Scotland and Wales take action on TORY-DUP deal

The Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly have joined forces to launch a “formal dispute process” over the deal struck at Westminster between the Tories and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

The confidence and supplystyle agreement has meant an extra £1 billion of cash for Northern Ireland and has allowed Theresa May to remain in power after losing her majority in the recent election.

But the devolved administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh say any extra funding to Ulster should also mean new cash for Scotland and Wales in line with Barnett Formula for allocating cash throughout the UK. In this case Wales should receive an additional £1.67bn and Scotland an additional £2.9bn. The Welsh Assembly’s Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford and the Scottish Government’s Finance Secretary Derek Mackay have now written to the Treasury to invoke the formal dispute resolution process through the Joint Ministerial Committee.

Mr Mackay said: “The deal goes against the principles of the UK Treasury’s own statement of funding policy.”

The UK government has said previous city deals in Scotland, including today’s £300 million deal for Edinburgh, have seen extra cash coming north of the Border. But this was rejected by Mr Mackay as “not in any way comparable”.

Professor Drakeford said: “The UK government has abandoned these well-established arrangements to the detriment of Wales and other parts of the UK.

“It is simply inexcusable that the UK government is willing to ‘bypass’ those rules.”