May 6th: "Don't vote Labour. They'll give concessions to the SNP" May 15th: Cameron offers concessions to the SNP.

David Cameron offers to beef up Scotland bill after Sturgeon meeting

Prime minister confirms he will consider additional proposals to strengthen tax and welfare powers after talks with first minister



David Cameron has offered to strengthen a new bill to give Scotland greater tax and welfare powers after Nicola Sturgeon complained that the draft legislation failed to meet key pledges from the Smith commission.

The first minister said their meeting in Edinburgh on Friday, the first between the two leaders since the general election, had been “constructive and businesslike” after the prime minister confirmed he would consider additional proposals to beef up Holyrood’s tax and welfare powers.

Speaking after the meeting, Cameron told reporters that he would look again at the draft Scotland bill to address cross-party complaints that it failed to honour “the spirit or the substance” of the Smith commission proposals, agreed by the Tories in December. Holyrood’s parties are annoyed the draft bill watered down a promise that Scottish ministers could introduce new benefits or increase existing ones – a criticism which Cameron appears to have accepted.

The prime minister said he could add extra powers going beyond the commission, which gives Scotland nearly full control over income tax, air passenger duty and housing benefit.

He said: “I don’t rule out making sensible changes if sensible changes can be made. I made a commitment that if I was prime minister, I would implement the Smith commission report in full by introducing a Scotland bill in my first Queen’s speech. [It] was an agreement made in Scotland, for Scotland, by Scottish parties.”

Sturgeon has yet to set out which new powers her government plans to ask for and appears to be rowing back on repeated demands during the election campaign for swift and urgent action to give Scotland far greater financial and political autonomy in the UK.

Downing Street sources said no specific powers were set out in her meeting with Cameron, where she offered instead to write to No 10 with a clearer shopping list at a later date.

Speaking after their meeting, Sturgeon told Sky News there were “priority powers, over and above the Smith commission, that we wanted to see devolved”. She said: “So what we are talking about are business taxes, employment legislation, minimum wage and more powers over welfare.”

Crucially, Sturgeon also confirmed that she is delaying further action on introducing far-reaching tax and welfare powers which would take Scotland much closer to full fiscal autonomy until after the new Scotland bill is enacted.

Those powers, known commonly as devo max but renamed full financial responsibility by the SNP, were a key part of the manifesto which helped Sturgeon to a record-breaking landslide victory in the general election, taking 56 of Scotland’s 59 Commons seats.

John McLaren, an economist with the Fiscal Affairs Scotland thinktank, said Sturgeon and her ministers knew that Scotland’s economy was weakening with the recent collapse in North Sea oil prices, making it much harder to raise enough taxes in Scotland to meet its much higher than average public spending without having the Treasury’s financial support.

McLaren said the Scottish government’s own figures showed that Scottish GDP fell last year by £55 per head in cash terms, while the UK’s GDP grew by £1,047 per capita. It was likely to worsen this year with weak oil prices and tax breaks for North Sea operators hitting Scotland’s tax revenues.

Unless it raised taxes in Scotland to fund new welfare powers, Sturgeon’s government would need to consider extra borrowing to cover additional spending – an issue not yet under discussion – and get UK government agreement to amend the new Universal Credit welfare system.

“This is all very vague, post-Smith,” McLaren said. “The most obvious way forward is for the UK government to say you can borrow more up to a point, but not to put the UK’s position at risk. No one has defined what a sensible level of borrowing would be.”

Sturgeon’s concession that she accepts the UK government’s timetable follows her claims in the Scottish parliament on Wednesday that the Smith commission process could be delayed when she suggested a new public review could be held.

“They must now agree with us a process that looks again at the Smith commission proposals, with a view to extending devolution even further,” she told MSPs in a keynote speech about her meeting with Cameron. “That must be a process that is made in Scotland – and one that involves wider Scottish society.”

That process was not raised at her meeting with Cameron and she confirmed afterwards that she accepted the UK government’s timetable on introducing the new powers. “We undoubtedly will lay down amendments to the Scotland Act [sic],” she said.

