Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateAlan Brown
Main Page: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)Department Debates - View all Alan Brown's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberMinisters meet their counterparts in the devolved Administrations regularly, and on 10 November the Prime Minister and First Ministers met in Blackpool to discuss the economic outlook and working together on the cost of living. The Chancellor of the Exchequer joined that meeting virtually. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury met with Finance Ministers in the context of the autumn statement, and officials in all Departments remain in constant contact in the interests of all of the people across these islands.
We will announce shortly the details of levelling-up bids and freeport bids. But when it comes to delays in implementation and the industrial investment that the west of Scotland needs, I simply and gently draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the divergence between a UK Government who have recently delivered six new warships on the Clyde and the Scottish Government who in the meantime could not even finish painting the windows on a ferry.
We are supposed to be eternally grateful for the £1.5 billion of Barnett consequentials over two years, but that is easily dwarfed by the £1.7 billion of inflationary pressures on the Scottish budget this year. When the Secretary of State discussed with the Scottish Government Scotland’s needs, such as the need to cover that £1.7 billion inflation cut, the additional money for pay and their other spending priorities, did he just ignore what they were saying?
No, we never ignore what the Scottish Government are saying. We have fruitful relationships with Ministers in not just the Scottish but the Welsh Government. I gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that, although he rightly acknowledges the Barnett consequentials—the Union dividend—that the Treasury pays to the people of Scotland, when he talks about inflation, he does not acknowledge that, if we were to follow the Scottish National party’s approach to a separate currency for an independent Scotland, we would see a flight of capital, massive interest rate increases and galloping inflation there. There would be no worse consequence for working people in Scotland than the currency folly that his colleagues put forward.