John Swinney has made a final pitch to opposition parties to “work together” as the Scottish Government prepares to announce its draft Budget tomorrow.
The SNP lacks a majority at Holyrood and must win support from at least one other party to pass its spending plans for the year ahead.
The Government is under pressure to increase spending on the NHS as thousands of Scots remain stuck on hospital waiting lists.
But SNP ministers also face demands from across the cash-strapped public sector at a time services are stretched to breaking point.
Swinney said today: “We’re going into this Budget process in good faith. The Government will set out tomorrow a Budget which is a product of an extensive amount of dialogue and discussion with all political parties.
“But also with multiple stakeholders in Scotland, in the business community, in local government and in the third sector.”
It comes after Scottish Labour suggested it would rather fight an early Holyrood election than support a “bad Budget”.
Anas Sarwar, the party’s leader, has insisted Scots voters are ready for a change of Government.
But Swinney said he had listened carefully to other parties. He added: “Some of those proposals are proposals I’ve heard argued for publicly by other political parties.
“I hope those proposals will be welcomed with good faith by other political parties and that we do what we’ve all got to do within the Scottish Parliament, which is to work together to secure a Budget that can meet the needs of the people of Scotland.”
The Scottish Greens said today that funding for climate projects and council budgets would be their “red lines”.
The Lib Dems have said they cannot back any Budget which contains money for Scottish independence preparations.
A UK Government spokesperson said: “The Chancellor’s Budget fixed the foundations of the UK economy and delivered change for working people in Scotland, protecting their payslips from higher taxes while delivering more money than ever before for Scotland’s public services.
“People in Scotland would rightly expect the Scottish Government to use its record £47.7 billion settlement to deliver on their priorities, including creating good jobs and making people in Scotland better off.”
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