McLeish off the Leash II

The Lib Dems want Holyrood to have total control over raising funds, the Scotsman tells us:

HOLYROOD should be given complete control over income tax, the Liberal Democrats are expected to demand as part of the review of devolution.

The findings of the Steel Commission, chaired by the former Liberal leader Sir David Steel, has supported the view that new tax-raising powers and far more strategic policy control should be given to Scottish Parliament.

Fine by me. If Scotland funds its own education system directly through taxes raised in Scotland, then the taxes spent on education in England are minus any Scottish contribution. Why, therefore, should a Scottish prime minister, or indeed any MP from Scotland, have any say whatsoever in how those taxes are spent?

This rhetorical question is not to suggest that England's democratic deficit should prevent Scotland adopting a more transparent system, merely that financial devolution can't happen fairly until England has political devolution. Otherwise you have democratically unaccountable Scottish MPs deciding how money is raised and spent in what is, for all intents and purposes (to them), a foreign country. Namely, England.

The Scotsman's political editor is clearly thinking along the same lines as myself if the final two paragraphs are anything to go by:

The Liberal Democrats received a boost when former Labour first minister Henry McLeish also came out in favour of a federal system for the UK.

He wants Scotland to have more tax raising powers and said that there should be an equivalent English parliament to Holyrood. His comments followed an admission by Gordon Brown last week that Holyrood needed to be more accountable for raising money not just spending it.

Unfortunately the type of federalism envisaged by the Liberal Democrats is not the same as the sort McLeish is thinking of. When asked whether he supported an English parliament Nick Clegg had this to say:

The real English Question is in a sense the same as the Scottish Question or the Welsh Question - it's about breaking down an overbearing, over-controlling central state and returning power to local communities and to individuals. I don't think that English people primarily see this as a question of exact symmetry - the question is one of democratic control. The answer isn't to try and divide MPs into sheep and goats and risk creating problems whereby one party is in government, but doesn't have a majority for English affairs. We need to move beyond this sterile debate and look to devolve power within England, and continue the push for a whole new constitutional settlement. Remember - every decision not taken in Whitehall is a decision where the West Lothian Question doesn't apply.

Presumably then it will be local communities and individuals raising taxes in England, so no need for an English parliament?

Henry McLeish was an 'architect of devolution' and certainly wants to see devolution work. We must assume, therefore, that he sees an English parliament as being part of a 'new union' and not the threat to the United Kingdom that others in the Labour Party believe it to be.