Brown and Salmond to have dinner as Cabinet row flares

Published on Sunday 12 April 2009 22:06

GORDON Brown will host an economic summit with the main Scottish party leaders, business figures and trade unionists later this week after turning down Alex Salmond's request for a joint UK-Scottish Cabinet meeting.

The Prime Minister has organised a private dinner in Glasgow for Wednesday evening which will bring together the leaders of Scotland's main parties, the CBI and the STUC to discuss the economic crisis and ways of tackling it.

Mr Brown is due to host a meeting of the UK Cabinet on Thursday in Glasgow, which Mr Salmond had hoped would be an opportunity to bring together ministers from both the UK and the Scottish governments.

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy rejected that offer on behalf of the Prime Minister and suggested instead that substantial progress could be made over dinner the night before.

It was in Mr Salmond's interests to make a pitch to be involved in the meeting of UK Cabinet ministers. If he had succeeded, he would have been seen as an equal to Mr Brown's Cabinet, not simply the leader of a devolved administration.

Mr Brown's rejection of the idea was also not surprising. It would be extraordinary for a Labour Prime Minister to allow SNP ministers to sit in on a UK Cabinet meeting, giving them credibility and status as a result.

The result was stalemate as far as Cabinet meetings were concerned but a compromise deal was agreed, paving the way for the first, joint, non-partisan dinner with business and union leaders to take place on the eve of the Cabinet meeting.

Mr Murphy informed Mr Salmond of the Prime Minister's decision in a letter published yesterday.

He said: "Rather than the joint meeting of ministers that you propose for this Thursday, I think more will be gained from Gordon's original plan of a private dinner with you and other Scottish Parliament leaders.

"It will provide a useful opportunity for us to discuss the action being taken to address the severe economic challenges we face and to see how we can best combine our efforts for the good of Scotland." But Mr Murphy could not resist a dig at Mr Salmond in his formal reply to the First Minister's request for a joint Cabinet meeting.

He told Mr Salmond: "If you feel that your colleagues in the Scottish Cabinet would also welcome an update on the steps being taken by the government then I would be more than happy to attend a future meeting of the Scottish Cabinet."

The rejection of Mr Salmond's call for a joint Cabinet meeting and that final offer provoked an indignant response from the First Minister.

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: "It is disappointing that the UK government has failed to take this unprecedented opportunity to hold a joint meeting of the Scottish and UK Cabinets in order to discuss and develop the measures needed for economic recovery.

"It is an approach that the SNP government are entirely committed to, and we will seek to maximise every such opportunity."

He added: "Unfortunately, Jim Murphy's letter does not rise to the economic challenges of the times, or indeed his own rhetoric about the importance of joint working, which now has the appearance of spin rather than substance."