FINANCE Secretary Kate Forbes says her request for more financial powers has been "kicked into the long grass" by the Treasury.

The Scottish Government says it needs to borrow up to £500 million more to deal with the impact of coronavirus, as well as having greater flexibility over its capital budget.

A formal request was sent to the Treasury last week, ahead of a meeting of finance ministers from administrations around the UK last Friday.

Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme today, Forbes said she hoped the request would be taken seriously.

READ MORE: Kate Forbes requests new financial powers to deal with virus crisis

She said: "I last spoke to the Treasury on Friday and we went through the issues once again.

"Unfortunately it keeps getting kicked into the long grass and my hope is that at some point they will deal with the issue seriously and enable us to have those powers."

The Scottish Government is also calling for an £80 billion UK-wide stimulus package, which would be the equivalent of 4% of GDP.

Forbes was asked if the Treasury would take this request seriously.
She said: "My job is to set out persuasively what we need right now to reboot the economy.

"This is one of the most significant economic crises of our generation and we desperately need the powers and the investment to reboot it."

Other parties in the Scottish Parliament - excluding the Conservatives - had backed her calls for more powers, she said.

She added: "I'm not waiting for those powers to be passed over, we're using the powers that we have and we're using the resources that we have.

"But there's no question that a lot of these ambitious ideas come down to the need for the UK Government to be a little bit more relaxed in working with us to pass on those flexibilities in powers."