THE SNP Scottish government said today it would “look at every lever” to avoid passing on welfare cuts in the wake of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement.

Ms Reeves’s announcement of £5 billion in cuts is not only expected to slash support for three million families on incapacity benefits, and cut personal independence payments (PIP) for 800,000, but, according to the Fraser of Allander Institute, will also cut the Scottish government’s budget by £900 million by the end of the decade.

For SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison this presents a double challenge, as she faces the prospect of a shrinking block grant while deciding on whether to maintain the eligibility criteria and value of PIP’s Scottish equivalent, the adult disability payment.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, Ms Robison said: “We’re in the business of keeping people out of poverty.

“The announcements yesterday are going to have a major impact on our budgets in the coming years and what we will be doing is to look at every lever we can use to avoid having to replicate the decision the UK Labour government have made.

“She [the Chancellor] had other choices she could have made yet she has decided to make these choices on the back of the most vulnerable.”

Defending the Chancellor’s cuts on same programme, Labour Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray insisted: “When government loses control of the public finances that harms everyone in the country, particularly the most vulnerable, particularly those on the lowest income with the fewest resources.

“So fiscal irresponsibility has a huge cost, that is why for us making sure we have fiscal responsibility, making sure the public finances are stable, is so crucial to what we are doing in government.”