Parliament debate: Her Majesty’s Government (Relations)

Linda spoke in the debate on 27 May:

“I welcome the respect agenda that is being talked about in relation to relationships between our Government and the UK Government, and I trust that the joint ministerial committee system will now work with an ethos of mutual respect for ministers of all Administrations. Unfortunately, the concordat agreements for JMCs had been allowed to collect dust in the first years of devolution, with only the Europe JMC being active—and I use that term loosely—when the SNP formed the Government in 2007. I was pleased to see that, after much work by this and the other devolved Administrations, a revised memorandum of understanding was agreed in March 2010, with dispute resolution aspects extending to financial issues. That is extremely important, particularly now, when we are considering the implementation of recommendations from the Commission on Scottish Devolution…

“On the financial aspects of the Calman plan, I have serious concerns about the taxation proposals, which many people have also expressed in this chamber and elsewhere.

“I note that Wendy Alexander commented on television on Tuesday evening that the taxation proposal in the Calman report was made by

“the most eminent economists in Scotland”.

“That intrigued me because nowhere in either of the reports that were made to Calman by the independent expert group can I find the proposal to devolve income tax and adjust the block grant along the lines that Calman finally came up with.

“Certainly, the general principle of assigned taxes was discussed and reported on by the group, but the proposition of the 10p variable rate and the block grant adjustment was not dealt with. I hope that the Labour group can clear that matter up for us today and point us to the publication in which

“the most eminent economists in Scotland”

made that particular proposal, or where we might find it in the public record. Indeed, in his paper, which was jointly produced with Professor Scott, Professor Hughes-Hallett, who actually sat on the expert panel for Calman, stated that the then UK Government’s proposals were “defective in economic terms” and were likely to create

“key instabilities in the budgetary arrangements of Scotland’s government with significant ramifications for the delivery of public goods and services”.

“Surely there is no one here today who wishes to implement proposals, in a carte-blanche manner, that are likely to create “key instabilities” at this time and which could adversely affect the delivery of public services, beyond the cuts in budgets that we are all facing. Scotland’s Government is committed to the protection of the vulnerable and to creating a fairer society. A more buoyant economy is crucial to all of that, and the deficiencies within the current Calman proposals would hamstring the Scottish Government’s ability to advance economic growth and truly address the needs of our citizens.

“Fiscal independence, fiscal autonomy, fiscal responsibility, additional financial powers—whatever the terminology, the actuality requires much deeper discussion. There is no time to go into all of the examples of matters that should be discussed further, but among them are the potential effect of raising the income tax threshold, as mentioned in the Liberal Democrat amendment, and the inability to use short-term borrowing to fund unanticipated shortfalls in income tax—I point out that those income tax revenues would, after all, be subject to prediction.

“There are many more potential pitfalls and concerns…That is why mutual respect between the Westminster and the Scottish Parliaments and Governments is crucial. If in this Parliament we start to work together for Scotland’s benefit and have mutual respect among ourselves, today’s debate will surely have been worthwhile indeed.”

Read the full debate at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor0527-01.htm