Why UK and Scottish Governments must 'step up' on devolution
In a long-running devolution row, the SNP councillor said she was 'disappointed' by the letter, accusing the Scottish Secretary of suggesting the 'UK Government has no role in delivering deals for Scottish cities'.
'This is a misguided regression from what, up until now, had been a shared commitment to successful tripartite collaboration between two governments and the collective democratic leadership of the City Region,' Ms Aitken said.
However, she said: 'Glasgow – and Edinburgh, for that matter – needs both of our governments to step up on devolution.'
Read more:
The back and forth comes after Ms Aitken raised concerns that Scotland's largest city had been sidelined by the Chancellor's spending review in June.
The Treasury confirmed a £160 million Investment Zone in the Glasgow Region and £20m for Trailblazer Communities, but Ms Aitken argued it fell short of the funding offered to English counterparts.
Ms Aitken said Rachel Reeves took a "retrograde" step for devolution by expanding a scheme that allowed city regions in England to bypass applying for individual grants through competitive bidding processes.
The designated areas instead will receive long-term funding to make their own investment decisions.
Glasgow, meanwhile, must bid for funding alongside other parts of the UK.
Mr Murray had argued that devolution in Scotland was entirely "a matter for the Scottish Government".
However, he said the UK Government wanted to work together to "unlock the same levels of growth as your English counterparts in Greater Manchester" and offered to draft a joint letter to Mr Swinney.
The Glasgow City Council leader said she was 'happy' to take up the Scottish Secretary's offer to write jointly to the First Minister.
However, she said any letter must also be addressed to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the Chancellor, Ms Reeves.
Read more:
Writing for The Herald, Ms Aitken said: 'The vast majority of the powers to be devolved are, indeed, in the gift of the Scottish Government – and I've made no secret of my view that they need to put more pace behind commitments to empower Scotland's city regions.
'However, the devolution of powers without funding would still leave city regions in all of our devolved nations without the economic tools available to our English counterparts.'
Ms Aitken said that equivalent funding outlined for English regions has not resulted in any additional cash for Scotland, adding: 'Therefore, it is clear that the resourcing of any devolution deal remains the responsibility of the UK Government.'
In his letter to the council leader, Mr Murray said: 'We are always open to constructive discussions with the Scottish Government to reverse its centralisation policy and devolve powers to our cities and regions.'
The announcement from last month's spending review means that almost 40% of England's population will now have local control over the integrated settlement funding.
London, the North East, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Liverpool City region were added to the scheme, joining the original arrangements in Greater Manchester and West Midlands.
In her response to Mr Murray, Ms Aitken said that leaders of the UK Core Cities have combined to urge the UK Government to provide 'parity' in funding for Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh.
'They agree that we are being disadvantaged and that the recent UK Spending Review was a missed opportunity to begin to address that inequity,' she said.
The Scottish Government previously told The Herald it was looking at ways to devolve further powers to cities including Glasgow. But Secretary Shona Robison said the spending review 'short-changed' Scotland.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'Councils play a crucial role in our communities which is why we jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to ensure communities have greater control and influence over decisions that affect them most.
'We are also committed to working with local authorities to deliver greater regional empowerment on decision making and investment and are working with partners to explore ways of devolving further powers to Regional Economic Partnerships, including Glasgow City Region.
'The Scottish Government has delivered a wide range of fiscal powers for local councils including greater powers within planning, parking charges, workplace parking and in Council Tax, being able to charge up to 100% on second and long term empty homes. In addition, the two-year local government pay offer, accepted by trade unions last week, will see all workers getting the pay they deserve over the summer.'
A UK Government spokesperson said: "The UK government has delivered record funding for the Scottish government with an additional £9.1 billion in Barnett consequentials over the next four years, this includes an additional £380m as a result of plans for housing, communities and local government in England.
"On top of this the UK Government is also investing £1.7 billion in local projects across Scotland. We are pleased Councillor Aitken recognises that the powers that need to be devolved to city regions sit with Holyrood, and the Secretary of State for Scotland is looking forward to working with her to reverse an agenda of centralisation of both power and funding which has unfortunately been a hallmark of recent Scottish Government policy."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
35 minutes ago
- The National
Flynn: Farage wrecked UK and threatens Aberdeen's future
Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the SNP Westminster leader said it was astonishing that Farage, who was central to the Brexit campaign, has faced no accountability for the damage done. 'Finances are in a mess and the politicians are lost as to how you get out of that particular mess,' Flynn said. 'And yet the guy who orchestrated it … doesn't have to face the consequences of the economic damage that Brexit has done to the UK.' READ MORE: UK Government facing legal action over refusal of medical evacuations from Gaza Flynn was clear about the scale of the crisis: 'It has made us smaller and it has made us poorer.' He urged Labour to take a stronger stance against Farage, saying: 'If the Labour Party want to defeat Nigel Farage, they need to accept the premise that Brexit has been a disaster.' Realigning with the EU, Flynn argued, is the best route to economic recovery. 'The best way to grow the economy and to get our public finances in a fit state is to realign our relationship with the European Union.' Flynn also addressed Reform UK's impact on recent elections, pointing to their 26% share in the Hamilton by-election. But he rejected the idea that Reform is eating into SNP support. 'The SNP vote in that election reflected what national polling would suggest,' he said. 'It's the Conservatives and the Labour Party who are feeling it.' READ MORE: When 'critical friends' fall out: Angus Robertson's Israel meeting details revealed Taking aim at Farage's recent attacks on Scotland's renewables, Flynn said: 'The best way to take Nigel Farage on is to deal in the facts with him, to say to him 'if you are going to come after Scotland, you are putting at risk tens of thousands of jobs'. "You're going to leave cities like mine [Aberdeen] looking like Detroit in 30 years' time, rather than an expansive, future-looking city which exports its skills and expertise across the globe.' 'He wants to sabotage our renewable future to serve his own ideology, and whilst doing so, doesn't have to face any of the consequences for decisions he's made in relation to collapsing the UK's economy with Brexit."
