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Cameron meets with Scottish First Minister on power devolution

Xinhua, May 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

British Prime Minister David Cameron met Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to discuss the controversial issue of power devolution to Scotland here on Friday.

Cameron arrived at the Scottish First Minister's official residence, Bute House, just a week after his Conservative Party won a majority victory in the British general election on May 7, which also saw the Scottish National Party (SNP), currently the ruling party of Scotland, achieve a landslide win in the Scottish constituency.

Cameron was expected to pledge that the British government would press ahead with new devolution powers for Scotland and that legislation would be announced in the Queen's Speech later this month.

Cameron appealed to Scots for "one nation" unity, but said his government would "remain true to its promise" to implement the devolved powers quickly and in full "to make Scotland one of the most accountable and powerful devolved parliaments in the world."

The British prime minister underlined his "commitment to our United Kingdom and Scotland's important place in it."

He stressed that it was important for the Scottish and British governments to work together.

However, Sturgeon urged Cameron to hand Scotland more powers beyond those recommended by the cross-party Smith Commission on devolution established after the Scottish independence referendum on Sept. 18 last year.

On Thursday, a cross-party group of members of Scottish Parliament found that the current British government plans for more devolution fell short of the "spirit and substance" of the post-referendum Smith Commission which set out a range of extra powers for Scotland.

In January, Cameron announced plans giving the Scottish parliament new devolved powers, including the power to set income tax rates and tax bands, but not to alter the threshold above which tax is paid.

Under the Scotland Bill, the plans also proposed a proportion of value-added tax (currently set at 20 percent) levied in Scotland to be assigned to Holyrood, Scottish parliament, as well as allowing Scotland the power to determine it's own air passenger duty.

The voting age in Scotland was also to be lowered to include 16 and 17-year-olds after Cameron offered to speedily introduce new electoral powers for the Scottish parliament.

Sturgeon had said that she would use the SNP's influence at Westminster Parliament, Britain's house of parliament, to force an end to austerity, push for investing in public services like the National Health Service, and a stronger economy to find more young people jobs.

As Britain's third largest party at Westminster, the SNP warned it could no longer be "business as usual" for Scotland after taking 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats in the British general election, a surge from its previous six seats.

The British Conservatives won 331 seats out of the total 650 seats to form the first conservative majority government since 1997; British opposition party Labour won only 232 seats. Endit