Bluemerle

The main story in this morning's Telegraph is the news that residents of Scotland can expect free prescriptions within four years although residents of England will still have to pay. Conservative MP Ben Wallace, a Shadow Scotland Minister, said that this was "another example of how devolution is all at one end at the moment." Labour had not delivered fairness, he said

ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Some good comments on the Tory Diary today. Here's one:-

"Sorry to be a pedant, but the Barnett Formula is not the cause of higher per capita public spending in Scotland. In theory, it is designed to reduce differentials.
The cause is historically higher base spending levels plus (most significantly) funding streams agreed outside the Formula"

The cause is both the Barnett formula AND "historically agreed spending levels outside the formula "

Leaving aside the question of exactly when it was that anyone in England was ever consulted on this damned foumula
( anwser = never , it was all done in secret )

I think you refer to semi secret political stitch ups including something called "Barnet Plus" and various backroom deals in which "English" MP's and ministers performed their usual act of supine surrender and the Scots just grabbed and grabbed again .

If the entire GDP of the "United" Kindom were spent in Scotland the Scots would still moan about how hard they are done by and there would still be portentious explanations to the English as to how actually its a population based formula , don't you know , and Scotland's money will decline over time and really its all VERY complicated and not to worry etc because to do is divisive and therefore be quiet " for the good of the United Kingdom ".

Whichever way you cut it Scotland gets too much money and has been doing so since 1976 .
Worse the known figures for British government expenditure reveal that they are going to get even more .
Barnet Rules money has only ever gone one way ie FROM England TO Scotland .
This exependiture is done on a NATIONAL basis by the British government ie it is for Scotland and not for anywhere in England . so do not try the usual regional angle to confuse the issue .

At only a cursory estimate of the situation the Scots have had something like £70-80 billion out of England in the last 30 years , not counting opportunity costs etc .
Probably a lot more .

This is simply unsustainable . Any party which aspires to be the British government must adress the situation . Not dodge it , however difficult that may be , face up to it and look into it and come up with some positive answers - and not the usual catalogue of accusations against the English which any such attempt up to now has involved .

There is a way out and it does not involve the chaos of EVOEM .

It is that of national self rule for the nations of the UK in a federal structure .
ie England like Scotland must have her own parliament , executive , PM , civil service and complete fiscal and budgetary independence .

This must be allied with a clear and public initiative by the overarching British government to produce transparent accounts easily available to all .

In this way the component nations of the UK will be able to take publicly argued decisions as where to spend the money of each nation . Thus if one should decide to spend money on free presciptions and another to use their money elsewhere then it should be publicly debated policy in the respective parliament .
No more the years of miserable back room stitch ups , trading on the word British and designed to keep the English confused and ignorant .

This should be Conservative policy . Thanks to Brown's cowardice there is now TIME for such a policy to be introduced , debated and become part of the scenery for the next general election .

Use it .

Posted by: Jake | October 22, 2007 at 11:27

Britannist

Just thought I would mention that a thread on this subject was opened before this one (this morning) at:

"Scotland plans to axe prescription charges"

Smidgey

Although this article has ignored the McCrone report (a recently revealed secret document), which would counter a lot of the historical data.

I think this is debate is arising because of the recent issue concerning prescription charges. My concern is how on earth we are going to fund it, the Scottish budget has actually recently been cut. Alex Salmond will bankrupt us!

__________________
How vain is man, who boasts in fight the valour of gigantic might!

-Georg Friedrich Händel

cassie

His antics in respect of Britain's (England's) nuclear weapons hardly inspire joy! So much for devolved powers.

A strong case for reverting to the pre-1998 position is starting to accumulate. Something radical needs to be done: either dissolve these regional assemblies or ring-fence their powers with severe punishments for exceeding them.

These assemblies are not appropriate places to even discuss matters outwith devolved powers, including whether they should be extended. This is a misuse, misappropriation if you will, of resources provided for the devolved powers. Debates and discussions should be conducted elsewhere . . . Westminster for example.