Meeting of the Parliament 07 October 2015
I absolutely agree that it would take a change of culture. In fact, a lot of the committee’s report is imbued with exactly that. I am not a mind reader as to what the Conservative Government thinks, but I hope that we might hear some of that when they speak next.
I thank the Finance Committee for its report. I was not part of the committee when its members developed the report. It is very robust and I commend the conclusions to the Parliament. I will remind the chamber of what they were. The committee said that
“the workability and effectiveness of further fiscal devolution is largely dependent on Scotland’s revised fiscal framework”.
There is no overestimating how important that is.
There needs to be a willingness to work together between the UK Government and devolved Administrations in a culture of mutual respect. From a parliamentary perspective, there needs to be a culture of openness and transparency when communicating intergovernmental discussions.
It is not appropriate for this to be a dialogue simply between the two Governments; this is a matter for Parliament, too. I concur with the convener’s comments, but I believe that more transparency is required now.
At the moment, Parliament is, relatively speaking, in the dark. The people of Scotland are in the dark, too. The Scottish National Party Government must, as a matter of urgency, draw back that veil of secrecy and get on with developing a robust fiscal framework.
15:14