By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 7 June 2011
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond starts two days of talks with UK government leaders tomorrow, with demands for increased control over taxes high on the agenda.
First, Salmond will meet UK Prime Minister David Cameron at the Joint Ministerial Committee, the liaison body between the UK and devolved governments.
Then on Thursday, Salmond’s team will discuss the transfer of powers under the Scotland Bill with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Scottish Secretary Michael Moore.
The JMC meeting is expected to be dominated by the economy. Salmond will argue that his administration has delivered a better performance than the UK average on indicators such as employment and construction. He will contend that it could do better still if allowed greater fiscal freedom to pursue an economic strategy tailored to Scottish needs.
His shopping list includes accelerating the Scotland Bill timetable for giving Scotland new borrowing powers; authority over the Crown Estate Commission, which could yield growing revenues from offshore wind and wave generation; devolved power to set and collect corporation tax; and control over air passenger duty.
While the UK government has indicated a will to make progress on the first of these demands, the others look less certain. Nor has the mood been enhanced by a weekend claim from Moore that Scots would need two referendums to achieve independence, rather than the single vote promised within the next five years by Salmond’s SNP.
The Scottish Government is nonetheless hopeful of progress on devolving the Crown Estate Commission, an idea that has been backed in the past by the Liberal Democrats. It also believes that its case for devolving air passenger duty has been strengthened by the UK abandoning plans for wholesale reform of the tax.
Salmond’s team also insists that there will be no let-up in his determination to follow Northern Ireland’s lead in pressing for corporation tax to be devolved, despite discouragingnoises last week from his Belfast counterpart, Peter Robinson. The Northern Irish fear the Treasury could be scared off the idea of devolving corporation tax to the Province if the Scots press their demand for the power.
