LABOUR will today call on David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon to ditch their “arbitrary” Valentine’s Day deadline for a deal to introduce Holyrood’s new tax powers as Treasury chief Greg Hands faces a grilling by MPs.
The Tory Cabinet Minister is to be questioned over the deadlock at the SNP chaired Commons Scottish Affairs Committee shortly before Labour’s Ian Murray rises at the dispatch box to lead the first debate on the fiscal framework, the mechanism to be used to introduce the Scottish Parliament’s new tax and welfare powers.
The Shadow Scottish Secretary will call on both governments to provide full transparency on the negotiations, drop the “blame game” and concentrate all their efforts on securing a deal.
With time fast running out, failure to reach an agreement would lead to rancour and recrimination in the run-in to the main campaign for the May 5 Scottish parliamentary elections. It would also throw the Scotland Bill into constitutional limbo with the powers delayed for at least a year until 2018.
“A deal must be done,” declared Mr Murray ahead of today’s debate. “People across Scotland want politicians to do their job and find an agreement that works so that we can get on with using these powers. Neither the UK nor Scottish Government negotiators should walk away until we have the new powers secured.”
The Edinburgh MP insisted Scots would “not understand that after the negotiation for more powers, this deal could fall apart at the last minute”.
Elsewhere at Westminster, Mr Hands will be cross-examined on the delay that has dogged the negotiations; both governments initially said an agreement would be reached last autumn.
“The clock is ticking in securing a deal on the fiscal framework and we need to probe the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on why there seems to be an impasse,” said Mr Wishart.
“This is the first time that the Government has given direct evidence to a parliamentary committee and it is important we get a sense of what they see as the key issues. With a deadline of February 12 close at hand, we will be seeking assurances from Mr Hands that a deal will be reached in time,” added the Perth MP.
The nub of the problem is how to reduce the £30 billion annual block grant as more powers are introduced at Holyrood. The context is the Smith Commission’s principal recommendation that whatever mechanism is used, there should be “no detriment” to either Scotland or the UK.
John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, leading for the SNP government prefers one option, "per capita indexed deduction", which he believes will safeguard Scotland’s revenue in the years ahead. But Mr Hands, leading for the UK Government, prefers another option, that will prevent UK taxpayers paying over the odds to help fund Scotland’s public services.
After eight meetings, with a ninth pencilled in for next week, the two parties remain at loggerheads.
In a separate development, the STUC swung behind Mr Swinney’s position with Grahame Smith, its General Secretary, saying anything other than the Scottish Government’s preferred option “would be to the severe detriment of future public spending in Scotland”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel