Good evening! This week it has been confirmed there IS an investigation going on into the Scottish Government's spending on a Minister for Independence and Keir Starmer is facing quite the backlash from his own party.
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Indy spending under the microscope
There had been a huge amount of confusion over whether the Tory UK Government was investigating Scottish Government spending on a Minister for Independence, but it has now been confirmed there IS a probe happening.
Earlier this month, chaos seemed to be surrounding the story as Labour peer George Foulkes made public an email from the UK’s top law officer, Advocate General Keith Stewart, which suggested an investigation was ongoing, while sources in the Scotland Office categorically denied this.
But Simon Case, the UK’s top civil servant, has said an investigation is taking place, claiming it would be “a bit worrying” if UK taxpayer money were to be spent on efforts for independence.
Foulkes challenged Case on whether or not such spending was being looked at during a meeting of the Lords Constitution Committee earlier this week, to which Case said that “civil servants in Scotland and Wales can only spend their money on areas that are within their competence”, before confirming that the constitution is a reserved matter.
On the appointment of Jamie Hepburn as Minister for Independence and the team of 20 civil servants allegedly supporting his work, Case said: “We are looking at some of these specifics as we speak, and doing that with ministers at the moment to see whether we need to issue further guidance and clarification to civil servants about what is and is not appropriate spending.”
Starmer U-turns on two-child cap
It’s now safe to assume that if Keir Starmer comes forward with a policy, it should be taken with a handful rather than a pinch of salt.
Since our last newsletter, the Labour leader has U-turned once again, this time on the two-child benefit cap.
He pledged to get rid of the highly contentious measure a few years ago but he told Laura Kuenssberg this week that Labour would keep the cap if they win the next General Election.
It may be a move he lives to regret as it sparked quite the civil war in the Labour Party.
MSPs including ex-Scottish party leadership contender Monica Lennon and backbencher Mercedes Villalba immediately berated him, with the former calling on party members to rally together against Starmer and ensure the “abhorrent” policy is dropped.
Starmer's deputy Angela Rayner faced a furious room of Labour MPs this week, fielding question after question about the party’s newfound support for draconian Tory welfare policy.
The Labour leader was even teased about his U-turn by the Prime Minister in the Commons, when Rishi Sunak said he was glad to see Starmer come around to his way of thinking.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s position was a little trickier to decipher given he said he would continue to press the UK leader to scrap the cap while in the same breath claiming that doing so could risk a similar economic disaster to Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
If that’s not a fine example of fence-sitting, then Scotland’s only Labour MP Ian Murray claiming that both Starmer and Sarwar are right surely is.
To top things off, Labour shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell made the extraordinary claim a future Labour government would not be able to “afford” ending the policy because there is “no money left”, much to the annoyance of economists including professor of accounting practice Richard Murphy, who said: “Doesn’t she know that one of the most fundamental jobs of government is to create the money we need? It can never run out.”
Labour might be celebrating a by-election victory in Selby and Ainsty, but there’s no getting away from the fact major splits opened up this week for them as Starmer seems to now be angering his pals as well as his foes.
Tory MPs take £450k in severance payments
The year 2022 was a disastrous one for the UK Government but Tory MPs who lost their posts amid the exits from Number 10 of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss lapped up plenty of cash as a result.
The numerous sackings and resignations which followed Johnson and Truss both quitting as PM within a matter of months of each other saw Conservative ministers paid more than £450,000 in severance packages.
Figures released by Government departments show a total of £455,392 was paid out to former ministers, some of whom rejoined the government just months later.
Johnson and Truss both received £18,660 after resigning, while Kwasi Kwarteng was given £16,876 when he quit as chancellor after fewer than six weeks in the job.
AOB
- A report looking at the impact of the UK’s post-Brexit trade deals on the agricultural sector found farm incomes could fall by up to 60% with job losses predicted. The study carried out for the Scottish Government examined free trade agreements (FTAs) the UK Government has done with Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as the deal with Arab countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council, concluding that the impact of them was “generally limited, but significant in some sectors”.
- And Tory MP Lee Anderson has made his way into Worst of Westminster yet again after calling trade union chief Mick Lynch a “creature” who wants to “bring the Government down” on GB News. He said he was “lapping up” strike action and compared him to former National Union of Mineworkers president Arthur Scargill.
