THE Scottish Government has insisted it has not axed spending on independence campaigning – after the LibDems claimed victory in Budget negotiations.
Scottish LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton claimed earlier this week that the SNP Government had committed that “nothing will be spent on independence”.
Claiming the issue was a “red line” for his party before it pledged to support the minority administration’s spending plans, he told the Daily Record: “That has been secured. There is no budget line for independence.”
But the Scottish Government has hit back, insisting that there never was.
A spokesperson told The National: “As with previous years, there is no dedicated budget line for ‘independence’ work. Any suggestion therefore that the budget for independence has been changed is not the case.
"The details of the agreements reached with opposition parties have been published and shared with the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee.”
It is understood that independence work, including the preparation of the discontinued white paper series, is carried out by civil servants working in the constitutional projects division.
There is no mention of this division in publicly-available documents for the Budget currently going through Parliament or the previous one, which did commit money to the publication of independence campaigning materials in the form of the white papers.
We told previously how John Swinney ordered the Building a New Scotland series to be cut short when he became First Minister.
In a letter to Holyrood’s Finance Committee, Finance Secretary Shona Robison set out the “position reached” with the LibDems, which included a list of spending commitments. They included money for drug addiction treatments, hospices, colleges and funding flexibility for Orkney Council – but nothing about independence.
In the same letter, Robison set out the terms demanded by the Greens, which included a £2 bus fare cap, nature restoration funding and free school meals – with no mention of independence.
Alba MSP Ash Regan said on Wednesday she would also vote for the Budget, claiming victory in her campaign to expand free school meals.