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Why Reeves should sell her bitcoin hoards
Deep fried prawn balls, chicken chow mein, crispy shredded beef and a Ponzi scheme could be about to win the Chancellor a decent chunk of her headroom back. As Rachel Reeves starts sketching out her autumn Budget, most of the focus has been on the tax hikes she'll need if she's serious about sticking to the 'ironclad' fiscal rules she recommitted to just last week. Economists reckon the wafer-thin £9.9 billion margin she left herself at the Spring Statement has already been wiped out and that she's now staring down a black hole of over £20 billion. So it was a relief to read this morning that the Treasury isn't relying solely on tax rises and has discovered a rather large stash of money down the back of the government sofa. According to The Telegraph, the government is developing a system to allow police forces and the National Crime Agency to sell more than £5 billion crypto assets seized in recent years We don't know the total amount of confiscated crypto the state is sitting on but one seizure in 2018 took in 61,000 bitcoin. If sold today, it would bring in some £5.4 billion – more than triple the culture budget and twenty times its value on the day the police got their hands on it. Jian Wen, who worked in a chinese takeaway, was convicted of laundering money – and her bitcoin seized – from a crypto scam carried out in China when she went from a life living in 'shabby Chinese restaurants' to putting cash offers on £24 million pound houses in Hampstead and villas in Tuscany. Victims of that Wen's ponzi scheme will be entitled to any proceeds of the sell off but experts are confident that enough of them will be untraceable that the Treasury can scoop up the rest and use it to start plugging the black hole. Of course, if Reeves does press 'sell', she will be accused of 'pulling a Gordon Brown', and selling the gold. Bitcoin is already up nearly 20 per cent this year and on current trajectories the Wen haul could be worth over £200 billion in 20 years. But she'd be wise to ignore those voices. Sure, crypto probably will rise. But given it has no fundamental value it might nosedive too. And the state simply can't afford to gamble on highly volatile assets when the public finances are in the mess they are in. So if this really is the plan, the Chancellor should act fast, take the money, and resist the temptation to hold. If all goes well she can treat herself to a Chinese.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Landmark ruling on trans women by U.K.'s top court sparks heartbreak and confusion
LONDON — Soccer fans know it as 'hallowed ground,' so when Billie Sky Walker walked onto the field at London's Wembley Stadium two years ago, she achieved a dream held by players around the world. Before a Community Shield men's match between Manchester City and Arsenal in August 2023, she proudly donned an official shirt as a representative of the Football Association, the regulatory body for soccer in England, that read, 'The FA is for all. ' Today, the 28-year-old is barred from playing in FA-organized tournaments following a landmark judgment by Britain's Supreme Court in April that said the legal definition of 'woman' is based on biological sex — a huge blow to campaigners for transgender rights that could have far-reaching implications for a wide range of life in the U.K., be it admission to changing rooms, and decisions on hospital beds, equal pay claims and domestic violence shelters. After the judgment, a number of sporting governing bodies, including the FA, changed their rules so that only those born biologically female are allowed to play, excluding Walker and 28 other transgender players across England from the association. The Scottish Football Association followed suit, and Northern Ireland's Irish Football Association appears likely to do the same. Describing the ruling as 'confusing and upsetting,' Walker said she had been welcomed 'into this space' by her cisgender peers, or biological women. Calling the decision to bar Walker 'heartbreaking,' her former teammate Lucy Leiter, 24, said it was not the case that 'only trans women think they should play,' adding, 'The support has been unequivocal from everyone I've ever played with.' Walker, who said she felt that she was a girl from the age of 5 and transitioned at the age of 24, said that playing soccer on a women's team 'really established a huge essence of who I am, because it gave me the safety and comfort and knowledge that I'm enough.' Intense debate The Supreme Court ruling came amid intense and sometimes toxic public debate in the U.K. over the intersection of transgender and women's rights. The debate has also simmered in the U.S., where President Donald Trump has made it one of his signature issues by signing an executive order in February banning trans women from women's sports at the national level. In December 2022, Scottish lawmakers approved a bill that allowed anyone over the age of 16 to change their gender identity using gender certificates, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the medical term for the distress that results from the conflict between someone's gender identity and sex assigned at birth. The campaign group For Women Scotland later brought a legal case against the semiautonomous government, arguing that sex-based protections should apply only to people who were born female. And Britain's central government blocked the law the following year, invoking for the first time a section of the 25-year-old act that gave the Scottish Parliament control over most of its own affairs. The For Women Scotland case nonetheless worked its way through the court system, reaching the Supreme Court this spring. After the court's 12 justices ruled unanimously in the group's favor, the presiding judge, Lord Hodge, said the decision should not be seen as 'a triumph of one side over the other,' and emphasized that transgender people remain protected under the law. For Women Scotland campaigners celebrated the verdict with hugs, tears of happiness, and champagne as they left the courtroom. 'There was elation and disbelief and, yes, I was absolutely thrilled,' Susan Smith, one of the group's co-founders, told NBC News in a telephone interview last month. 'If people were entitled to say that their sex in law had changed, you can't control who applies for that.' For Smith and her group, the issue of legal gender recognition touches on who gets to make decisions about women's lives and bodies, including their access to spaces from hospital wards to rape crisis centers and prisons.
