RISHI Sunak’s emergency budget to save jobs DID result in just £21 million extra for Scotland, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.

In new analysis of the £30 billion summer statement, the influential think tank said the Chancellor’s big new spending promises were using around £8bn of cash that had already been allocated.

Last week, when Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes pointed out that the consequentials from the announcements would be in the tens of millions and not, as the Tories had claimed, in the hundreds of millions, she found herself at the end of a barrage of abuse from Jackson Carlaw and his colleagues.

But yesterday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) confirmed that the Holyrood minister had been right all along.

In the report, the economist David Phillips, an associate director at the think tank, admitted he had been left confused by Sunak’s lack of transparency.

He added: “When asked whether the Scottish Government would receive just £21m as a result of the Plan for Jobs as the Scottish Finance Minister has claimed, I said that I couldn’t see how you would arrive at such a number given the schemes just mentioned, as well as the stamp duty holiday for England and Northern Ireland. It would get much more.

“In a big-picture sense, this is correct: the Scottish Government will get far more than £21m. Because stamp duty is devolved to Scotland it will get much more than that to enable it to enact its own tax holiday or spend on other measures.

“Exactly how much is not yet clear – it will depend on updated forecasts and ultimately out-turns for stamp duty revenues in England and Northern Ireland. But initial estimates published by the OBR this week suggest it could amount to around £120m spread over this year and next.”

He added: “And the Scottish Government has already said it will use the cash it receives to temporarily raise the threshold of its equivalent tax to £250,000 and provide £50m in extra support to first-time buyers.

“But the Scottish Government won’t, as I initially presumed, get extra funding as a result of the Green Homes Grant or the full £40m it would if all of the money for traineeships and so on were new.

“Instead, apart from the stamp duty money, it will receive £21m – the figure quoted by the Scottish Finance Minister – as a result of the combination of the Plan for Jobs and the reductions in investment spending elsewhere that the Treasury is now expecting.”

The SNP shadow chancellor Alison Thewliss said the Tories had been “caught out bending the truth”.

She added: “Much of the money is recycled and reallocated from previous spending, with just a fraction of new investment. When it comes to saving jobs, smoke and mirrors simply won’t cut it.

“If we are to prevent mass redundancies, the Tory Government must raise its ambitions and deliver the funds and powers needed for a strong recovery. That means a real fiscal stimulus of at least £80bn in new investment, the extension of the furlough scheme into 2021 and the devolution of financial powers to enable a tailored response for Scotland.”

Last week when Forbes tweeted her £21m claim, a raft of Tory MSPs and MPs and supporters criticised her. At the time, Tory MSP Jamie Greene even accused her of failing to be “open, honest and factually accurate when talking about our nation’s finances”.

Last night Nicola Sturgeon heaped praise on her minister. Sharing a tweet revealing that the extra money announced was not quite what it seemed, the First Minister said: “It was @KateForbesMSP who figured it out, and pretty quickly too. And she was rounded on by Scot Tories claiming she was wrong. She wasn’t.”