Hansard

This is not my final speech, for which I am very grateful, given the number of distinguished final speeches that we have heard this morning. First of all, I pay tribute to my colleague Duncan McNeil, who not only has been an outstanding convener of the Health and Sport Committee—as I have found out over the past six months—but has made a massive contribution to the Parliament in many other ways.

I also pay tribute to Alex Salmond, who has been a colleague of mine in two Parliaments. Along with his colleagues, he has changed Scottish politics in ways that no one on this side of the chamber could have anticipated in 1999. I am not sure whether or not Annabel Goldie made her last speech this morning, but I also pay tribute to her many political skills, including her friendly respect for opponents.

I have been so obsessed with the block grant adjustment that I am slightly in danger of neglecting the other important parts of the Scotland Bill. Nevertheless, it was central to the whole process. To anyone who does not understand all the fine details, I commend the technical annex, which describes it with admirable clarity.

I mainly want to congratulate the Scottish Government for sticking to its guns, particularly in relation to the indexed per capita deduction method for the block grant adjustment. When I saw that at the SNP conference the First Minister said of the Treasury, “We gubbed them,” I thought that that was not entirely positive for intergovernmental relations, but it is a pretty accurate assessment of the situation.

It might also be courteous to thank the UK Government for being prepared to be flexible, no doubt under duress. I understand that it started by advocating the levels deduction method, which would have been a total disaster for the Parliament; it was then prepared to move to—and I always have to check whether I get this right—tax capacity adjusted levels deduction, which was an improvement and is the fundamental method that is going to be used for the adjustment.

Of course, the UK Government also gave way on the matter for at least five years. I know that Stewart Maxwell and others are concerned about what is going to happen in five years’ time, but the agreement makes it clear that nothing will be prejudged and that both sides must come to an agreement. My view is that so much is going to change in politics over the next five years—by which time we will have all the figures for the two methods—that we should not get too exercised about the matter at the moment.

The main potential area of controversy over the next five years relates to direct spillover effects and behavioural spillover effects with a material impact, which have to be taken into account. As many of those who gave evidence to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee have said, this is a bit of a grey area, but last week, John Swinney made it clear that the Scottish Fiscal Commission as well as the Office for Budget Responsibility will have a role to play in that respect. I hope that that will resolve the matter. We do not need to go over last week’s debate on the Scottish Fiscal Commission, but I am glad about the new role that it will have.

One other area of outstanding concern relates to the publication of documents. John Swinney has said that he would like to publish a range of documents, but given that the Treasury appears to be against that, it would be helpful if, in his summing up, Mr Swinney could explain exactly what documents he has in mind. At the moment, we have the technical annex, which is the most important document, but others are obviously relevant.

I also pay tribute to Bruce Crawford and the work of his committee, which I joined only belatedly, as many of the changes flowed from its recommendations. The permanence of the Scottish Parliament is now more secure in legislation and there has been progress on equalities, particularly with reference to quotas on boards, which we now have undisputed powers to require.

There are also the various social security changes that members have mentioned. For example, there is a new clause in the bill about new benefits in areas of devolved competence, and the fiscal framework agreement says that there is to be no clawback if there is a new benefit in a devolved area. The restriction on competence for carers allowance is removed; what was described as a veto on universal credit flexibilities is now only a matter of timing, which is an improvement; and the restrictions on discretionary housing payments are removed.

There was progress during the passage of the bill, although there is still some concern about what it contains on the Sewel convention, as it does not cover all the strands of that. There are areas—some small and some larger—where people would have liked to go further. A key one, which was flagged up by the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee, is employment. In a previous debate, I said that I wanted the access to work programme to be devolved, but that has not happened.

There is also concern that the amount of money that we are getting for the programmes that we have responsibility for has reduced, because of UK Government policy changes, from £53 million to £7 million. There are disappointments there. As we all know, how much money we get for welfare is governed by how much the UK Government spends on it. As that is reduced, that is a matter of concern.

Having said that, I think that we have many reasons to celebrate both the changes that have been made and many of the proposals that were in the original bill. Today is not really the day to talk about the use of the tax powers. We have disagreements on that—my latest one, as I have said before, relates to air passenger duty—but that is for another day, although probably not for me.

This is probably my last debate with John Swinney, so it is appropriate for me, as he has also been my colleague in two Parliaments, to pay respect to what I regard as his manifest political abilities. As I said in relation to Annabel Goldie, one of those is certainly a friendly respect for opponents.