No money will be made available from Holyrood to make up for any losses suffered by Scottish women due to the controversial “rape clause”, Nicola Sturgeon said.
The first minister said the policy of requiring victims to prove a child was the result of a sex attack to avoid a new cap on tax credits was seen by most people as “appalling”.
But she insisted her government could not keep raiding other budgets to offset the impact of reforms introduced in Westminster.
“We have mitigated a fair chunk of what the Tories have done on welfare,” she said.
“We mitigated the bedroom tax, we set up the Scottish welfare fund which is helping a lot of people who would otherwise have to go to food banks.
“But there comes a point where, with the best will in the world, you can’t keep plugging that gap.
“When the Tories make cuts like limiting child tax credits and applying the rape clause, they don’t pass onto the Scottish Government our share of the savings – they keep hold of that. So anything the Scottish Government does to mitigate these policies has to come out of money that we have already committed to spending on public services.
“There comes a point when that is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul and it is much better – particularly given we face a general election – to try to get these policies stopped as source rather than have the Scottish Parliament step in as a sticking plaster all the time.”
