Nicola Sturgeon pledges to spend 'every single penny' of extra cash to ease cost of living crisis

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish Government will pass on "every single penny" of extra cash it receives from Westminster to ease the cost of living crisis.People across the country have been left stunned today after energy regular Ofgem announced that household energy bills will soar by £693 per year from the beginning of April.A total of £290 million of funding is expected to come to Holyrood from the UK Treasury as a result to offset the huge rise in energy bills.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is to offer households in England a rebate on their council tax bills funded by government grants to help with rising bills.

But as the Chancellor has no oversight of local government funding in Scotland, a lump sum, based on the Barnett Formula, will be added to the Scottish government block grant.Speaking at Holyrood just moments after Sunak's announcement, Sturgeon said: "The Chancellor has announced welcome steps to help mitigate that - but steps, in my view, do not go far enough."They seem to offer around £350 worth of help against energy bill increases of around £700."I also don't know what the position on consequentials will be - but I give a commitment here that every single penny of them will go in Scotland to helping people deal with the cost of living crisis."There is one issue we will have to deal with because part of the Chancellor's announcement was for rebates in council tax."Of course, average council tax bills are already significantly lower in Scotland."And one of the other differences is, that due to decisions made by this government, around 400,000 people in Scotland don't pay any council tax, because we have a council tax reduction scheme that can offer up to 100% relief."So we will have to consider how to help