Question reference: S6W-14326
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 26 January 2023
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 February 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statement by the Deputy First Minister regarding the emergency budget review, on 2 November 2022, whether it remains its position that £1.7 billion has been eroded from the Scottish Budget 2022-23.
Answer
The calculation referred to in the question was made based on data on inflation available at the time. Using the updated GDP deflators the comparable figure is now around £800 million.
As the Scottish Fiscal Commission has noted, due to the way that the GDP deflator is calculated, it may not accurately capture the change in all costs incurred by government, and as result the above real-terms calculations may underestimate the true scale of inflationary pressure on some areas of Scottish Government resource spending.