Scotland Bill — Reject Second Reading — Devolution of Further Powers, Including Tax Raising Powers, to Scotland — 27 Jan 2011 at 17:38

The majority of MPs voted to support the Scotland Bill, giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament, including the power to set income tax, and other tax rates.

MPs were considering a motion in relation to the Scotland Bill^[1]:

• That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The amendment rejected in this vote was:

• to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and add:
• That this House, while recognising the need to further enhance the powers of the Scottish Parliament, nevertheless believes that the measures the Scotland Bill seeks to devolve are inadequate to meet the ambitions of the Scottish Government for the people of Scotland;
• considers the measures relating to air weapons, road safety and drink driving to be incomplete;
• regrets that the Calman Commission's recommendations to devolve the aggregates levy and air passenger duty, and to devolve responsibility for the marine environment to match the Scottish Parliament's responsibility for fisheries, as well as its proposal for a Scottish role in welfare benefits, have all been abandoned;
• regards the proposals for the Crown Estates Commission as inadequate; deplores the proposals in the Bill to re-reserve already devolved responsibilities;
• concludes that the tax varying provisions would embed a long-term deflationary bias in Scotland's budget and that the proposed borrowing powers remaining subject to HM Treasury controls and limits render them insufficiently flexible; and
• therefore considers the Bill as a whole to be unacceptable.

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• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Scotland Bill (now an Act)

Debate in Parliament | Source |