SNP MOVE TO IMPROVE SCOTLAND BILL

For Immediate Release – Thursday 27 February 2011



Attn: NEWS DESKS


POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS


JOB CREATING POWERS ESSENTIAL

The SNP is seeking to improve and strengthen the Scotland Bill to help make the Scottish Parliament more accountable and boost Scotland's economy, as the Bill reaches its second reading in the House of Commons today (Thursday). The party will, in particular, focus on
securing job creating powers for the Scottish Parliament.


Arguing the SNP’s reasoned amendment to the Bill, SNP Constitutional Affairs spokesperson Pete Wishart MP warned that the proposals, as they stood, were incomplete. And, while welcoming the additional powers where there is a consensus for change, Mr Wishart argued that Scotland needed more powers to create jobs and deserves more than a demand from Westminster to sign a blank cheque for implementation costs of the tax measures.


Mr Wishart said:

“If a job is worth doing, its worth doing properly but as it currently stands the Scotland Bill is a job badly done. This will be a wasted opportunity unless we improve the Bill so that it delivers real benefits for people in Scotland.


“The biggest problem is that the UK Government has failed to address the flaws in the income tax proposals that would have left Scotland £8bn worse-off had they been in place over the last 10 years. This would have cost Scotland thousands of jobs – the Scotland Bill as it stands threatens jobs in Scotland.


“Scotland needs full financial responsibility to boost our recovery, invest in our public services and support long-term sustainable growth. This Bill falls far short of that - it is 'Calman Minus' which threatens to short-change Scotland.

“The fiscal powers are far too limited, and for the sake of Scotland's economy and public services the Bill needs to be strengthened – either by the Scottish Parliament or the people.


“There are some parts of the Bill that we welcome, where there is a consensus for change which the Scottish Government has been leading - such as devolution of control over air guns, speed limits, and borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament, albeit they’re too limited.


“A big unanswered question is why the Scottish Parliament is being asked to sign a blank cheque, with the Westminster Government expecting Scotland to pay for the very limited extra powers.



“There is a better way for Scotland than the dismal decade of cuts coming from London. With real financial responsibility we can make Scotland better and our economy stronger.”


ENDS

Note:


The text of the SNP reasoned amendment is set out below:


SCOTLAND Second Reading BILL:


That this House, while recognising the need to further enhance the powers of the Scottish Parliament, nevertheless believes that the measures the Scotland Bill seeks to devolve are inadequate to meet the ambitions of the Scottish Government for the people of Scotland;

considers the measures relating to air weapons, road safety and drink driving to be incomplete; regrets that the Calman Commission’s recommendations to devolve the aggregates levy and air passenger duty, and to devolve responsibility for the marine environment to match the
Scottish Parliament’s responsibility for fisheries, as well as its proposal for a Scottish role in welfare benefits, have all been abandoned; regards the proposals for the Crown Estates Commission as inadequate; deplores the proposals in the Bill to re-reserve already

devolved responsibilities; concludes that the tax varying provisions would embed a long-term deflationary bias in Scotland’s budget and that the proposed borrowing powers remaining subject to HM Treasury controls and limits render them insufficiently flexible; and therefore

considers the Bill as a whole to be unacceptable.