David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, has promised that the Scottish parliament will be free to introduce new welfare benefits without any threat of a veto by Westminster.
Mundell said amendments to the Scotland bill being tabled on Monday would make it clear “beyond any reasonable doubt, for any reasonable person” that the Tories had delivered in full on the cross-party Smith agreement on new powers for Holyrood.
Sparking a fresh dispute with the governing Scottish National party in Edinburgh, Mundell said new amendments would bar UK ministers from vetoing new benefits and grant greater flexibility for Scottish ministers to introduce new benefits for carers.
“We are acting in good faith and want to build consensus,” Mundell said, before explicitly challenging the Scottish government to set out how it would use Holyrood’s new tax and welfare powers.
Mundell made the promise a day after new tax-raising pledges were made by Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale.
The Conservative minister confirmed the fresh amendments would bring forward Holyrood’s powers more than £11bn worth of income tax to April 2017 and devolve control over abortion law.
“I am confident the House of Commons will support the Scotland bill next week and we will enter a new phase where the Scottish government will need to start telling us how they intend to use these new powers,” he said. “Will they top up benefits? Will they create new benefits and how much will it all cost?”
John Swinney, the deputy first minister in Edinburgh, insisted that even these amendments meant the Scotland bill fell short of delivering on the Smith agreement, which was signed by all five major parties, including the SNP, after Scottish voters rejected independence in September’s referendum last year.
Swinney said there were numerous areas where the UK government’s measures did not satisfy the Smith agreement, including on handing over control over a large shopping mall owned by the Crown Estate just outside Edinburgh.
Holyrood and the Scottish government have made a series of proposals on additional powers, Swinney added. “Unless all of these amendments are accepted, it is not credible to claim that the Smith agreement has been delivered.”
Dugdale sought to outflank the SNP on welfare policy on Saturday by disclosing that Scottish Labour would find up to £440m to protect working family tax credits by refusing to implement cuts in air passenger duty planned by the SNP and Tory plans to raise the ceiling for 40p income tax.
The Labour leader added that she would introduce a higher 50p tax rate to fund a new “fair start fund” to improve schooling support for 72,000 children from the poorest homes, costing about £78m a year to implement.
