VOTING against the SNP Scottish government’s Budget will be an “albatross” around Labour’s neck and “I’ll be the one putting it there,” John Swinney warned yesterday.

The First Minister made the remarks as talks continue between Holyrood parties to find a deal that can allow the Budget to pass in the new year.

In recent years, Mr Swinney’s party has been able to rely on the support of the Greens, but after a difficult divorce from their coalition in April, the SNP is once again actively courting Tory, Labour and Lib Dem groups to find the three votes needed to get their Budget over the finishing line.

Scottish Labour economy spokesman Daniel Johnson has led attacks on the proposals, branding them “low growth.” 

But the First Minister warned that opposition would leave Labour voting against a scaled-back winter fuel payment scheme for those excluded from the UK government’s means test, as well as starting work on the mitigation of the two-child benefit cap from 2026.

Mr Swinney said: “You’re telling me it’s going to be all right for a Labour Party to vote against winter fuel payments and vote against steps to abolish the two-child cap?

“If that’s what the Labour Party want to do, then they’ll be held to account for that.

“So if the Labour Party wants to vote against the Budget, they’re obviously free to do so, but they’ll be held to account for that, because they’ll be voting for the third time against providing support and assistance for pensioners in winter.

“If Labour want that hanging round them, then it can hang round them like an albatross — and believe you me, I’ll be the one putting it there.”

Scottish Labour finance spokesman Michael Marra hit back: “It is a strange contradiction that the SNP voted against a UK Labour government Budget delivering record levels of investment in Scotland and now it expects universal support for using that funding to fix its own glaring mistakes.”

Stating that his party “fully supports reinstating winter fuel payments,” he added: “This Budget won’t deliver a single penny to families affected by the two-child cap and it is worrying that John Swinney thinks it acceptable to pretend otherwise.”