The Scottish government on Wednesday vowed to end the two-child benefit cap next year as it set out record healthcare spending and an increase in social security benefits in a Budget focused on public services.
Speaking to MSPs in Holyrood, finance secretary Shona Robison said she would work with the UK government to abolish the cap in Scotland.
The cap stops most parents claiming additional child-related welfare payments if they have more than two children.
“Be in no doubt, the cap will be scrapped,” she said, calling it a “pernicious” policy that had caused “misery”. Despite pressure inside the Labour party to axe it, Sir Keir Starmer’s UK government has maintained the two-child limit.
“Eradicating child poverty is our top priority,” she added.
Robison also set out a record £21bn for health and social care, including an extra £2bn for frontline NHS services, as well as £768mn to fund affordable housing and an £800mn boost in social security benefits.
Her statement marked the first Budget since John Swinney replaced Humza Yousaf as first minister and Scottish National party leader in May.
Swinney, a grandee of the pro-independence party, has focused on bread-and-butter issues, such as public services and economic growth, as the SNP prepares to fend off a Labour bid for power at the Holyrood elections in May 2026.
In her October Budget, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a £47.7bn settlement for Scotland in 2025-26, the largest in real terms since devolution.
The settlement included an additional £3.4bn — of which £2.8bn is day-to-day spending — via the Barnett formula, the mechanism that Westminster uses to fund the budgets of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The SNP, which was hammered in July’s UK general election, is a minority government and needs to secure the support of at least two opposition MSPs to pass the Budget. Failure to do so would trigger a snap election.
This is a developing story . . .
