Draft plan for transferring powers to Scotland 'falls short'

UK government draft legislation transferring new powers to Scotland "falls short" of a cross-party deal brokered last year, a Scottish parliamentary committee has declared ahead of a visit by David Cameron to Edinburgh.

The cross-party Devolution committee at the Holyrood parliament said in an unanimous report that legal clauses issued by the coalition government in January did not meet the "spirit and substance" of the proposals brokered by Lord Smith of Kelvin on powers over welfare.

The criticism creates a new headache for Mr Cameron's government, which has pledged to rapidly put into law the powers agreed as part of the Smith deal but which faces demands from a surging Scottish National party to go further.

Any delay could open the government to charges that it is failing to deliver on devolution promises made jointly with other pro-union parties in the final weeks of last year's referendum on Scottish independence.

Mr Cameron will meet Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minster and SNP leader, in Edinburgh on Friday to discuss how their two governments will co-operate after a general election with sharply diverging results north and south of the English border.

Analysts and members of the UK parliament have already warned that the complexity of the Smith devolution proposals, which include the transfer of control over income tax rates and bands as well as some aspects of welfare, could be a recipe for friction between Holyrood and Westminster.

The Holyrood committee, which is dominated by the SNP but has Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour members, called for urgent reconsideration of the draft legislation published in January to address failings in most of the 13 areas ranging from government-to-government relations to control over income tax.

"The previous UK government proposals fall short in some critical areas, for example in regard to welfare the committee considers that the clauses as currently drafted wouldn't meet the spirit and the substance of the Smith recommendations," said committee convener Bruce Crawford, an SNP member of the Scottish parliament.

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More clarity was required on the tax plans, said Alex Johnstone, a Conservative MSP and committee member.

While the draft devolution legislation was billed by the coalition government as an "enduring settlement", Tavish Scott, a Liberal Democrat representative to the Smith Commission, said he had no difficulty in demanding that the "full intent" of what it had agreed be translated into law.

Linda Fabiani, an SNP MSP, said that unless it was improved, the draft welfare legislation would "cause confusion and potentially hardship" to people in need.

Westminster's influential Scottish Affairs committee in March said the Smith proposals offered Scotland the "best of both worlds" by combining greater powers and fiscal security, but also warned that the new powers contained "enormous potential" to create grievance between London and Edinburgh.

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