12.00 midday 22 January 2015
The UK Government has this morning published its Draft Scotland Act – which will devolve more powers to Holyrood from Westminster after the British general election in May – ahead of an official visit to Holyrood this afternoon by Prime Minister David Cameron.
The Draft Bill contains key clauses on income taxes, employment and welfare rights, fuel poverty and energy planning, onshore fracking.
But these are all almost identical to the proposals published last year in the Smith Commission following Scotland’s Independence referendum.
A full report on the Draft Scotland Act will be published in detail in Scottish Energy News. Meanwhile, these links provide a summary of the Smith Commission proposals – which are mirrored in the Draft Scotland Act: goo.gl/zzPYgM and http://goo.gl/Ha73s9
Also today the Scotland Minister in the UK Government has today confirmed that it will not take any action to cut taxes on N. Sea oil until after the Westminster Budget next month – despite calls for urgent action to do so by the Scottish Government, the UK oil and gas trade association and the Labour party.
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