Mark Durkan
Main Page: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)Department Debates - View all Mark Durkan's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Well, that is a first—not the fact that the question has been answered, but the fact that a Member has been self-denying to the extent that he sits down when his question has already been dealt with. That is an interesting precedent.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Has the Chief Secretary taken into account the particular responsibilities of devolved Administrations and the rights of their public sector workers—many of them low paid, and all of them tax-paying—and do the terms of today’s offer differ from the previous terms about which he wrote to those Administrations?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. These matters have been discussed regularly at the Finance Ministers quadrilaterals, which bring the Finance Ministers of the devolved Administrations and me together, so people have been kept informed. The tradition has been that the devolved pension schemes follow by analogy the agreements reached at a UK level. I will write to the devolved Finance Ministers to set out what I have announced today, so they can take that into account in their own decisions on these matters.