SNP could use Chancellor's spending review billions as Holyrood election war chest

Telegraph

a day ago

Ministers fear that millions of pounds of extra UK taxpayers' cash will be used by the SNP as a war chest in next May's crucial Holyrood election as part of its battle to make Scotland independent.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has announced that more than £50 billion is on its way to Scotland as its share of Treasury largesse, under the Barnett Formula, the system devised 40 years ago by the then Labour government to allocate British assets to the devolved countries.
The system is also known as the 'Union Dividend' because it is designed to prove to citizens of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that they are much better off staying part of the UK.
However, the irony is that the SNP always uses much of this money to pursue its only real policy – that is to break up Britain.
This year's Barnett settlement is actually £9 billion more than had been expected but even at that, the SNP Government claims that it has been 'short-changed' to the tune of over £1 billion over the next three years.
Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary, has warned that this increased block grant – which amounts to record funding for Scotland – would be 'squandered' unless the SNP is defeated and ousted from power in next May's elections to the Scottish Parliament.
Scottish Labour had high hopes of defeating the nationalists in that election, following last July's general election when it won 38 seats from the SNP.
However, a series of unpopular policies introduced by Sir Keir Starmer's government – including the axing of the winter fuel payment and changes to benefit rules – saw John Swinney 's party reversing the situation: so much so that the SNP is ahead in opinion polls and support for independence has risen alarmingly.
And Mr Murray has claimed that an extra £4.9 billion handed to the SNP Government by the Treasury after last autumn's Budget had been squandered with most Scots feeling little benefit.
Especially galling for UK ministers and other Unionists has been the fact that much of the cash had been spent on pay rises with the result that SNP was able to boast that public sector pay was significantly higher in Scotland than in England. It might well be, but only because of Barnett's largesse.
The current fear is that with all this cash sloshing around, SNP ministers will use it for more 'bribes' by way of pay rises to key sectors of the electorate.
So what's to be done? Not, as Nigel Farage and others have suggested, the idea that Barnett should be scrapped as outdated. That is too drastic a step.
Instead, what is required is a much more forensic attack on the SNP budget and its spending commitments to ensure that they are used for the benefit of ordinary Scots and not in pursuit of independence.
The Commons has a role to play in this exercise but the main responsibility lies with the Scottish Parliament.
Time without number this establishment proves itself to be a busted flush – an assembly where there is no fire, no genuine anger at how easily the SNP Government rules the roost.
With less than a year to go before the next election, the opposition – and mostly Unionist – parties must embark on a line by line, clause by clause forensic examination of nationalist spending. And they should make a noise while they're doing it.
It's all too polite among the many easy-lifers at Holyrood. 'Home for their tea by 5pm' is too often the abiding rule by which many of the 129 MSPs exist.
It was thus something of a pleasure to see that the leaders of the Scottish Labour and Conservative parties are up for the fight and are determined to give the First Minister both barrels in the coming weeks and months.
Always assuming the Holyrood presiding officer allows it, of course.