STAND-IN Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw was irritated to not get a tax cut in the Scottish Government’s Budget, Nicola Sturgeon has claimed.

The accusation came during a heated First Minister’s Questions yesterday, with Carlaw calling on Sturgeon and Derek Mackay to thank Chancellor Philip Hammond for his largesse.

He said that despite what the SNP claim, the Scottish Government’s block grant had increased. This, he added, was backed up by the experts.

Carlaw told MSPs: “The Fraser of Allander institute says that the block grant is going up, the Scottish Fiscal Commission says that it is going up and the Scottish Parliament Information Centre says that it is going up.

“It is a pity that, typically, the First Minister refuses to acknowledge that.”

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But Sturgeon said that the money available to the Scottish Government “for everything other than health is down by £340 million”.

She added: “Over the decade, Tory austerity has taken £2 billion out of this Government’s budget, which is 7% in real terms.”

On taxes, the Tory stand-in chief said the UK Government’s decision to increase the personal allowance had done more to keep money in the pockets of Scottish taxpayers than Mackay’s rate changes.

The National:

Sturgeon said her Finance Secretary’s decisions to freeze the higher rate and increase lower rate threshold would mean “55% of taxpayers in Scotland will pay less tax than their counterparts in the rest of the UK, making Scotland the fairest-taxed part of the UK.”

She added: “What is really irritating Jackson Carlaw today is that we have chosen not to give a tax cut to higher-rate taxpayers like him. We have not increased tax for higher-rate taxpayers we have just chosen not to reduce it.”

The First Minister said copying Hammond’s decision to raise the highest tax rate threshold to £50,000 would “cost £500m”.

“If he wants us to go further and match Philip Hammond’s tax cut, he has to tell us where the £500m is going to come from,” Sturgeon said.

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That figure was later disputed by the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre (SPICe) who said the block grant adjustments, where the amount of extra tax revenues raised in Scotland is then taken off the Scottish budget by the Treasury, would be £182m.

SPICe senior analyst Nicola Hudson said: “The budget document shows that estimated income tax revenues in 2019-20 will only exceed the block grant adjustment by £182m, considerably less than the £500m that the Scottish Government say its policy will generate relative to the UK Government tax policy.”

Callum McCaig, special adviser to the First Minister, posted a tweet explaining that the “Income tax policy is raising £182m over the block grant adjustment”, adding: “If we were to replicate UK tax policy it would be £318m less than it, so replicating UK income tax in Scotland would cost £500m.”