Somerville refuses to commit to devolving new powers to Scottish councils

Scotland’s Social Justice Secretary has refused to commit to devolving potential new powers to local authorities.

Andy Burnham visited Scotland on Friday, offering the Scottish Parliament new powers over employability support currently held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

But the Prime Minister suggested the powers should not remain with Holyrood and should be devolved further.

The Prime Minister visited Scotland on Friday (Jeff Mitchell/PA)

PA Wire

Speaking to the Press Association on the final day of the party’s conference, Shirley-Anne Somerville refused to commit to Holyrood giving up the power if it is devolved from the DWP.

“Andy Burnham seemed to come up and make suggestions as if this was the first time this had been thought of,” she said.

“We are actually in a consultation process at the moment that was instigated by the Scottish Government looking at regional authorities and the powers that can be done on regional ways.

“We’ve set out what we think that could look like, but we’re in the middle of a consultation process and we’re asking people to come forward with opinions, whether that’s local authorities themselves or whether it’s businesses, the third sector.”

The Scottish Government is looking to reshuffle the local council structure, with plans in the midst of three-month-long consultation.

The starting position of ministers is to split the structure to form up to 10 larger regional authorities with between 120 and 160 more localised ones, though the Government has stressed it is open to shifting plans depending on what councils want.

Ms Somerville added: “Andy Burnham came up and didn’t offer anything yesterday, and I think that will be telling to the people of Scotland as we go forward and they can compare the vision of John Swinney compared to the words from Andy Burnham.”

Put to her that the Prime Minister did make an offer of new powers, Ms Somerville referenced a letter sent to Downing Street by the First Minister earlier this week with asks for further devolution.

“That’s very kind of him – it was seventh on the list of a letter,” she said.

“I look forward to him then dealing with the rest of the letter that the First Minister sent him.

“We can’t think this is some generous offer when he responded to one bullet point that was sent to him earlier that week.

“I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has come up to Scotland, it has been a long time coming since the election. He’s came up, he’s responded to one part of a letter the First Minister sent him a couple of days before his visit.

“That’s a good first step, of course it is, and if the Prime Minister is genuine about having discussions on these aspects, of course the First Minister will work with him on that.

“But to come up and pretend that this is a largess offer, that he’s came up with with something that’s very radical and bold when it was one bullet point from a letter earlier on that week discussing something that the First Minister is already in the middle of the consultation with, I think is a tad disingenuous.”