Cameron: Tories will co-operate with SNP

DAVID Cameron has pledged that Conservative ministers will have regular meetings with the Scottish Parliament as part of his drive to end the cross-border war between the Scottish and UK governments.

The Conservative leader has said that George Osborne, his Chancellor, and other Treasury ministers would meet with MSPs and Scottish ministers to discuss the UK Budget and Pre-Budget Report.

Cameron also wants the Scottish Secretary to have a monthly meeting with First Minister Alex Salmond as he seeks to introduce a new era of co-operation between London and Edinburgh.

If, as looks increasingly likely, Cameron wins next year's election, the Scottish Secretary would also visit Holyrood to discuss the implications of the Queen's Speech on Scotland and the ramifications of UK Government policy on devolved areas.

The move comes as the Conservatives prepare for their Scottish conference in Perth this week and is a key part of Cameron's plan to end the "grievance and gripe" politics that has characterised the SNP's relationship with Labour in London.

Last night Cameron said: "I think we can make devolution work better. We've seen in the last year very fractious relations between the Prime Minister and the First Minister, between Westminster and Holyrood. It doesn't have to be like that. We need mutual respect and a politics which is about discussion and delivery rather than about confrontation and grievance.

"There are some institutional stresses and pressures that devolution brings and we have to acknowledge that and confront that, but also there's the egos of politicians. We need politicians to recognise that they have to work together and no one is going to thank them for grievance and confrontation rather than discussion and debate.

He added: "To me the most important thing is keeping the United Kingdom together and I don't like the Scottish Nationalist plans to break it up. But I will be fully engaged with that bit of Alex Salmond's brain that wants to do the best thing for Scotland rather than break up the United Kingdom."

Earlier this year, Scotland on Sunday revealed that SNP ministers and Tory shadow ministers have already begun talks to discuss their potential roles, with discussions taking place between Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney and Osborne.

Tory strategists have begun discussions on how to counter the SNP argument, likely to be made after that election, that a Conservative Government has no mandate to run Scotland. The party currently has only one MP north of the border, David Mundell.

A "respect" agenda is now being discussed by Cameron's close aides. Three of his close allies – shadow education secretary Michael Gove, leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde, and shadow defence secretary Liam Fox – are Scots.

Mundell, the shadow Scottish secretary, said: "At the moment the Finance Committee at Holyrood are examining UK Government economic policy without the input of the Treasury. There is the scope to have ongoing dialogue because there is far too much grievance and gripe politics between the two administrations that is conducted through the media.

"If the SNP has concerns about the way that the UK Government is operating, in the first instance they should speak to the UK Government in a proper businesslike way."

Mundell added that an example of that was UK Labour's attitude towards Salmond's plans to replace council tax with a local income tax. Salmond performed a major U-turn when he withdrew the policy on the basis that it would not get enough support in the Scottish Parliament.

Before that, however, Labour in London had indicated that council tax benefit would not be available for local income tax.

Mundell said: "I think the Labour Government strayed on to that territory when it came to local income tax, when they said that they would not give any money for council tax benefits and tried to thwart the issue on the basis of their powers.

"That gave Alex Salmond the oxygen to play the anti-London card. We want more co-operation between the UK Government, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. We would like to see the parliaments work more closely."

A spokesman for Salmond said: "David Cameron's problem is that no amount of warm words will wipe out memories of the Tories imposing policies like the poll tax when they had no mandate in Scotland – or opposition to their planned future spending cuts."