Scotland’s Finance Secretary has said her Budget will provide a “brighter future”, as she vowed more cash for hard-up families with young children.
In a Budget delivered four months before the Holyrood election, Shona Robison declared her decisions mean “some of the pressure on families and family budgets will ease”.
The Scottish child payment, a weekly payment to low-income families north of the border, will rise to £40 a week from next year for children under the age of one, she pledged.
She announced the increase at the same time as she revealed the Scottish Government will seek to bring in both a private jet tax and a so-called “mansion tax” – with two new council tax bands planned for those living in homes worth more than £1 million by April 2028.
Setting out the changes, Ms Robison said: “To deliver even more for those with the least, we will ask those with the most, the very wealthiest in our land, to contribute that little bit more.”
While a private jet tax will not be introduced until some point after April 2027, Ms Robison said: “I say to those who choose to travel by private jet in Scotland, you will pay and pay a fair share for that privilege and, in doing so, will be making Scotland a fairer nation.”
As well as increasing the Scottish child payment for under-ones, she said the benefit – which is set at £27.15 a week per child – will increase in line with inflation from next April.
Vowing the Scottish Government will “continue to expand the best cost-of-living support package available anywhere in the UK”, she said £49 million will be set aside for new measures to tackle child poverty in an updated action plan to be published in March.
She also promised every primary school will have a breakfast club, and a “summer of sport” will take place for youngsters this year to mark both the Commonwealth Games being staged in Glasgow and Scotland’s men’s football team returning to the World Cup.
This will see free children’s sporting activities, including swimming lessons for every primary school child in the country.
Overall, she said the 2026-27 draft Scottish Budget sets out “investment of almost £68 billion in the wellbeing of our people and in the future prosperity of our nation”.
With record funding going to the NHS, she added: “There will be more operations and appointments in our health service and it will be easier to access a GP.”
A total of £22.5 billion has been set aside for health and social care in 2026-27, including a record £17.6 billion for NHS boards. This includes £36 million to help fund walk-in GP clinics – helping fulfil a key commitment from First Minister John Swinney.
Scotland’s councils meanwhile will receive almost £15.7 billion next year.
As well as setting out her spending plans, the Finance Secretary made some changes to tax policy, announcing the threshold for the basic and intermediate rates of income tax – the second and third lowest bands in Scotland – will rise by 7.4%, effectively cutting tax for lower earners.
Contrasting her actions with those of Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who froze income tax thresholds for the rest of the UK until 2030-31 in her budget last year, Ms Robison added: “As a result, even more people in Scotland can expect to pay less tax than if they lived in England, Northern Ireland or Wales.
“That is over 55% of Scots set to pay less income tax because they live in Scotland and have a Government led by the SNP.”
Overall, she told MSPs: “This is a Budget for a stronger NHS, a Budget for a more prosperous Scotland, a Budget that, once again, gives the people of Scotland the best cost-of-living deal anywhere in the UK.”
But Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy claimed the “pre-election Budget is as predictable as it is cynical”, adding that for “hard working Scots who are tired of being taxed to hilt by the SNP”, the proposals “will not wash”.
He added: “While today’s change to thresholds for the basic and intermediate rates are to be welcomed, it does nothing for those people at the middle of the tax band that are paying 50% tax on the pound between £43,000 and £50,000, that is the cost of the SNP.”
Scottish Labour’s Michael Marra said the Budget “does not meet the aspirations of the people of Scotland, and it does not recognise their need for real change”.
Claiming the Budget simply offers “more of the same” from the SNP, he added: “Everyone in Scotland knows what that means – hundreds of thousands in pain on NHS waiting lists, a justice system past breaking point, an education system going backwards day by day, over 10,000 kids waking up each day in temporary accommodation with no home to call their own. ”
Scottish Green co-leader Ross Greer said: “I am glad the Scottish Government has accepted Green proposals to fund the likes of childcare expansion with tax rises on the super rich, a mansion tax on million pound homes, and a charge on the 12,000 private jet fights.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Jamie Greene said he was also “pleased to see that many of the Liberal Democrat asks do feature in today’s Budget”.
But despite Ms Robison announcing a package of transitional relief for businesses facing rising rates bills after a revaluation, Mr Greene said he fears some firms are still “facing choppy waters ahead”.
