2025

THE SNP Scottish government said today it would “look at every lever” to avoid passing on welfare cuts in the wake of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement.

Ms Reeves’s announcement of £5 billion in cuts is not only expected to slash support for three million families on incapacity benefits, and cut personal independence payments (PIP) for 800,000, but, according to the Fraser of Allander Institute, will also cut the Scottish government’s budget by £900 million by the end of the decade.

For SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison this presents a double challenge, as she faces the prospect of a shrinking block grant while deciding on whether to maintain the eligibility criteria and value of PIP’s Scottish equivalent, the adult disability payment.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, Ms Robison said: “We’re in the business of keeping people out of poverty.

“The announcements yesterday are going to have a major impact on our budgets in the coming years and what we will be doing is to look at every lever we can use to avoid having to replicate the decision the UK Labour government have made.

“She [the Chancellor] had other choices she could have made yet she has decided to make these choices on the back of the most vulnerable.”

Defending the Chancellor’s cuts on same programme, Labour Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray insisted: “When government loses control of the public finances that harms everyone in the country, particularly the most vulnerable, particularly those on the lowest income with the fewest resources.

“So fiscal irresponsibility has a huge cost, that is why for us making sure we have fiscal responsibility, making sure the public finances are stable, is so crucial to what we are doing in government.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Walkers take an evening stroll near Gretna, Dumfries and Gal
Scotland / 30 May 2025
30 May 2025
NUM Scottish President Mick McGahey (right) with NUM President Arthur Scargill in London, where they met with coal board chairman Ian MacGregor at the NCB's headquarters, March 6, 1984
Scotland / 29 May 2025
29 May 2025
School girls walking to school
Education / 28 May 2025
28 May 2025
Similar stories
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves attending the Make
Britain / 7 March 2025
7 March 2025
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Confederati
Features / 14 January 2025
14 January 2025
Instead of responding to changed circumstances by adjusting policy, Reeves is using fiscal ‘rules’ as an excuse to force government departments to make even deeper cuts than she had already flagged, says CLAUDIA WEBBE