The UK government is being urged to "take responsibility" and cover the £24.5 million cost incurred during recent trips by former President Trump and JD Vance to Scotland, according to a top Holyrood official.
Provisional costs totalling nearly £24.5 million for the pair of official trips have been made public by the Scottish government.
Ivan McKee described the UK government's refusal to provide funding as "absurd," stating that both trips were obviously official, pointing out that the American leader held discussions with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen and UK prime minister Keir Starmer during his July visit in the northern nation.
The former president visited his golf courses at Turnberry in Ayrshire and Menie over a five-day period in July, while American VP Vance spent approximately a long weekend in the Ayrshire region in late summer.
In a formal letter to the Treasury’s chief secretary James Murray, Finance Secretary Shona Robison stated that the visits placed "substantial strains and costs on public services in Scotland, particularly Police Scotland."
The Edinburgh administration calculates that the provisional cost for policing the president's trip alone was £21m, which involved maximum daily assignments of over 4,000 officers, while costs for the VP's visit were approximately £3 million.
This complex policing operation was the biggest in the country since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and included regional police, national divisions, volunteer officers and officers from across the UK for specialist support.
Robison stated: "Following your decision not to offer financial support to the Scottish government for expenses incurred in relation to the visit of President Donald Trump to Scotland in summer 2025 and the subsequent trip of VP JD Vance, I am contacting you to ask that you review this decision and provide full reimbursement for the expense of the trips."
The UK government stated that the visits were private and "not part of official government duties." A representative commented: "The Scottish government are responsible for policing costs in Scotland as per established devolved funding arrangements."
While Robison pointed to past instances where the UK government reimbursed the cost of the president's 2018 trip to Scotland, it is believed that trip came after a formal invitation from Westminster, in which case it covered protection expenses under its statement of funding policy.
"The UK government must take action and cover the cost. I think it’s ridiculous, it was obviously a official trip … Particularly when you have the PM Sir Keir spending time with the president, having press conferences with him, conducting international business with him, its really stretching the bounds of credibility to say this was just a private holiday trip."
