Scotland just got £555m from Westminster. Labour need to blow their own trumpet more

The catch, of course, is that most people do not pay attention for the perfectly good reason that they are interested in outcomes rather than the sources that fund them. To put it very mildly, the Scottish Government does not go out its way to point out that “record” spending on this or that has flowed directly from the election of a Labour government.

Within the past couple of weeks, we have also had an announcement of £200 million for Grangemouth, £200m for ten Scottish towns, £55m for the Cromarty Firth… the list of direct funding goes on in smaller numbers. Despite the economic challenges, it can hardly be denied that the UK Government is spreading money around, in pursuit of its growth objectives.

The one that caught my eye was the Port of Cromarty, which hardly caused a ripple in terms of publicity. Yet £55m is quite a chunky sum of money, depending on what you compare it with. OK, it would only buy you a quarter of a Scottish Government ferry but, on the other hand, it is more than the entire annual budget of Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Some of this was alluded to yesterday by Ian Murray, the Secretary of State for Scotland, in a speech which also emphasised the need for our two governments to work together where there is common cause. Modestly, he did not make the point that this might be facilitated if the department of government which he heads was given the status that it merits.

Labour MPs and ministers in Scotland are entitled to make a lot more capital out of these spending announcements than they actually do, which is possibly because they don’t know much about them in advance. And as former US President Bill Clinton put it, if one doesn’t blow one’s own trumpet in politics, that trumpet tends to go unblown.

The system dictates that these packages of money, which are the results of UK-wide policies, often arrive through random announcements from Whitehall departments. My own longstanding view is that it is time for the Scotland Office to come of age and have far more direct involvement in where “reserved” money is spent in Scotland, within the parameters of shared policy objectives.

It is an aspect of devolution that has never been addressed and leaves a democratic paradox. In areas of “reserved” public investment, the pre-devolution Scottish Office had more powers than its post-devolution successor. It doesn’t need more money to sort that out; just a logical devolution from Whitehall departments to the Scotland Office, and downwards into communities.

The Scotland Office was born as an orphan of devolution, without a penny to its name. At that time, there was a lot of misplaced arrogance which assumed the permanence of a blissful status quo – a Labour government at Westminster and a Labour-led government in Edinburgh. The two could work happily together, so who needed a department of government in Whitehall to safeguard Scotland’s interests? It was very short-sighted.

The uneasy compromise was to establish the Scotland Office but give it no budget. I spent a couple of years as a minister in this odd situation and became acutely aware of its shortcomings. The fact you could never bring a penny to the table stifled the potential to innovate or influence. Being reasonably creative, I carved out useful things to do but structurally it made no sense at all.

When the Tories duly took over, they significantly increased staffing of the Scotland Office but still did not give it a spending role. Mainly, it was deployed to fight the constitutional battle, more as a counterpoise to the Scottish Government than a partner, a hostile relationship which was reciprocated in full by Edinburgh. They were each more interested in putting one over on the other than any pretence of co-operation.

A golden opportunity to upgrade Scotland Office’s role arose post-Brexit when EU programmes disappeared and were replaced by a plethora of UK Government “levelling-up” funds. The natural Scottish conduit for these should have been the Scotland Office but a Whitehall turf war ensued and control remained with UK-wide ministries, notably the Department for Communities and Local Government under Michael Gove.

Mr Gove was political to his fingertips and saw the usefulness of these funds in promoting his government’s messages in Scotland. He was a very able and creative minister and through the various “deals” which were signed with cities and regions, as well as the sprinkling of occasional largesse, Scotland did pretty well out of that relationship. But the Scotland Office remained as a bit player; the last quote in every press release.

Energy infrastructure is one area in which there are going to be huge levels of UK Government investment in Scotland over the next few years. Indeed, the Port of Cromarty’s role in floating wind is a mere harbinger of what is to come.

Our interests are well served by the energy minister, Michael Shanks, being a Scottish MP working in harmony with Ian Murray’s Scotland Office. In the short term, there is no problem – but structures of government should not depend on transient individuals.

Mr Murray is genuine about his willingness to work co-operatively with the devolved government, of any political hue in Scotland’s interests and, in some respects, it is already happening in a way it did not before. It should be recognised that his hand, and the Labour government’s interests, would be well served by Whitehall embracing that long-lost spirit of devolution by enabling the Scotland Office to play its proper role.