To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions the finance secretary has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding public spending, in light of the Prime Minister’s remarks that the Labour Administration’s first budget is “going to be painful”. (S6O-03667)

The First Minister and I met the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week. We discussed collaboration between the Scottish and UK Governments, but we also pressed the chancellor on the need for public investment across the UK to protect public services, to tackle poverty and to grow the economy.

The Prime Minister’s remarks about the next UK budget are deeply concerning. As I said earlier, that will have a direct impact on our funding. I set out yesterday the difficult decisions that we are already taking on the challenges that the Scottish budget faces. As the chancellor looks to her first budget, it is vital that public services and vulnerable people are protected and that we do not have further austerity impacting on public services in Scotland.

After 14 years of Tory austerity, the Labour Party in Westminster is intensifying the worst of what we saw under the likes of David Torrance—sorry, David Cameron [ Laughter .] and Boris Johnson. Labour’s pledge to keep Tory fiscal rules is a huge factor in the £22 billion of cuts that it is now choosing to make.

Labour promised change, but it is delivering the same old failed Westminster economic agenda. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the UK Labour Government must see sense, invest in public services, reverse the cuts to Scotland’s capital budget—

Thank you, Ms Stevenson. I call the cabinet secretary.

The chancellor has a choice to make in her forthcoming budget. She can continue with Tory fiscal rules and Tory austerity or she can change course and invest in public services. Increased funding for infrastructure and public services will—absolutely—be required if we want to take action to lift children out of poverty. There are things that the Labour chancellor could also do to help with that, such as ending the damaging two-child benefit cap.

There is a political choice here. Labour in this Parliament cannot escape the reality that Labour austerity looks and feels to public services exactly the same as Tory austerity does. It is a political choice, and Labour will be held to account for whatever choice it makes.