General Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 4 December 2025.
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the UK Government budget announced on 26 November. (S6O-05246)
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
The UK budget process has been chaotic and failed to deliver for Scotland. We needed the UK Government to prioritise investment in public services, support for jobs and industry in Scotland and serious action on energy Bills. Instead, Scotland was again treated as an afterthought, with families left to pay the price.
Abolition of the two-child limit is, of course, welcome, but it is long overdue. This Government has already taken forward plans to mitigate it in Scotland.
We are looking carefully at what the UK budget means for Scotland and our budget, which will be published on 13 January.
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
Given the warning from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the budget—the Labour budget—bakes in austerity for the years ahead, what assessment has the Scottish Government made of the pressure that that will place on Scotland’s public services, especially when the so-called funding uplift does not cover even half of the cost of the national insurance rise that was forced on employers this year?
A real-terms increase of only 0.8 per cent was granted
“because Anas Sarwar asked us to”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 26 November 2025; Vol 776, c 388.]
Does the Cabinet secretary agree that that demonstrates not influence but ineffectiveness and a complete lack of ambition on the part of Anas Sarwar, that he asked for far too little and that Scotland has once again been treated, as the cabinet secretary said, as an afterthought by the UK Government?
Alison Johnstone
Green
Please answer on devolved responsibilities, Cabinet secretary.
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
I absolutely agree with Keith Brown. The UK Government has made much of the very limited additional funding that has been provided, but that stretches across five years and, as Keith Brown pointed out, it is less than half the shortfall in funding as a result of the increased cost of employer national insurance contributions that is being faced by our public services, which is estimated to be about £2 billion across the five-year period.
I called for significant investment in public services and infrastructure, but the UK budget failed to deliver the scale of funding that we need. That means that we continue to face a very challenging outlook as we head into the Scottish budget.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
A proposal for new legislation that is debated by Parliament.
The House of Commons is one of the houses of parliament. Here, elected MPs (elected by the "commons", i.e. the people) debate. In modern times, nearly all power resides in this house. In the commons are 650 MPs, as well as a speaker and three deputy speakers.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
