Question reference: S6W-25056
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 31 January 2024
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Current status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 28 February 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it made regarding its reported decision to reduce the level of general capital support to Strathclyde Partnership for Transport to zero in its Budget for 2024-25.
Answer
The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland and confirmed that the Scottish Government Capital Block Grant is forecast to contract by almost 10% in real terms over 5 years (2023-24 to 2027-28). Capital spending pressures across the Scottish Government far exceed available funding This means that it will take longer to deliver all our capital commitments, and difficult decisions were required in order to achieve a fiscally sustainable capital budget. As such, we targeted the limited capital funding available towards supporting employment and the economy, achieving our net zero ambitions and maintaining high-quality public services across Scotland.
A significant proportion of the expenditure in the portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and the budget ensures that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system.
The budget process also considered equalities and fairer Scotland duties and progress towards our statutory targets for climate change and child poverty in prioritising the budget available to me. I refer to the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment published alongside this budget.
Officials continue to engage with SPT on the implications of the budget decision along with the impact on future spending plans, and SPT are invited to advise Transport Scotland on any impacts of budget decisions on risk to service provision.