A FORMER Scottish Secretary has torn into the funding deal between the Scottish and UK governments, branding it “unfair” for other parts of the UK.

Tory Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said the fiscal framework should be debated and approved by the Lords and the Commons before extra powers were devolved to Holyrood.

In the report stage debate on the Scotland Bill, he said it was extraordinary that the future financial arrangements for the whole of the UK should only be disclosed to peers at the eleventh hour of consideration of the legislation.

“The agreement which has been struck is so unfair to other parts of the UK,” Lord Forsyth told peers.

The Government had agreed to give the Scottish Government £200 million as a one-off payment to meet the administrative costs of additional powers in the Bill – equivalent, he said, to the entire forecast costs of setting up an independent government north of the Border.

Lord Forsyth said there was a further £65 million a year to administer the change and asked why this was necessary.

Likening the SNP to a “parcel of rogues”, he said they had been “passing the begging bowl” to UK ministers “in secret” and requiring “huge sums of extra money”.

The agreement between the Scottish and UK Governments on the new fiscal framework was agreed last week after months of talks.

The Scottish Government said there would be £200 million to support the implementation of new social security powers, and Scotland’s capital borrowing limit would be increased to £3 billion, with an annual borrowing limit of £450 million.

Lord Forsyth said that if the deal was brought in there would be no ability to get a “fairer” formula for all parts of the UK because Scotland would have a veto.

“Basically what has happened here is that a deal has been struck which is not fair to the whole of the UK. It has been done in secret and there has been no opportunity for both Houses to discuss it.”

Another Tory former Scottish secretary Lord Lang of Monkton said there was no case for a subsidy for “demographic risks,” which could only be justified as a “political bung”.

He said “kicking the can down the road” was not a solution to the problem of “weaning the Scottish Government off separation”.

“It perpetuates the dependency culture – the constant protection from the consequences of their own actions as enshrined over the years in the devolved Parliament. It may secure the implementation of this Bill and that is desirable but it does not secure very much else.”

The Bill was, he said, “intended to introduce accountability over spending and this measure undermines it. It was intended to remove the grievance culture, this measure will revive it.”