BY THE time this column is published, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have delivered her historic first budget.

While I am not privy to the details as I write this column, I do know that it will have been a moment of reset for the country and the start of the hard work needed to fix the foundations of the economy.

After years of mismanagement of the public finances from the Tories and the SNP, the new Government inherited a £22 billion in-year black hole. Tory ministers had spent the year’s Treasury reserves three times’ over in only three months. Just 18 months on from crashing the economy, they were ready to do it all over again.

The budget will herald an era of growth for Scotland, as well as the whole of the UK. While Labour starts work on cleaning up 14 years of Tory mess, the SNP have created a financial mess of their own, having wasted £5 billion over their 17 years in office.

Critically, the Scottish Government must ensure any additional funding for public services reaches the frontline, to help bring down waiting lists in the NHS and raise attainment in our schools – it must not simply be used to plug the gaps created by their numerous failings.

On a related issue, I was in Dublin last week addressing the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce and meeting with my Irish counterpart. Four out of five of the UK’s largest trading partners are within the EU and Ireland is one of them. In fact, Ireland is now our fifth-largest trading partner, accounting for about 100 billion euros of trade each year and supporting 700,000 jobs in our two countries.

The figures underline the critical importance of our relationship with our nearest trading partner and my visit was part of the Government’s plans for resetting our trade relationship with Ireland by putting partnership front and centre.