The questions now are whether the Scottish government will know the details before it sets its 2025-26 budget in December and whether the extra cash will “fully” offset the impact of higher national insurance costs.
The Scottish government has said it needs another £500m but a population-based share of what is spent on this kind of compensation in England is unlikely to deliver that amount because Scotland employs a larger number of health and education workers per head.
These details do matter but the Scottish headline from the first Labour budget in 14 years remains that it has delivered a big increase in public money for SNP ministers to choose how to spend.
The Scottish Conservatives spot a political opportunity in all this for them. To argue, as the party’s new leader Russell Findlay did at First Minister’s Questions, that business and workers need a different approach including tax reductions to flourish.
Their political opponents will say that when Tory prime minister Liz Truss tried that it went badly, damaged the economy and forced her from office.
This budget is already defining the contours of the 2026 Holyrood election campaign.
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