Key points: Smith Commission powers to Scottish Parliament
• The Scottish Government will receive all Income Tax paid by Scottish taxpayers on
their non-savings and non-dividend income with a corresponding adjustment in the
block grant received from the UK Government
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Hide Ad• Scotland will be given power over air passenger duty (APD)
• The Parliament will be given share of VAT revenues
• Westminster’s right to dissolve Scottish Parliament to be removed
• MSPs to have control over elections paving way for votes for 16/17 year-olds in Scottish Parliament and local government elections
• The Barnett Formula, which will be adapted to take in the Parliament’s additional tax-raising powers, will continue to be used to determine the remaining block grant
• Smith Commission Agreement calls for the current inter-governmental machinery between the Scottish and UK Governments, including the Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC)
structures, to be reformed as a matter of urgency and scaled up significantly
to reflect the scope of the agreement arrived at by the parties
• Scottish Ministers should be fully involved in agreeing the UK position in EU negotiations relating to devolved policy matters
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Hide Ad• Responsibility for the management of the Crown Estate’s economic assets in
Scotland, and the revenue generated from these assets, will be transferred to
the Scottish Parliament.
• Following this transfer, responsibility for the management of those assets will be
further devolved to local authority areas such as Orkney, Shetland, Na h-Eilean Siar
or other areas who seek such responsibilities.
• There will be a formal consultative role for the Scottish Government and the
Scottish Parliament in the process of reviewing the BBC’s Charter. The BBC will lay
its annual report and accounts before the Scottish Parliament and submit reports
to, and appear before, committees of the Scottish Parliament in relation to matters
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• The Scottish Government will be given the administrative power to change the
frequency of Universal Credit (UC) payments, vary the existing plans for single household payments, and pay landlords direct for housing costs in Scotland.
• The Scottish Parliament will have new powers to create new benefits in areas of
devolved responsibility
The Scottish Parliament will also have new powers to make discretionary payments
in any area of welfare without the need to obtain prior permission from DWP.
• The licensing of onshore oil and gas extraction underlying Scotland will be devolved
to the Scottish Parliament. The licensing of offshore oil and gas extraction will
remain reserved.
• The receipts raised in Scotland by the first 10 percentage points of the standard
rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) will be assigned to the Scottish Government’s budget.