Rishi Sunak will ask Nicola Sturgeon to be ‘pragmatic’ about spending cuts

SNP leader set to warn PM against ‘damaging austerity’ in first face-to-face talks

Rishi Sunak will urge Nicola Sturgeon and other devolved leaders to be “pragmatic” about the scale of economic crisis as he prepares to announce major public spending cuts.

The prime minister will hold his first face-to-face talks with Scotland’s first minister on Thursday, with talks between the two leaders expected to focus on the cost-of-living crisis.

The SNP leader is expected to stress the importance of avoiding “damaging austerity” measures in the Sunak government’s autumn statement on 17 November.

With Ms Sturgeon still hoping to hold a second vote on Scottish independence in October 2023, she will also use the talks to urged Mr Sunak to let Scots “choose their own constitutional future”, the Scottish government said.

His predecessor Liz Truss did not speak directly to Ms Sturgeon during her brief spell in Downing Street, after saying she would “ignore” the SNP leader during the race to succeed Boris Johnson.

Mr Sunak and his chancellor Jeremy Hunt are said to mulling a 50-50 split of spending cuts and tax rises to address a black hole of up to £60bn after Ms Truss’s mini-Budget disaster.

They are thought be keen to raise both benefits and state pensions in line with inflation, a move that would likely usher in deeper public spending cuts elsewhere as well as higher tax rises.

Other ideas understood to be under consideration include removing the 2.99 per cent cap on annual council tax hikes, and lowering the threshold for the top income tax rate below its current level of £150,000 to pull in more high-income workers.

Mr Sunak and Ms Sturgeon will meet ahead of the British Irish Council meeting in Blackpool, which brings together senior figures from administrations across the UK and the Irish government.

The prime minister will reiterate his commitment to restoring the Northern Ireland Executive at Stormont. “We all want to see power sharing restored as soon as possible – I’m determined to deliver that,” he is expected to say.

It comes as the Sunak government set out plans to use legislation to extend a deadline for calling an election in Northern Ireland – pushing the likely date back until March or April 2023 if no agreement can be reached.

Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he was now extending the deadline for parties to form an executive by six weeks to December 8, with the option of a further six-week extension.

Mr Heaton-Harris also said he would cut the pay of Stormont Assembly members to reflect the fact they are not currently doing their job as legislators.

But the DUP’s Edwin Poots insisted that a cut to MLA pay would have absolutely "no influence whatsoever” on his party’s refusal to form an executive until the issue of Northern Ireland Protocol checks was resolved.

Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said the uncertainty over an election was not good enough. “What we now have are new deadlines, multiple deadlines, in which he may or may not call an election,” she told reporters.

However, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney welcomed the announcement on delaying the election and urged the UK to “make use” of the renewed opportunity to engage positively with the EU on the ongoing Brexit protocol row.