SCOTTISH Secretary Ian Murray’s election claim that there would be no return to austerity under Labour has “been absolutely proved wrong,” the SNP charges.

Scottish Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee was responding to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s statement to Parliament on Monday.

Ms Reeves warned her October budget “will involve taking difficult decisions to meet our fiscal rules across spending, welfare and tax” as she announced the cancellation of infrastructure projects and the scrapping of the winter fuel payment to pensioners not in receipt of benefits in an effort to close a £22 billion budget shortfall she claimed to have been unaware of until taking office.