Public Finances: Scotland

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

Let me add my welcome to this debate this afternoon. A debate on Scottish public spending is important at any time, but it is particularly apposite today, as our colleagues at Holyrood are debating the latest draft Scottish Budget.

I am sure that we will be hearing a lot from SNP members about austerity, even as their counterparts in the Scottish Parliament vote through massive cuts to Scottish local government, while maintaining a council tax freeze which prevents councils from addressing their shortfalls and making use of the new Scottish rate of income tax. Public spending is about choices, and I am proud to be part of a Government who cut tax for over 2.3 million people in Scotland, reducing the tax paid by a typical taxpayer by £825 and taking 290,000 Scots out of paying any income tax at all.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[David Mundell]

I have not started yet. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in due course.

On the motion and the amendment, let me start by reminding the House what the Government are working on in relation to the fiscal framework. We are implementing the Smith commission—a cross-party agreement for the future of Scotland. I am determined to deliver the legislation required to implement the Smith agreement in full. That is why we are negotiating a new fiscal framework agreement for the Scottish Government. That is what the people of Scotland voted for—a stronger Scottish Parliament in a strong United Kingdom. They did not vote for independence. As the SNP’s former adviser Alex Bell has noted,

“the SNP’s model . . . that it was possible to move from the UK to an independent Scotland and keep services at the same level, without either borrowing a lot more or raising taxes”

is “broken”.

We base our position on the principles set out in the all-party Smith agreement. Smith stated that a fiscal framework needed to be agreed—that there should be no detriment at the initial point of devolution, that there should be appropriate indexation to adjust the block grant in future years, that this should be fair to taxpayers across the UK, and that we should address so called “spillover effects”. That means that the Scottish Parliament and Government will take on more economic responsibility and accountability.