A date has been set for talks in London to resolve the impasse over how the new £2bn Forth road bridge should be funded. However, more differences have emerged ahead of the meeting on January 27, with suggestions that the design of the new crossing should be on the agenda.
A date has been set for talks in London to resolve the impasse over how the new £2bn Forth road bridge should be funded.
However, more differences have emerged ahead of the meeting on January 27, with Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy, who will host the meeting, suggesting the design of the new crossing should be on the agenda, not just the funding mechanism for it.
The Treasury also continues to balk at the principle of the Scottish Government asking for future capital spending to be brought forward to help spread the cost of the project over 20 years, rather than over the five-year construction period.
The Treasury view is this is not the way UK Government departments, which is how the Scottish spending block is considered, receive their funding. "You can't borrow money from yourself from budgets you don't yet have," is how officials put it.
This suggests when Finance Secretary John Swinney leads his team down to meet Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper and her counterparts, the former is likely to receive short shrift. When Ms Cooper originally rebuffed Mr Swinney's 20-year borrowing proposal, her letter included the offer of a meeting.
Now confirmation of the date of that meeting has come, not from her but from Mr Murphy who will host it at the Scotland Office. Mr Murphy wrote: "We are anxious to find a way forward for funding the construction of the Forth road crossing. It is important that this vital transport link is built in the right way, to the right specification and is on time and on budget."
The Scottish Government believes the specification, timescale and budget have already been identified, and aides point out this project is a matter for themselves and the Treasury, with the Scotland Office having no direct locus. However, an aide to Mr Murphy said yesterday the Scotland Office was within its rights to consider any concerns from the business community about the scaling back of the project from having six lanes, plus scope for public transport, to just four lanes.
He added: "This should be very much a meeting with all the cards on the table. We want the right bridge on time and on budget, not a project that ends up too late, too expensive and not fit for purpose given that it's got to last 50 to 60 years."
Scottish ministers say even if they have to fund the whole bridge over the peak construction period of 2013-16 they will do so from current capital budgets via traditional public procurement if need be, but this will put other major projects such as schools, hospitals and roads further down the queue. They also insist capital underspends should not be created now to store up money for those peak years.
A Scottish Government spokesman yesterday said that as the Prime Minister had given the Northern Ireland Assembly borrowing powers to the extent of £2.5bn, there was no possible justification for withholding such borrowing consent from the Scottish Government for such an infrastructure project.
