Scottish Labour reopens budget talks with SNP

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The move, which is a break from his predecessor Anas Sarwar’s decision to refuse to work with the SNP on the Scottish budget, was confirmed after his first major speech as leader on Tuesday.

After calling for Britain to rejoin the EU, Mr Marra revealed that one-time leadership rival Joe Fagan had met with Scotland’s Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth for talks ahead of her presenting her first draft budget to Holyrood on December 3.

“We’ve set out some of the issues that we want to push on,” he said.

“We want to make sure there’s relief for households in terms of their energy bills – I’ve set that out just over the weekend.

“We also want to see action on child poverty, and the two things are closely related.”

He added: “I want to actually have a genuine conversation about where we go as a country and putting Scotland’s interests first.”

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The deputy first minister continues to engage constructively with other parties in advance of the Budget.”