Speaking in the House of Commons earlier this afternoon, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak outlined the UK Government’s spending priorities for the coming year.

Here is a snap summary of key announcements from the spending review that relate to Scotland:

• The Chancellor announced that Scotland will receive £2.4bn of new funding from the UK Government in 2021/22 through the Barnett formula for devolved areas such as health and social care, education and housing
• Scotland will also receive a boost from some of the £100bn of capital investment promised for the UK in 2021/22, which includes a £7.1bn national home building fund, funding for better broadband and 4G coverage, and for green policies
• The Spending Review also provides additional UK funding to help local areas prepare over 2021-22 for the introduction of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, with further details to be published in the New Year
• A new UK infrastructure bank will be launched in 2021, based in the North of England to support infrastructure projects across the UK. It will focus on economic growth, levelling up and transitioning to Net Zero
• £15billion was promised for research and development
• £3billion will go towards a new 3-year restart programme to help over one million people who’ve been unemployed for over a year to find new work
• Pay rises for many in the public sector will be paused, with exceptions for various NHS workers, and those earning below £24,000
• It was also announced that the National Living Wage will rise by 2.2% to £8.91 an hour, and this rate will be extended to those 23 and over. The minimum wage rates for younger workers will also be increased.

You can find attached the Treasury press release here as well as Government fact sheets on the Levelling Up strategy , and Covid support. Please do note that some announcements in the factsheets – such as the levelling up fund – apply to England only.

A full list of documents pertaining to the spending review have now been published online and can be found here.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share these with us through our policy inbox at policy@edinburghchamber.co.uk