LACK OF FUNDING REVIEW ‘AN EXERCISE IN IRRESPONSIBLE POLICY MAKING’

LACK OF FUNDING REVIEW ‘AN EXERCISE IN IRRESPONSIBLE POLICY MAKING’

UK GOVERNMENT DISOWNS CALMAN BEFORE THE INK ON PROPOSALS DRIES

SNP Treasury Spokesperson, Stewart Hosie MP, today (Monday) blasted the UK Government’s legislative programme as ‘an exercise in irresponsible policy making’ as the Prime Minister confirmed he would proceed with a raft of new policy measures but would not undertake a financial review.

Commenting, Mr Hosie said:

“Today’s programme has all the hallmarks of the on the hoof policy making we have come to expect from this Labour Government: it is rushed, ill considered and spun to the media long before it was presented to Parliament.

“Crucially, this initiative is not accompanied by a financial review - the UK Government is refusing to undertake a real consideration of how this programme will actually be funded despite the state of the UK’s finances.

“There is widespread agreement that the UK Government’s funding priorities are all wrong with unnecessary vanity projects such as Trident and ID cards receiving huge amounts of public money while front line services suffer.

“Gordon Brown must reconsider the swingeing cuts to the Scottish Government’s Budget. It beggars belief that he will claim to rearrange funding to protect jobs in the rest of the UK whilst inflicting a £500m cut on Scotland which will endanger 9000 jobs without a second thought.

“If the UK Government was committed to preserving jobs across the UK, they would accelerate funding to the Scottish Government enabling it to invest in and support the Scottish economy – taking forward a range of measures already proven to work instead of throwing cash at his cobbled together legislative programme.”

Commenting on the omission of any mention of the Calman proposals from the draft programme, SNP Constitutional Affairs Spokesperson Pete Wishart MP added:

“Last week, the SNP Scottish Government published the Draft Legislative Orders to implement key proposals from the Calman Report. This week, Gordon Brown has produced a draft legislative programme which does not even mention the recommendations of the Commission he helped set up!

“In drafting these legislative orders, the SNP Scottish Government indicated its clear commitment to working with others to take forward those elements of Calman which are good for Scotland. It would appear the UK Government have abandoned the proposals before the ink was even dry.

“There is only one announcement the country wants to hear: that Gordon Brown is calling a General Election immediately.”