Hansard

The disrespect that the UK Government regularly displays in its dealings with the Scottish Parliament and Government, and by extension its arrogant dismissal of the democratic voice of the Scottish people, must be resisted.

At the same time as the Tories fall into line to defend a law-breaking Prime Minister, they want to give away more powers to Boris Johnson’s Government. Having disregarded the interests of the Scottish people as they pushed through a destructive Brexit, with its significant loss of trade and freedom of movement, the supine Scots Tories are rolling over yet again in this latest move to undermine our constitutional rights.

Despite there being worked-through plans by the Scottish Government for a Scottish shared prosperity fund that involved local authorities and communities, the UK Government has sought to foist decision making and policy on Scotland with the likes of the Subsidy Control Bill and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, of which the shared prosperity fund is just one small part.

I agree that the issue is not just about the loss of £337 million to multiple areas across Scotland; it is fundamentally about power. Who could not be alarmed by the UK Government, with its paltry six Tory MPs in Scotland—as Christine Grahame pointed out—and with the Tories not having won here since 1959, giving itself explicit powers to directly spend money across Scotland, without a legislative consent motion being agreed to for the 2020 act?

What are other voices saying? The Fraser of Allander Institute, working with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the University of Stirling, said:

“The Internal Market Act can therefore be seen as enabling a range of UK government interventions that bypass not only the Barnett formula but the devolved administrations themselves. Perhaps most significantly, these interventions will include the UK Shared Prosperity Fund”.

When Michael Gove appeared before the Finance and Public Administration Committee in February, I asked him whether he was happy to have created a methodology, without consultation with the Scottish Government, that placed Orkney and Shetland in the lowest category of transport connectivity need, alongside the City of London. His bizarre response, noted in the Official Report, was:

“The conclusion about whether funding has been distributed equitably will come at the end of the process. It is a bit like deciding who the hero or heroine of a play is going to be on the basis of which character appears first and before you know how the play is going to turn out.”

I can well understand Mr Gove viewing his work as being akin to a piece of fiction, but the trouble is that it is actually a farce. It is certainly not grounded in any real understanding of the needs of our communities. He has created a methodology that does not distinguish between the needs of Shetland and those of the City of London. Arguably, that is not unlike Boris Johnson being unable to distinguish between the truth and lies.

When the committee convener raised issues about the involvement of MSPs, frankly, Mr Gove misled the committee. To again quote from the Official Report, he said:

“It is an important requirement that they are consulted”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 February 2022; c 24, 7.]

However, a review of the publication “UK Shared Prosperity Fund: prospectus”, which was published on 13 April, gives a prominent and well-articulated role for MPs but only a flimsy passing mention of MSPs.

Criticism is levied not only by the SNP but by Vaughan Gething, the Minister for Economy in Wales, who describes the prospectus thus:

“While this overall funding package compares relatively favourably to other UK nations, it does not meet the UK Government’s commitment to at least match the size of the EU structural funds Wales has previously and would have qualified for.”

Basically, that means that Wales does badly out of this deal, but not as badly as Scotland.

I therefore ask the minister whether he will consider providing additional guidance to local authorities to ensure that any projects that come forward are compatible with Scotland’s economic strategy, and to require consultation with MSPs alongside consultation with MPs. That is surely the least that we can do. I for one will be insisting on being included in consideration of projects that affect my constituents.

At every step of the way, there has been a failure to respect the distinctive needs of Scotland and a deliberate undermining of the role of the Scottish Parliament. To add insult to injury, a fund has been set up through which a minister in charge of English housing has devised an incompetent methodology for the allocation of funds. Scotland can do so much better than that, but it appears that that will be only as an independent country.