Treasury announces extra Covid funding for devolved administrations

The UK Government has said additional funding will be made available to the devolved administrations to help progress vaccine rollout.

The funding was announced by the Treasury as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addressed MSPs at Holyrood on Tuesday.

Sturgeon had earlier raised concerns over the inability of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments to borrow to meet the Covid funding challenge.

The amount of additional funding to be made available will be set out “in the coming days”, the Treasury said, adding that it will keep this under review in the following weeks.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “Throughout this pandemic, the United Kingdom has stood together as one family, and we will continue to do so.

“We are working with the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to drive the vaccine rollout to all corners of the United Kingdom and ensure people and businesses all across the country are supported.”

The announcement was welcomed by Sturgeon, as she responded to Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross.

She said: “On the issue of money, I’ve just been passed a note, I didn’t have this information because I don’t think it was announced before I came in, that the UK Government have announced that there will be additional funding made available to devolved administrations.

“I don’t have any of the detail of that yet, but I do absolutely welcome that. I think that is very good progress, it’s a move we have been pushing for for the last number of days.”

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said: “The UK Government has provided unprecedented support to people in all parts of the UK since the very beginning of the pandemic, and that support continues.

“With the Omicron variant, we now need to do everything possible to get booster jabs into arms as quickly as possible.

“The UK Government has made clear today that there will be further, additional, funding for the Scottish Government to support this – as well as the ongoing support of our incredible armed forces.

“This is on top of extra money which has already been provided to the Scottish Government to support public services during covid, plus a record core funding settlement of £41bn a year for the next three years.”