UK Government refusal to pay for Trump and Vance visits 'deeply disappointing'

Scotland’s justice secretary has said she is “deeply disappointed” at the UK Government’s refusal to pay for President Trump and vice-president JD Vance’s Scotland visit.

Angela Constance was questioned at a pre-budget scrutiny held by the Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday.

Speaking at the committee, she said the UK Government has not “stumped up” for VIP visits from Trump and Vance in the summer.

She said: “I’ve been deeply disappointed that the UK Government, as well as the onerous undertaking that they put across the public sector, including policing, on the tax for jobs in terms of employers’ national insurance contribution; they have not stumped up for the VIP visits that we had in Scotland over the summer and that’s to the tune of £24 million.”

The US president spent four days in Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire in July visiting his golf courses, while the vice-president spent around four days in Ayrshire the following month.

In a letter sent to chief secretary to the Treasury James Murray, in October, Scotland’s finance secretary, Shona Robison, said the visits imposed “substantial operational and financial burdens on Scottish public services, particularly Police Scotland”.

She said the estimated additional cost of policing the presidential visit alone was about £20 million.

The UK Government said the visits were private and “not official UK Government business”, and that the Scottish Government is “responsible for policing costs”.

Police Scotland is seeking £140m in additional funding from the Scottish budget in January to strengthen its frontline services.

Constance continued that there would be some “hard choices” for allocating funding.

She said: “I just say that, to add to the terms of the overall resource allocation and capital allocation given to the Scottish Government, that is not all in my gift, and I am candid enough to say to the committee that there will be some hard choices.

“But I respect deeply the professionalism of Police Scotland and the chief constable, in particular. They work exceptionally hard to innovate to squeeze out any savings that they can make because at the end of the day, we are all focused on bolstering frontline policing as much as we can.”

When asked by MSP Pauline McNeill if it was time to look at multi-year funding and change the funding model for justice in Scotland, Constance said there was a “risk that spending plans are disrupted due to events that none of us can predict,” referring to the costs of the VIP visit in July.

She said: “That is part of the rationale of introducing a Scottish spending review that has planned resources for three years … we do want to give as much certainty to our partners in justice as possible.

“That, of course, needs to be carefully balanced with, I suppose, the risk that spending plans are disrupted due to events that none of us can predict. I don’t think any of us predicted having to stump up £24 million for an international visit over the summer.”

The committee also heard that the Scottish Prison Service documented overcrowding issues as the number of individuals in custody hit a record high of 8,430 on October 21.

About 1,000 inmates are to be released early after the Scottish Parliament approved emergency plans to address prison overcrowding throughout the country.

Prisoners serving sentences of four years or less and within 180 days of their scheduled release date will be eligible under the new emergency scheme.

At the previous committee’s pre-budget scrutiny, Scottish Prison Service chief executive Teresa Medhurst said she would need a further £40m to run the service adequately.

The UK Government has been approached for comment.