Devolved Authorities: Expenditure outwith Competences Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Goldie
Main Page: Baroness Goldie (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Goldie's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberI know there are strong feelings about this, and people in Scotland want both their Governments to concentrate on the issues that matter most to them: growing the economy, gripping inflation and improving public services. On the point about timing, as I said, the Government only recently, on 24 January, responded to the committee’s inquiry, reiterating the work that is under way. I am delighted that the Cabinet Secretary is back; these issues are being given active consideration.
Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, as Scotland’s educational standards decline, its NHS faces acute challenges—not least the recruitment of consultants—and ferries languish in a Scottish government shipyard, overpriced, overdue and much needed by the operators, the response of the Scottish Government, not only to spend money on completely illegitimate and incompetent objectives, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, but to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, is, in the face of these challenges, as incomprehensible as it is regrettable?
I agree with much of my noble friend’s sentiment, and that the Civil Service should not carry out political work. It has its own Civil Service Code, which replicates the Civil Service Code that is operated across the UK, and it should pursue the priority items that people care about.