£2.9bn DUP deal will haunt Tories
The Tories have sold Scotland out to cling on to power.
£2.9billion – that is the price to Scottish taxpayers for the Tories deal with the DUP.
On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May finally struck a deal with the DUP to get her Queen’s speech through Parliament and keep the Tories in Government.
After years of cutting public services and budgets, they have magically found £1billion to stay in power.
By ignoring the Barnett formula, Scotland will be missing out on an estimated £2.9billion in funding.
This breaks the very principles that underpin devolution and the funding settlement the Tories pledged to protect.
This deal also raises very serious questions for David Mundell, the Secretary of State for Scotland.
At the weekend he indicated that he would not allow a situation where Northern Ireland received extra funding while Scotland did not. Now he appears to be sitting back, along with the rest of the Scottish Conservative MPs, and allowing Scotland and their constituents be to shortchanged out of £2.9billion for our public services.
I have written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury making clear that the Scottish Government fundamentally disagrees with the way in which this additional funding for Northern Ireland has been allocated and calling for an urgent meeting with myself, as Scotland’s Finance Secretary and also the Welsh Finance Secretary.