AN SNP Cabinet Secretary has hit back at a Labour frontbench MSP after he “mansplained” government budgets to her.
The incident came as MSPs at Holyrood debated a motion tabled by First Minister John Swinney about the UK Government’s decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payment.
The SNP leader’s motion passed by 99 votes to just 14, with only Labour MSPs voting to oppose it. Two Scottish Labour MSPs, Alex Rowley and former group leader Richard Leonard, rebelled and voted for the SNP government motion.
As the debate was closing, Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville called out the Labour government in London for continuing with an austerity agenda.
She said: “The First Minister made very clear during the election campaign that this was a real and present danger. He was told not to scaremonger, that austerity would never happen.
“He proposed a solution about changing the fiscal rules. Somehow it took Labour getting into office to actually realise that the Tories had left the economy in a mess.”
Somerville went on: “And even, even if that was true, even if that was true, [SNP MSP] Clare Adamson was quite right. They noticed, and then they decided to take the cuts out against our pensioners.”
The Cabinet Secretary then gave way to Labour frontbencher Michael Marra, who drew jeers from other MSPs when he said he would “have to explain this again to the Cabinet Secretary”.
Marra went on: “I think I probably, well, I certainly had to explain it to the First Minister.
“I had to explain to the First Minister earlier on that in the longer term there is a structural deficit in the Budget, but in this year there's a £22 billion gap, this year.
“That's what we're talking about and what has to be dealt with.”
Responding, Somerville said Marra was not the first Labour MSP to have “mansplained” the budget to her.
She said: “Two weeks in a row. I got mansplained the capital and revenue budgets by Anas Sarwar, and I'm delighted that Michael Marra has just joined that in today.
“Well, let me say to him, the financial situation is a consequence of austerity and Labour are continuing austerity. That's the political choice that Labour have made today.”
Speaking after the debate, SNP MSP Clare Haughey said that Anas Sarwar had decided to was “more important for him to lie down for Sir Keir Starmer than stand up for vulnerable pensioners in Scotland”.
"The people of Scotland will see right through him and his desperate attempts to justify cruel cuts being made by Labour in Westminster,” she added.
Paul O’Kane, Scottish Labour’s social justice spokesperson, claimed the SNP had “wasted its annual Challenge Poverty Week debate playing political games instead of setting out a plan to tackle poverty in Scotland”.
“The SNP must stop deflecting and start using the powers it has here and now to protect the most vulnerable this winter and to tackle the scourge of poverty right across society,” he added.
