Treasury Spending: Grants to Devolved Institutions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

That is amazing from a Member of the party that brought about the collapse in the financial markets, which is why we have had to have good governance of our finances in this country—to deal with the mess left behind by Labour.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

rose—

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[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

In her opening speech, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) made a number of assertions about spending in Scotland, and I want to refute a few of those. By 2020—these are facts available from the House of Commons Library, as she quoted—the block grant will have grown to over £31.1 billion, which is a real-terms increase over the spending review period. In the 2018-19 financial year, the devolved Administration’s budget will increase by £500 million. Capital will increase by £566 million—£273 million of which is financial transactions, which I will come back to—and there will have been an overall increase of 17% since 2015-16.

The hon. Lady talked about financial transactions. She said that they were not real money and that they could not be spent on real things. That is interesting, because we took a look at the latest draft budget for 2018-19 and the SNP is planning to use £489 million of financial transactions. The funding includes the following: £40 million for the higher education budget, including innovation, low carbon and energy; £68.5 million for Scottish Enterprise; £26.5 million for the energy budget; and most importantly and specifically, since she talked about housing, £221.3 million for housing programmes, including the Help to Buy scheme and the open market shared equity scheme. If she was being truthful and saying that this money is not real and has to go back, has she told everyone back home?

The hon. Lady also talked about farmers. My constituency being predominantly a rural constituency, I speak to farmers every week, and I can say that under the SNP they have not received the support they need. The IT system does not work, they have not had the right rural funding and, to top it off, they now face record levels of farmers debt. That is the legacy of the SNP Administration in Scotland.

[Pete Wishart]

On financial issues, will the hon. Gentleman explain from who the Scottish Conservatives got the £390,000 donated to them over the past few years? It was from a group called the Scottish Unionist Association Trust, which supports his hon. Friends. Where are their addresses, who are their registered shareholders, and are they registered with the Electoral Commission?

[Luke Graham]

This debate is about devolved funding for our constituents. If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about that, he should go somewhere else.

We have just ascertained in the Chamber that Scotland has received more money from the UK Government. It is now important to look at how it is actually spent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) said, about one third of the 2018-19 budget went on health and sport, but one of the next biggest areas of funding is finance and the constitution, where 11.8% of the budget is being spent. Now, finance and the constitution are all perfectly fine and important things, if they want to make those choices, but it is more relevant when we consider the percentage of spending that goes on education and skills, which is 8.4%. The No. 1 priority for the SNP Administration only gets 8.4% of the funding, versus the—wait for it—12.4% from the Westminster Government that goes on education and skills.

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[Patrick Grady]

Precisely. If we want to talk about wasting public expenditure, we have only to look up the corridor.

The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) was quoting from his Whip’s note about what financial transactions money was being spent on, but he neglected to say, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North pointed out at the very start, is that financial transactions money has to be paid back, so it is not money that the Scottish Government have the kind of discretion over that they need and deserve.

The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) is not in the best position to lecture us about the payroll vote. We salute the fact that he holds a place of greater esteem on the Government Benches than his hon. Friends, but I want to take him back to my modern studies class at the Inverness Royal Academy way back in 1996 and 1997 where we talked about why funding per head is greater in Scotland than in the other parts of the United Kingdom. There are two good reasons, as some of the Scottish Conservatives should know. First, we have higher costs on account of having large rural areas that need to be served. Secondly, the figures are for identifiable public expenditure, and we all know that the vast amount of unidentifiable public expenditure is spent here in the south-east of England in London on Departments and large-scale infrastructure projects that are of no benefit whatsoever to the people of Scotland.

The name that allowed me to tick off my Scottish Tory bingo sheet was that of the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). He said that Scotland is the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, which everybody was delighted to hear. Perhaps the Scottish Tories at the Hurlingham Club Tory summer ball last night were weeping into their warm prosecco over the leadership plots and the fact that they now have to pay, like all SNP Members, an extra 60p a month because tax is going up in Scotland. For what we get in Scotland, such as free prescriptions, more bobbies on the beat, investment in education, free tuition and mitigation of the Tory bedroom tax, I think that that is pretty good value for money. In addition, everyone in Scotland earning less than £33,000 a year, which includes squaddies, nurses and teachers at the start of their careers, is paying less. That is the simple fact of the effect of the Scottish Government’s budget, so we do not need to hear any more about that.

As this is an estimates debate, I want to reflect on a couple of points about how spending decisions are made in Scotland once the grant has been agreed and the tax revenue collected. As Members who have previously served in the Scottish Parliament will know, we have an open and full legislative process to agree Government spending during which Members can make suggestions. The Opposition parties in Scotland are good at explaining the things on which they would like more to be spent, but they are not so good at explaining where they think cuts should come from or what should be reduced. Nevertheless, they have the opportunity.

[Pete Wishart]

The one thing that the Scottish Tories did not want to talk about is where they are in control in Scotland. They are in control in Perth and Kinross Council, where they are closing schools and depriving leisure facilities of hard-earned money. That is the reality of the Tories in power. A Tory vote is not consequence free.

[Patrick Grady]

There is no danger of a penalty shoot-out this evening; the goals are quite clearly being scored by Members on this side of the House.

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[Elizabeth Truss]

I can indeed confirm that the money allocated by the UK Government to the Stirling and Clackmannanshire deal is £45.1 million. I thank my hon. Friend for his hard work on that deal. I will be looking at the issues across Government to make sure that we deliver these deals in the best possible way to deliver real value for local communities. That is what MPs have been campaigning for and I will look into that very carefully.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the Chief Secretary tell us when the Tay cities deal is finally going to be agreed and concluded? Will she confirm that the UK Government will match the funds that the Scottish Government supply to that deal?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have already had some discussions about the Tay cities deal with the Secretary of State for Scotland, and we will look at the details. We constantly have to make sure that every piece of Government spending has the best possible value for money. It was significant that in the speeches from SNP Members we heard nothing about value for money or the fact that taxpayers pay for spending.