“What I’m hoping, though, is by time we get to the stage where the Scotland Act has been amended, we might have made progress between the Scottish government and the UK government and have agreed further ways in which we can go beyond Smith now. It remains to be seen whether we can do that.”

Sturgeon admitted that reaching full financial responsibility, or fiscal autonomy, would take some years. She said: “I want Scotland to be as empowered as possible in that respect. But, you know, I recognise even if there was an agreement, which there’s not just now, to move to full fiscal autonomy, that would take time to do.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/15/cameron-consider-beefing-up-bill-scotland-welfare-tax-powers-sturgeon

I'm simply amazed that so many people fell for the Tory spin machine.

They say Hitler would not have been able to manipulate people as he did in this day and age. They are wrong, with the help of the media he would have done it faster.

Looks to me very much like Sturgon is The one doing the manipulating, pretending to work for the Scottish people but really working for the EU and helping them in their plans to break up the UK...

You are a card Tommy, only you could come out with that load of .......!

But you know it's true...

Why are we so desperate to keep Scotland in the UK? I think we would be better off without them.

So, hes changing a DRAFT...note that draft....bill tomake it agree with the Smith commision report,,,



and your point is???

of course once the SNP have control over tax and spending they can no longer claim it is the tories causing austerity.
the SNP withheld around £½billion from the government grant.

risingsun wrote:They say Hitler would not have been able to manipulate people as he did in this day and age.   They are wrong, with the help of the media he would have done it faster.

you are right, the SNP have managed to manipulate scotland exceedingly well, along with the intimidation of course, Very brownshirt.

thank god we did not end up with this in power though



socialism and nationalism what on earth could have gone wrong there

nicko wrote:Why are we so desperate to keep Scotland in the UK?    I think we would be better off without them.

Well Cameron seems to be desperate to hold onto Scotland, and it's not because the tories would lose votes without Scotland.

I don't really see the point of having all these separate laws and policies - they might as well be independent really.

Raggamuffin wrote:

nicko wrote:Why are we so desperate to keep Scotland in the UK?    I think we would be better off without them.

Well Cameron seems to be desperate to hold onto Scotland, and it's not because the tories would lose votes without Scotland.

I don't really see the point of having all these separate laws and policies - they might as well be independent really.

the whole problem was caused by the blair government and their rush to devolution. not a single one of them saw the obvious consequence would be a demand for independence.
cameron could play a blinder and cut the legs from under the SNP and independence by allowing the SNP to actually have to raise its own taxes and set its own spending. Once people are getting hit in the wallet and austerity up there carries on for longer they may not be so keep to re-elect them and the independence movement will wither on the vine.
the SNP are opportunists who may well now be held to account. Of course if they start voting on matters that purely affect england then they will strengthen the case for #EV4EL.
The last thing we need is an english parliament to increase spending and waffle, what we really need is to get rid of the devolved parliaments and the massive outlay in spending and expense they incur.
We have a parliament for the UK, it is in westminster.


We cannot have the tail wagging the dog

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Well Cameron seems to be desperate to hold onto Scotland, and it's not because the tories would lose votes without Scotland.

I don't really see the point of having all these separate laws and policies - they might as well be independent really.

the whole problem was caused by the blair government and their rush to devolution. not a single one of them saw the obvious consequence would be a demand for independence.
cameron could play a blinder and cut the legs from under the SNP and independence by allowing the SNP to actually have to raise its own taxes and set its own spending. Once people are getting hit in the wallet and austerity up there carries on for longer they may not be so keep to re-elect them and the independence movement will wither on the vine.
the SNP are opportunists who may well now be held to account. Of course if they start voting on matters that purely affect england then they will strengthen the case for #EV4EL.
The last thing we need is an english parliament to increase spending and waffle, what we really need is to get rid of the devolved parliaments and the massive outlay in spending and expense they incur.
We have a parliament for the UK, it is in westminster.


We cannot have the tail wagging the dog

Yes - either Scotland is part of the UK or it isn't. All these separate parliaments make the UK a bit pointless really.