Overview
- Finance Secretary Shona Robison has formally asked Treasury Chief Secretary James Murray to reimburse about £26 million for policing and security linked to the summer visits.
- Provisional figures put policing for the president’s trip at about £21 million with peak daily deployments above 4,000 officers, and the vice-president’s visit at roughly £3 million to £6 million.
- The UK government maintains Scotland must meet the costs because the trips were not official UK government business under devolved funding arrangements.
- Scottish ministers say the visits carried diplomatic weight, pointing to meetings in Scotland involving the prime minister, the first minister and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
- Edinburgh cites UK reimbursement for the 2018 Trump Scotland trip as precedent, warns non-payment would strain devolved budgets and Police Scotland, and says negotiations are ongoing.