Hansard

I refer David Whitton to my answer to his first question. It is exactly because we do not have the power to prevent that that we want the financial powers that will mean that we are not beholden in any sense to Her Majesty’s Treasury. I hope that he can make the connection between the thing that he condemns and the thing that he refuses to support.

The issue was a major topic of conversation at the joint ministerial meeting with the devolved Administrations. In terms of justice, we drew the Deputy Prime Minister’s attention to the Danny Alexander quotations put forward by David Whitton on the reversal of the UK Government’s position. I quite agree that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has a lot of explaining to do to reconcile those quotations. We argued as strongly as the other devolved Administrations, which we supported in our joint declaration, but I suppose that the one small consolation is that the penalties for Northern Ireland and Wales are much greater. That is why we gave them such vigorous support.

Incidentally, if we had followed Andy Kerr, if Mr Swinney had paid attention to him and if we had left the EYF balances unused in the Scottish account, the Government and the people would not have lost £23 million; we would have lost £1,500 million to Her Majesty’s Treasury. [Interruption.]