Put to him that the most politically viable partners to support the Budget in its final vote in February were the Scottish Greens or Scottish Lib Dems, First Minister John Swinney disagreed, believing Labour could back the proposals.
These include a scaled-back winter fuel payment scheme for next year and the beginnings of work to mitigate the two-child benefit cap in Scotland.
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Speaking to the PA news agency, the First Minister said: “You’re telling me it’s going to be alright 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.”
He added: “I’m simply pointing out that the Labour Party has run out of luxury space on the Budget – they are in the frame.
“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.”
On Sunday, a new poll suggested Mr Swinney will lead the SNP into its fifth term in office.
The Norstat survey for the Sunday Times has Labour on its lowest rating in three years.
Backing for independence has also risen to 54% when undecided voters are excluded. It is the highest level for more than four years.
The SNP’s support has increased by four points to 37% and by three points to 32% on the list.
Meanwhile, Labour is on 21% in the constituency, a drop of two points, and down four points to 18% on the list.
The Scottish Conservatives are on 14% and 16% on the list, while the Greens are on 5% and 8%, the Lib Dems are on 10% on both, and Alba’s are on 5% on the list.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are currently at 12% on both.
According to polling guru, Professor Sir John Curtice, this would give the SNP 59 MSPs, Labour 20, the Tories 19, Reform 13, Lib Dems 11 and Greens seven.
This would give the SNP and Greens a combined 66 seats, meaning there would be a pro-independence majority of three.
The Scottish Government’s Budget has been described by some as a political one, with ministers announcing proposals with one eye on the 2026 Holyrood election.
The Government has asked the Department for Work and Pensions to divulge the data required to allow Social Security Scotland – the devolved benefits agency – to begin the work to mitigate the controversial policy which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he is in favour of doing when it is financially viable to do so.
Mr Swinney spoke in the hours after a meeting of the British-Irish Council, where he met privately with the Prime Minister.
The First Minister said Sir Keir was open to providing the necessary data.
“We cannot succeed in our policy objective of lifting the two-child cap, which will then succeed in lifting children out of poverty, unless the Department for Work and Pensions gives us access to that data,” he said.
“The Prime Minister assured me that we will have their co-operation going forward and that’s really welcome because that allows us to get on with the policy commitment that we set out to Parliament.”
Mr Swinney has made the eradication of child poverty his driving mission since the beginning of his time in Bute House.
But the figure has remained stubbornly around 24% of children living in relative poverty in recent years, with statutory targets of reducing the figure to at most 18% in 2023-24 and less than 10% by 2030
With data on the interim target due to be published next year, the First Minister said he was confident the goal would be reached.
“I don’t know the detail yet, but I think we can,” he said.
“I think the combination of measures that are contained in the Best Start, Bright Futures policy approach is a properly calibrated balance between income support, income maximisation and whole family support, which is necessary because that approach recognises the complexity of many of the challenges, and I think that can be achieved.”
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In a wide-ranging interview with PA, Mr Swinney also spoke of the “balance” he found in taking his son to hockey training the night before his first budget in charge.
Mr Swinney took over the top job unexpectedly earlier this year after the resignation of Humza Yousaf, which capped off a calamitous 12 months for the SNP.
Mr Swinney returned after a year-long “sabbatical” – as he describes it – following his nine-year tenure as deputy first minister to Nicola Sturgeon.
In the early weeks of his tenure the First Minister stressed the importance of finding time to spend with his teenage son and wife Elizabeth.
Mr Swinney said it had been “challenging” to maintain some semblance of a home life while also being the country’s top politician, particularly recently, with the Scottish Government publishing his first budget since taking the top job.
“I’ve had a very demanding week – I have a demanding week every week, but this is a particularly demanding week,” he said.
“So I stood to be away from home for a very protracted amount of time, but I managed to get home on Tuesday and then the minute I got home, I took Matthew to his hockey practice.”
He added: “For me to get home and take him to hockey, I came back into work on Wednesday morning for budget day feeling as if I had got the balance right and the balance was taking my son to hockey – so that made me feel very at ease.”
His ascension to the top job has also seen his family caught in the middle of tense political moments.
He spoke a week after the First Minister was subjected to abuse from the crowd at the memorial service for Alex Salmond at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh as he arrived with his wife.
Some in the waiting crowd booed the First Minister, with shouts of “traitor” also aimed at him as he helped Elizabeth – who has mobility issues caused by multiple sclerosis – into the venue.
Mr Swinney – ever reticent to be too open about his personal life – said: “I don’t think that kind of behaviour really is for that occasion, but it’s water off a duck’s back for me.”
Asked how his wife – an accomplished former BBC political journalist – had handled it, Mr Swinney said: “As an experienced, formidable political journalist who I’m very pleased is no longer asking me questions on camera, my wife’s well versed in politics.”
Responding to Mr Swinney’s comments about the budget, Scottish Labour finance spokesperson Michael Marra said: “This week’s Budget failed to provide the new direction Scotland so badly needs.
“With our NHS in crisis and our public finances spiralling further out of control this was a moment for a reset; instead we got more of the same.
“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.
“Scottish Labour fully supports reinstating winter fuel payments but the SNP voted against our attempts to make it happen in law.
“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.
“We will continue to discuss the Budget with SNP ministers to try and convince them to change direction. That looks unlikely while their top priorities are spin and political posturing.
“They are a government that has long since lost its way. Scottish Labour is focused on delivering the new direction Scotland needs.”
