Scotland and Wales complained that London forced them to allocate funds from their budgets for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine
The money that Scotland and Wales provided to Ukraine for the purchase of weapons, the autonomy planned to spend on education and health care.
Money from Scotland and Wales should no longer be transferred to Ukraine for the purchase of weapons. This was stated in the governments of the autonomies, transmits edition of The Telegraph.
“The UK Treasury has put pressure on Edinburgh to transfer £65 million to Ukraine,” the Scottish government said.
Kate Forbes, the Scottish Chancellor of the Exchequer, said she had agreed to provide funding “in this particular case” but made it clear that “this should not be seen as a precedent.”
Her comments were echoed by Welsh Finance Minister Rebecca Evans, who said she was forced to return £30m previously earmarked for “separate areas such as health and education”.
The UK Treasury said other departments were also required to allocate funding through spending cuts. A spokesman for the UK Treasury said it was an exceptional measure.
“This is a response to an emergency crisis,” the spokesman said.
Simon Clark, chief secretary of the treasury, asked the administrations of the autonomies to contribute to the general fund.
He said they could either hand over cash from their budgets or agree to cuts in Barnett’s funding they receive from the UK government.
The request was atypical, because foreign aid and defense spending are the prerogative of London and are taken from the general budget of the country, not the budgets of autonomies.
The Scottish government said its £65m would be used to fund “sophisticated air defense systems and thousands of pieces of vital equipment for Ukrainian soldiers”.
“We have agreed to provide funding for this occasion, given the clear need to maximize international efforts to support Ukraine. However, we are clear that this should not be seen as any precedent that results in allocated budgets being used to pay for explicitly reserved policy areas,” Forbes said.
Recall that the German defense concern Rheinmetall said it was ready to send Ukraine Leopard 1 tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.
Earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Western countries should supply weapons to the state without asking.
Note that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz claims that his country handed over to Ukraine almost all the weapons it could.
