§ Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the estimated running cost of the possible Scottish Assembly in each of the next five years, taking inflation into account; and what estimates he has made of the number of extra Civil Service jobs which may be created for each of the following five years.
§ Mr. Millan£13 million was the estimate of total annual extra costs in Scotland subsequent on devolution stated in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum on the Scotland Bill. That figure stands to within 1 or 2 per cent. The numbers of additional staff estimated to be required are about 240 to serve the Assembly and 750 civil servants. It is not possible to indicate what these figures might be in each of the next five years since this would require making assumptions about the amounts for devolved services to be voted annually by Parliament and decisions by the devolved Administration on the allocation of the resources available to it.