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Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) (No. 2) Order 2013

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. Like me, he may have transport to catch to get back to Scotland. I think that I am just about all right at the moment, but I hear the point that he makes.

The noble Lord’s first question was about funding. I apologise if I did not make it clear but the position is that there has been a total of £178.2 million allocated for the discretionary Social Fund. That allocation for programme funding has been carried forward for the new provisions in England, Scotland and Wales. Therefore, the total for England, Scotland and Wales is £178.2 million and it is being apportioned nationally. The programme funding for Scotland will be £24 million. Clearly, that is higher than my rough calculation of what the Barnett formula will be. I am advised that it is based on what currently is going to Scotland in community care grants and crisis loans by the Department for Work and Pensions.

As I understand it, the fund is currently cash-limited, which will be the case. The Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities have agreed that funds for the new provision will be ring-fenced for this purpose. Indeed, it is part of the ethos of devolution that, when this money is handed over to the Scottish Government, strings are not attached by the UK Government. Under the devolution settlement, the funds are passed by Westminster to the Scottish Government and are not ring-fenced for a specific purpose.

The Government believe that, even if one could be applied, a ring fence is not the best way to ensure that money reaches vulnerable people; indeed, it could constrain the Scottish Government as it prevents investing in existing services and pooling money with funding from pre-existing services. It may be that they can devise other ways of using that money also to give assistance. That is a matter for the Scottish Government but, as I have also indicated, they have already come to an agreement with CSLA on that, and they have indicated to us their intention to use the funding and to channel it through local authorities. Hence the slightly unusual provision in this order to give, as it were, retrospective effect to the change in the competence so that there is no doubt that local authorities will have the competence under Section 20 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 2003 to implement and administer the scheme.

I hope that that answers the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. I look forward to the next time we debate a Section 30 order. Perhaps I may say that the devolution settlement is not static and that the Government of which he was a member,

and the Government now of which I am a member, have, over the years since the Scottish Parliament was established, responded to changing circumstances and have changed the boundaries of devolution, I believe, very much to the benefit of both the United Kingdom and Scotland. I think that it shows that devolution works. Of course, independence would be an end to devolution, so we must take every opportunity to flag up devolution’s success stories. It is very much a living thing, and that is what we are doing today. I therefore commend this order to the Committee.