SCOTTISH Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced that the two-child cap on benefits will be scrapped in Scotland as she pledged record spending for both the NHS and councils in next year’s Budget today.

The moved to scrap the cap would lift 15,000 children out of poverty, Ms Robison said.

She told MSPs as she outlined her draft Budget plans in Holyrood: “Be in no doubt that the cap will be scrapped.”

Ms Robison slammed the UK Labour government’s inaction on a “pernicious” policy considered to be a key driver of child poverty by organisations such as the Poverty Alliance.

She challenged the UK government to work with them and share the necessary information to “build a system” to mitigate it “as early as we can in 2026.”

Setting out her plans for the record £47.7 billion Scottish Budget next year, Ms Robison pledged a £2bn boost to health and social care spending, raising its total allocation to £21bn from April 2025.

The Finance Secretary said £200 million would be devoted to curbing Scotland’s spiralling GP waiting list and delayed discharge crises.

She promised MSPs: “By March 2026, no-one will wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day-case treatment.”

The capital budget, filleted last year and leaving the Scottish NHS unable to begin any new projects, is restored in the draft plan to £7bn.

This includes cash for long-awaited rebuilds of Monklands Hospital and the Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, as well as £1bn to complete the dualling of the A9 and £1.1bn for rail infrastructure.

The affordable housing budget, slashed by £200m last year, would also be restored to earlier levels of £768m, aimed at delivering 8,000 “affordable” homes for sale or rent.

On tax, Ms Robison boasted that for the seventh year running Scotland would have the lowest business property taxes in the UK, as she ignored STUC calls to scrap the Small Business Bonus Scheme, estimated to have cost more than £3bn since its 2008 introduction.

She told MSPs: “This Budget invests in public services, lifts children out of poverty, acts in the face of the climate emergency and supports jobs and economic growth.

“It is a Budget filled with hope for Scotland’s future.”

Scottish Labour finance spokesman Michael Marra said the Budget had “no imagination” responding: “No reform, no vision, no plan.

“Scotland is going in the wrong direction under the SNP.

“Almost one in six Scots are on an NHS waiting list, schools falling further behind, a national housing emergency, growth lagging behind the rest of the UK.

“Every Scottish institution is weaker.

“It is not enough just to try and correct the mistakes made last year by putting back the money that was slashed in the Budget itself or in the cuts chaos of the now annual SNP emergency Budget.

“This Budget amounts to more of the same, sending Scotland ever-faster in the wrong direction.”

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said:“It’s correct that the Finance Secretary scrapped the two-child cap and ensured the winter fuel payment remains universal in Scotland.

“Yet again, government ministers have dodged the big decisions on council tax, income and wealth taxes while prioritising unconditional support for businesses that does little to progress Scotland’s ambition to be a Fair Work Nation.

“Budgets, however well intentioned, cannot be all things to all people.

“The Finance Secretary has made clear the government’s priority to seek political agreement and appeasement at the expense of the radical action needed build a country of fairness, wellbeing and wealth redistribution.

“We still need the government to deliver on that vision.”