SCOTLAND’S Finance Secretary has been left frustrated by her failed attempt for the UK Government to let her borrow more money to aid the response to the Covid-19 crisis.
Kate Forbes has been appealing over the last few months for The Treasury to hand over flexible powers to allow the Scottish Government to borrow up to £500 million of extra cash to respond to the pandemic and the economic shutdown.
Ms Forbes sent a formal request to the Treasury last week – and yesterday published £80 billion plans to kickstart the UK economy and avoid a return to austerity.
READ MORE: Kate Forbes draws up £80bn proposals to re-start UK economy and avoid austerity
But the Finance Secretary has seen her request “kicked into the long grass”.
Speaking on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Ms Forbes said: "I last spoke to the Treasury on Friday and we went through the issues once again.
"Unfortunately, it keeps getting kicked into the long grass and my hope is that at some point they will deal with the issue seriously and enable us to have those powers."
The Finance Secretary was quizzed over whether the Treasury would take her new request for £80 billion to be pumped into the UK economy seriously.
She said: "My job is to set out persuasively what we need right now to reboot the economy.
"This is one of the most significant economic crises of our generation and we desperately need the powers and the investment to reboot it."
READ MORE: How Scotland can kickstart the economy through green energy
Other parties in the Scottish Parliament - excluding the Conservatives - had backed her calls for more powers, she said.
She added: "I'm not waiting for those powers to be passed over, we're using the powers that we have and we're using the resources that we have.
"But there's no question that a lot of these ambitious ideas come down to the need for the UK Government to be a little bit more relaxed in working with us to pass on those flexibilities in powers."
The UK Government has stressed that the Scottish Government is able to borrow up to £450 million per year for capital projects and £300 million to support day-to-day spending.
A UK Government spokesperson said: “Taken in its entirety, the UK’s wide-ranging package of support is one of the most generous in the world – including our unprecedented income support schemes, billions of pounds in loans and grants, tax deferrals and more than £6.5 billion injected into the welfare safety net.
“So far, 774,000 jobs across Scotland have been saved by direct UK Government coronavirus support through our job retention and self-employed schemes.
“In addition to UK wide support schemes, the Scottish Government has been allocated an additional £3.8 billion in coronavirus funding through the Barnett Formula.”
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