Scottish Government: Expenditure

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take further action on expenditure by the Scottish Government in relation to reserved matters.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made clear, we will continue to work constructively with the Scottish Government in tackling all the shared challenges that we face. However, in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, I am concerned at the decision to appoint a Minister for Independence. The Secretary of State for Scotland’s view is that taxpayers’ money could be spent more wisely on delivery for the people of Scotland and on devolved services.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, since it is absolutely clear that the Minister agrees with me, and I think with this whole House, that the Scottish Government should not be spending UK taxpayers’ money on reserved areas, is it not quite outrageous that they are spending £100,000 on a so-called Minister for Independence to go around the country in a party-political campaign to break up Britain? Even worse, there are 20 United Kingdom civil servants supporting him. Since there is only one body that can do anything about it—that is the UK Government, the Minister and his Secretary of State—when is he going to take some action?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his tenacity on this subject, because I have now been in post for 18 months and this is the sixth Question I have answered for the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, on pretty much the same theme. It is a good theme: what do the UK Government do when they believe that the Scottish Government stray from devolved into reserved matters? We made some progress the last time we spoke in this Chamber; the previous Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, confirmed that he had taken away the £20 million that was going to be spent on the referendum on independence. But then, last week, we had the new head of the Scottish Civil Service, JP Marks, defending the appointment of the Minister for Independence, so we have sort of gone up a ladder and down a snake.

The issue here is that devolution, as devised by the noble Lord’s party, was conceived to be a construct in which the UK and Scottish Governments would work together in unity. It was not envisaged that we would have a situation in which the Scottish Government would seek every opportunity to find division and diversion away from Westminster, and therefore there are no practical levers or mechanics built into the devolution architecture for the UK Government to directly intervene in devolved matters, except through the courts. We already had the ruling in the Supreme Court. The UK Government’s position is to continue to ask the Scottish Government to focus on the real priorities of the people of Scotland and stop this obsession with independence.