5. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has concerns that it could face a budget shortfall this financial year as a direct result of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. (S5O-04645)

The Covid outbreak, as well as our exit from the European Union, presents an unprecedented challenge to the Scottish Government’s resources. In the absence of additional fiscal powers, consequentials and reprioritisation of spending remain the only funding sources available to us.

We have already undertaken significant reprioritisation, of around £600 million to date. Without additional United Kingdom Government funding or flexibility, we face the impossible choice of either not funding further essential Covid spend and thus harming recovery, or making deep cuts to other areas of expenditure, which would similarly undermine the recovery and directly impact the people of Scotland. It is an impossible choice that we have been given.

I wonder what that impossible choice will mean for service delivery and employment in the public sector and, indeed, the wider Scottish economy.

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Inaudible

.]—Covid, we have maintained funding for key public services. We will do everything in our power to continue to do so. We will use every power and every penny at our disposal.

Public sector employees are crucial in the delivery of those services and in our response to coronavirus. Our commitment to their employment, including to no compulsory redundancies, remains in place.