A SCOTTISH Tory MP has called for David Mundell’s position to be abolished and the Scotland Office to be consigned to the scrapheap of history.

In a column for The Times, the Stirling MP, Stephen Kerr, advocated a radical shake up of the government, calling for the creation of a new Department for the Union.

Kerr suggests this new department could replace the existing offices of the Secretary of State for Scotland and Wales, and, perhaps most controversially of all, the Northern Ireland Office.

He says this would make it easier for Scottish local authorities to work with their English counterparts, for staff in the NHS to transfer across the border easily.

“A road that needs repair, a child that needs support or a disease that needs curing is no different on either side of the border,” Kerr writes. “Surely by working together across governments, parliaments and throughout society we can achieve much more for the good of everyone.”

The Tory suggests the Department for the Union could draw staff from “all parts of the UK with a mission to drive co-operation and partnership working. It would help spread good ideas and improve services where difference has driven successful innovation, and serve as a respectful place to negotiate where there are arguments to be had.”

Kerr also suggested the Canadian Department of Intergovernmental Affairs would be a good model to follow.

“A Department of the Union could replace existing Offices of the Secretary of State for Scotland and Wales, and the Northern Ireland Office," he addds "Non-devolved departments of the UK government could operate confidently as departments serving the whole UK. Wholly English departments such as health and social care, education and justice could be renamed as such to reflect their status.”

This move, Kerr says, would set the “foundation of partnership and joint endeavour to secure our union into the future.”

The SNP’s Deidre Brock was not convinced: “Incredible to see a Tory MP join in the calls to abolish the Scottish Secretary – no doubt David Mundell will be having a quiet word about this campaign to make him redundant.”

The Edinburgh North and Leith MP said Kerr needed to read more Walter Scott: “The last thing that Scotland needs is another department in the London Government trying to squeeze us. What Scotland needs is more opportunity to choose our own way, more scope to care for our own people, more power vested in Edinburgh where, as Walter Scott said, we can peeble them wi’ stanes when they werena gude bairns. “What Scotland needs is independence and it’s clearer now than it ever was that we’d do a far better job of looking after ourselves than London politicians ever did.

“A new department for the union? Gie’s peace, Mr Kerr.”