Whitehall papers to be vetted before being seen by Scottish civil servants as row over payments escalates

Published on Friday 12 October 2007 01:25

LABOUR ministers and political advisers in London will vet all Whitehall documents that are to be shared with the Scottish Government as cross-border relations plummeted to new depths in the wake of the cancelled farm payments row.

Such censorship could dramatically restrict the information flow from London to Edinburgh and overrides the protocol which has seen documents shared routinely.

The row escalated yesterday as the National Farmers Union of Scotland (NFUS) threatened to take a class action against the Westminster government.

The Scotsman has learned that the Scotland Office in London is drafting a formal note instructing civil servants in Whitehall that any document, policy paper or other piece of information that previously would have been routinely shared with Scottish counterparts must be subjected to a political "audit". It comes after Alex Salmond, the First Minister, provoked fury by circulating a draft copy of a statement by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, which pledged 8.1 million to Scottish farmers.

A senior Whitehall source said: "A line will be going out from the Scotland Office soon telling all departments to conduct a very careful audit of anything that is to be shared with the Scottish Executive, looking for any information that could be used or manipulated for political purposes by the SNP."

But Westminster opposition parties pressed the government on why the cash was withdrawn - and said it was Westminster's duty to fund any compensation for Scottish farmers.

However, a spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted Westminster was not required to pay out for "consequential losses" in Scotland - with compensation only necessary for healthy animals compulsorily culled in the event of a foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Jim McLaren, NFUS president, wrote to the Prime Minister last night urging him to agree to emergency aid for farmers.

Meanwhile, the tension between Edinburgh and London was further strained by a dispute over the role of Scotland's top civil servant.

Scotland Office sources claimed Sir John Elvidge, permanent secretary to the Scottish Government, had sided with the Treasury in the row over the level of funding in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). The sources pointed to a message to staff from Sir John on the civil service intranet in which he said the settlement was tight and included a link to the Treasury figures, which were later disputed by SNP ministers.

A Scotland Office source last night said this was a "vote of confidence" in the Treasury from Sir John.

However, the Scottish Government fiercely denied the claim and released Sir John's message to staff to support their case. It said: "The CSR ... announced by the UK Government today gives details of the level of funding the Scottish Government and UK Departments will receive over the next three years.

"As we expected, this is a tight settlement, with a lower rate of annual growth than we have experienced since devolution."

A Scottish government spokeswoman said that Sir John "fully subscribes" to the analysis carried out by civil servants for Alex Salmond of the CSR figures.

She added: "That is why in his message to Scottish Government staff Sir John described the CSR as 'a tight settlement, with a lower rate of annual growth than we have experienced since devolution' Any suggestions otherwise are ludicrous and totally absurd."