Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beith's debates with the Scotland Office
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Carmichael
There are many, many things for which the Scottish Government should apologise and I suspect that in the event that these apologies ever start coming, the right hon. Gentleman and I will not be at the top of the list to receive them. He is right, though, to point out that the freeze on council tax has caused real difficulties for many local authorities in Scotland, which will be outraged to see the size of the Scottish Government’s underspend this year.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
8. What discussions he has had with Scottish Government Ministers on the co-ordination of programmes to dual the A1.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
The provision of road transport in Scotland is a devolved matter. Department for Transport Ministers did, however, offer to work with Transport Scotland on a joint feasibility study on dualling the A1. The Scottish Government chose not to take up that offer.
Sir Alan Beith
Now that this coalition Government have committed £290 million to dualling the A1 on the English side of the border, should not the SNP Government in Scotland bring forward plans to dual remaining single carriageway sections on the Scottish side of the border?
David Mundell
I agree with my right hon. Friend. He may be aware that my colleague John Lamont MSP has been making exactly that call.