Keir Starmer and his ministers raced out of the blocks over the weekend, with David Lammy meeting his counterparts in Europe, John Healey, the Defence Secretary, in Ukraine and Rachel Reeves outlining the start of growing the economy.

But on a Radio Scotland phone-in, when callers were asked what the new Labour Government needed to do to improve the lives of people in Scotland, the areas referred to were education, the NHS and others which are the responsibility of the devolved Scottish Government.

Thereby lies the dilemma. The UK Government makes the financial allocation to the Scottish Government but then relies on it to spend wisely and for the benefit of the people in Scotland.

Even under the Tory Government, the allocation to Scotland has increased and expenditure per capita is now more than £2,200 greater than the UK as a whole.

Over the past few years, the Scottish Government has manifestly failed in spending their allocation wisely. They failed to pass on Covid funds to businesses and to give business rates relief, and they have cut local government funding drastically, putting care, education and other council services at risk.

All of this was to help pay for their mismanagement and scandals. Their malicious prosecution in the Rangers case and other expensive law suits, including against Alex Salmond, and the fiasco of the ferries, still uncompleted and vastly over-budget, and the disastrous Deposit Return Scheme, for which they are being sued for hundreds of millions, are a few of many.

But there is also a major diversion of funds which they could, and should, sort immediately and which the new UK Government needs to act on. That is the wilful and mischievous spending on areas which are not devolved but remain responsibilities reserved to the UK Government.

Over the past few years some of us in the UK Parliament and in the media, including this paper, have highlighted them, but there has been very little progress.

It is true that the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, promised to pursue this and the former Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, was a little more robust in the past few months, but the improper spending continues. Let me outline them and what needs to be done.

Most of the areas come under the ‘responsibilities’ of Cabinet Secretary Angus Robertson, dubbed ‘Airmiles Angus’ because of his frequent trips abroad. It has been estimated that he has travelled the equivalent of twice around the world.

Pretend

He has been opening offices, or pretend embassies, in a growing number of capitals. The previous Scottish Government, rightly, created a presence in Brussels when we were in the EU, but even that is now probably redundant.

However, the Scottish Government presence in Washington, Dublin, Berlin, Paris, Beijing, Ottawa and, most recently, Copenhagen is not justifiable. The UK ambassadors and high commissioners have a responsibility for promoting Scotland, our exports and other matters and do so effectively.

And there are also 34 offices of Scottish Development International, promoting Scottish business interests, in 23 countries.

But what Angus and his colleagues want are bases from which he can promote the case for independence – and that is not acceptable. The Scottish Government must stop pretending it is already independent and acting as such.

Which brings me to the constitution, which is a reserved power. Thankfully John Swinney has pulled back slightly on this by abolishing the separate Minister for Independence, but they must now dismantle the unit working on this and deploy them elsewhere and stop publishing pointless papers on aspects of independence.

The First Minister said if he obtained a majority of seats in Scotland in the General Election it would be a mandate for independence. Well, he spectacularly failed on that test and on the percentage of votes too, where pro-independence parties achieved only 34 per cent.

The message from the people of Scotland is clear that independence should be off the agenda for the foreseeable future and the Scottish Government should get on with the responsibilities for which it has manifestly failed. So the constitution should be removed from Robertson’s title and he should transfer funds to culture, for which he has proper responsibility.

Creative Scotland’s budget has been cut by 10 per cent, resulting in cuts threatening opera, ballet, theatre and other cultural activities in which Scotland has an enviable reputation. This is cultural vandalism to cover the costs of world travel and vanity projects.

Then we come to their ‘international development’ programme. When I have pointed out previously that this is a reserved area, I have been reminded that it was a Labour/Liberal Scottish Government that started our work in Malawi. That is true.

But it was meant to be a one-off because of the 150 years of special relations between Scotland and Malawi and it was agreed with the Department of International Development, where I was a minister.

However, the Scottish Government has again tried to act as if it has a responsibility for this area and spent money in Rwanda, Zambia and now in Pakistan.

Paradoxically, much of the UK Government development programme is run from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office here in Scotland, in East Kilbride.

Neglected

So what needs to be done? Keir Starmer sensibly came to Edinburgh quickly and agreed a new relationship with John Swinney. That will involve working together on areas where there is a common interest, such as the future of the Grangemouth refinery.

But it will not be so easy to tell the Scottish Government to abandon areas for which they have no responsibility so that they can run more effectively devolved areas which they have neglected.

This will involve a three-point strategy. Ian Murray, as shadow secretary, has already indicated an enhanced role for the Scotland Office in promoting the country.

He, together with the Treasury, should make it clear to the Scottish Government they must stick to the areas for which responsibility has been devolved.

The Cabinet Secretary must back this up by ensuring that the Scottish Permanent Secretary, John-Paul Marks, is aware of the Government’s insistence that the UK’s responsibility for reserved areas is respected.

And the 37 Scottish Labour MPs should make it clear that Scotland has two parliaments and two governments and they must each co-operate but also respect their own areas of competence and responsibility.

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