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Scotland Bill: SNP urged to do a deal on new devolution funding settlement for Holyrood

David Mundell said the Scottish people would not forgive either government if they walked away from the negotiating table

Chris Green
Scotland Editor
Thursday 04 February 2016 20:06 GMT
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The Scotland Secretary has urged SNP ministers to do a deal on a new devolution funding settlement for Holyrood next week, warning that if negotiations collapse then the Scottish Government would have turned down “a mountain of powers” due to a “molehill of risks”.

Piling the pressure on Nicola Sturgeon to agree to the financial arrangements underpinning the Scotland Bill, David Mundell said the Scottish people would not forgive either government if they walked away from the negotiating table.

The Scottish Government has said an agreement must be reached before Valentine’s Day to allow MSPs adequate time to scrutinise the Scotland Bill, threatening to pull the plug on the legislation by vetoing its progression through Holyrood if a fair deal cannot be found.

However, Mr Mundell told journalists at a briefing in Edinburgh that this deadline was “illogical” as both the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments were in recess the week afterwards. If an agreement was not reached by the 14th then negotiations would continue, he indicated.

Ms Sturgeon has warned that Scotland stands to lose billions of pounds over the next few years under the Treasury’s proposals, but Mr Mundell said the SNP was adopting a “having your cake and eating it” negotiating stance. Ministers must be prepared to take on the risks that came with the new powers, he added.

“I just don’t think the people of Scotland would forgive either government if they walked away from this agreement,” he said. “[It would] mean that this significant package of powers – additional powers that people made clear that they wanted during the referendum campaign – would be set aside. You would effectively be setting aside a mountain of powers because of the Scottish Government’s aversion to what is really a molehill of risks.”

Although he refused to put a figure on the amount of risk that the Scottish Government was taking on, he said it was not “remotely close” to the £10bn financial hole that would have been created if the country had embraced full fiscal autonomy as the SNP wished.

The Scotland Secretary added that to show its willingness to do a deal, the UK Government had agreed for the fiscal framework to be reviewed “after a number of years” to ensure that it was working fairly and effectively for Scotland and the rest of the country. Talks are due to resume in the Scottish capital on Monday.

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