"I thank the noble Lord for his important question. I am here to defend the Government’s record in the deployment of counter-fraud measures over the last two years or so. However, I will only be able to do that in part. The assertion made by the Economic Secretary to the …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is responsible for the Treasury’s relationship with the devolved Administrations and last met their Finance Ministers a week ago, on 12 January. The devolved Administrations provide the Treasury with information on their spending every month to support the management of the public …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, as I said in my opening Answer, the Scottish Government are accountable to their electorate and to the Treasury here for how they spend their money. They have had a very generous settlement in the SR—an additional £8.7 billion went to the devolved Administrations, of which £4.6 billion …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"I agree with my noble friend that any wastage in government is extremely distressing, certainly to me. In October of last year, we reached an agreement with the Scottish Government to jointly commission an independent report covering the block grant adjustment arrangements. The independent report will inform a broader review …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, in 2005, the then Labour Government agreed to allow the Scottish Government to have international development involvement. To my knowledge, they are involved in three countries—Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia. I can only come back to my earlier point that it is for the Scottish electorate to decide whether …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, we are certainly keen to see more transparency. At the moment, the Treasury receives monthly reports on expenditure—but I accept that more transparency would be useful...." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, as someone who is very against the independence movement in Scotland, I would agree. We have also to accept that an increasing amount of revenue is raised in Scotland for the Scottish Government. For example, from 2017-18 Scottish income tax rates were entirely devolved, and all revenues from …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"My Lords, I think we all know that the Barnett formula was something of a fudge, put together many years ago. It is an extremely complicated thing to try to unravel. We know that the amount of funding that goes to individual citizens is favourable to the devolved regions, but …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"I think the noble Baroness makes a very good point. I will suggest to the relevant Ministers that the work on the fiscal framework, announced in October, includes a review of the points raised...." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech
"The noble Lord raises a very good point. I believe that I will be coming back on Monday to deal with an Urgent Question on this specific subject. I would remind noble Lords that these schemes were stood up at an incredibly fast pace to protect the productive capacity of …..." Lord Agnew of Oulton - View Speech