DEPUTY First Minister Shona Robison has hit back at “intrusion” into her private life after she came under scrutiny for a three-day ski resort break over the festive period.
The Finance Secretary was criticised by the Tories for taking a holiday in the French Alps after delivering a tough Budget that saw cuts to housing and tax rises for high earners.
The Scottish Conservatives accused Robison of “living it up” and being “tone deaf” after it emerged she had taken a three-day trip with her daughter.
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Rooms at the Heliopic Hotel and Spa in Chamonix, said to be a favourite retreat for celebrities including actor George Clooney, can cost up to £520 a night.
But Robison insisted she got a “very good last-minute deal” on the break, and hit out at criticism of her holiday plans hitting the headlines.
Reports of her Christmas break emerged in the Sunday Mail at the end of December.
Robison has now spoken out about the reports for the first time.
In an interview with Holyrood magazine, she said: “I don’t get much time with my daughter, and I went on a short, three-night break that I got a very good last-minute deal on.
“I decided that given I had hardly seen much of my daughter, due to the business of the Budget and other government business … we had a very short family break.
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“If we’re going to start analysing where each of us goes on holiday, I think that’s a poor place [to be].
“If that’s now up for grabs as a way of attacking each other, I don’t think that does the body politic much good at all.
“We all make our own decisions about where we spend time with our family, and I did that in my own time with my own money. It shouldn’t be the subject of intrusion, but it is what it is.”
Robison (above) also defended her decision to raise taxes for high earners, and the council tax freeze announced by First Minister Humza Yousaf at the SNP’s conference in October last year.
“The tax changes we made will affect five per cent of taxpayers – the highest earners,” she said.
“In tough times when we need to raise money for public services, a progressive tax system is based around those with the broadest shoulders paying that bit more.”
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