Sturgeon says the SNP would block a Labour budget

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, has said that her party would block Labour’s first budget.

As part of a leaders TV debate in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said: 

“If Labour puts forward a Budget that imposes more cuts on vulnerable people, as clearly they intend to do, the SNP will vote against it. We will seek to use our clout in the House of Commons to get a fairer deal.”

Sturgeon, who is also the First Minister of Scotland, said that this would not “bring down the Government”, comparing the situation to when the SNP’s budget was voted down in 2009 (they were ruling as a minority administration in Holyrood) and they made a number of amendments to pass through a new budgets. She argued that: “That’s what happens in minority parliaments, and it leads to better decisions.”

However, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy said he did not agree with Sturgeon’s interpretation. He argued that this added to the evidence which showed the SNP would undermine a Labour government.

Murphy pointed out that these comments from Sturgeon comes after SNP Deputy Leader, Stewart Hosie, said during a radio debate that this party would be willing vote against a Labour Queen’s Speech.

During this debate, Sturgeon also refused to say that the SNP wouldn’t call for a second independence referendum if Trident was renewed.

The SNP leader refused to agree to the “moratorium” on another referendum during the next five years, when Murphy asked her. Instead she said that people in Scotland would decide if and when there would be another vote before going on to say the SNP were consulting their 110,000 members to decided whether a referendum pledge would be part of the SNP’s manifesto for the Holyrood election next year.