Speeches by Murray.

“I have not done so, but the Scotland reserve is agreed with the Scottish Government and the Treasury on an annual basis.”

“The money is still there; it is just re-profiled. It is good news that we are working very hard with partners to make sure that the growth deals that have had to be re-profiled are getting on stream as quickly as possible.”

“It depends who you are—no, I am joking. “Mostly yes and slightly no” is the answer to your question, in that sense. I can use the example of the Ayrshire growth deal, which had to be reprofiled completely with new projects. Therefore, there is obviously still some space in those kinds of growth deals to have a look at …”

“Well, as a Scotland office—this might feed into some questions going into the more general inquiry session later—we have reformulated the whole of the Department into four key priorities: economic growth, green industries, Brand Scotland and poverty. Those are the four key strategies that we are pursuing as a Departmen…”

“We are champing at every Scottish bit.”

“Scotland gets £8.6 million-worth. It is being done in conjunction with the Scottish Football Association, so we get more bang for our buck together. It has a really ambitious programme over the next period of years in order to upgrade multi-pitches and things. Minister McNeill won the keepy-uppy challenge and launched …”

“Well, the Green Book and all the Budget books would show you what is being devolved through the Barnett formula and so on in each Department. This is hugely complicated, but as I understand it, each Government Department either has a 0% score in terms of funding, or a 100% score. A 0% score would be a Department that i…”

“Just generally, Madam Chair, if you do not mind, the reason that the Budget last October had such a significant impact on Scotland was because Scottish MPs from across parties—but particularly within Government—were championing Scotland’s cause, which is why the £4.9 billion figure was so high.”

“It will be updated and published soon after the spending review figures are known. The spending review will be in June, so fairly shortly after that.”

“It is a well-established framework, and there are intergovernmental avenues to this: there is the Finance Interministerial Standing Committee, affectionately known as the F:ISC, where things can be raised; there are the Joint Exchequer Committee structures; there are the fiscal framework renewals; there is the block gr…”

“I see all these things in terms of whether it would be for a purpose, and what would the purpose of putting the Barnett formula on a statutory footing be? It works incredibly well; there is a whole infrastructure around it and a whole infrastructure around intergovernmental relations. If there was a purpose for doing s…”

“I suppose to a certain extent it has objective third-party oversight, on the basis of Parliament, other political parties, and the public in that sense. But it is really important to emphasise that both Governments work very closely together on these issues, and there is a whole intergovernmental structure around them …”

“This is something that was tested at length during the fiscal framework renegotiations back in 2023 and will no doubt continue to be tested. The allocation, in terms of the limits around borrowing, is £3.05 billion on the capital side and £1.8 billion on the resource borrowing side. That works quite well because it is …”

“These, of course, are a challenge. What we are trying to do as a Government is to give a much greater certainty across the funding piece. The spending review that is happening now, which will be published in June, will give the following two years. Given that 2025-26 is already in place, with the following two years, t…”

“The whole Government’s approach is economic stability. I hope that the 30 October Budget—the fiscal event we had last year—gives that stability running through. The spending review process to conclude shortly is part of that certainty for the next two years, and that will be on a rolling two-year basis, so there will a…”

“Again, we are trying to give a much longer horizon to that, but in terms of the two events that have happened so far—the big Budget event in October and the emergency situation that we were met with in July—the Scottish Government were informed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in as timely a fashion as possible. …”

“Again, the Scottish Government were informed as soon as they possibly could be informed. These are decisions that went through the proper structures—the proper democratic structures as well as governmental structures—and the Scottish Government were subsequently informed from that basis. It is dwarfed by the £4.9 billi…”

“Well, look, a Scottish Government Minister appeared before a Committee of the Scottish Government and said they were looking forward to a UK Labour Government bailing them out. They had already set a budget that had a significant financial deficit of somewhere between £700 million and £1 billion; £500 million had been …”

“Well, obviously, this will all be laid out in the spending review, but the financial impact of the decision last week on the Scottish Government budget that has been announced is zero. That has been communicated to the Scottish Government.”

“The numbers will be laid out in the spending review—in fact, some numbers may be laid out in the spring statement in a little over 24 hours’ time—but the current communication to the Scottish Government is that there will be no reduction in their budget up to the end of this current spending round, which is 2025-26.”