JOHN Swinney has announced a delay to the Scottish Government's emergency budget review.
The review was due to take place this week to identify non-urgent areas of funding that could be redirected to help those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
But it is now set to be delayed until at least next week after the UK Government has delivered its fiscal statement on Monday.
The review was first announced in September and was originally due to take place two weeks after a "fiscal event" at Westminster.
If there are any delays with the fiscal statement due on Halloween, it's possible the review could fall further behind.
Swinney, the acting finance secretary, announced £500 million of spending cuts in September and warned they were "just the beginning of hard choices" to be made.
But last week he said there will not need to be changes made to Scotland’s upcoming Budget statement on the back of recent UK Government U-turns, because he never believed the mini-Budget would be sustained.
The Scottish Government’s budget is due to be outlined on December 15.
In response to a government-initiated written question, Swinney said: “Following the unprecedented uncertainty and instability brought about by the current UK Government in recent weeks, including a series of announcements and changes to UK economic and fiscal measures leading to economic turmoil, mortgage products being pulled, the pound crashing and the Bank of England having to take emergency action to stabilise financial markets, culminating in another change in Prime Minister, the EBR [emergency budget review] will be deferred until after the planned fiscal statement from the new UK administration currently scheduled for October 31.
"This will also allow the EBR to take account of updated independent forecasts of the UK economy from the Office for Budget Responsibility.”
