IPPR Should Offer Me a Job
On the publication of the coalition agreement I said that the West Lothian Question had been kicked into the long grass. Later I said that I thought it "strange that the devolved administrations can defer their budget cuts, given that the need for budget cuts is so urgent that the Tories were prepared to concede vast swathes of their manifesto to the Lib Dems in order that the cuts should happen this year and not next?"
I'm pleased to report that the IPPR agree with me.
He [David Cameron] also appears to have rowed back on measures that might provoke tension with the devolved nations. The party’s policy of introducing a version of ‘English votes on English laws’ (which would restrict the voting rights of non-English MPs at Westminster) has been kicked into the long grass with the establishment of a commission to consider the West Lothian question, and Cameron has also offered a short-term deferral of spending cuts in Scotland and Wales. However, while he will be anxious to appeal to Scottish and Welsh sensitivities so as not to undermine the union, Cameron is also going to come under serious pressure from the growing English nationalist wing of the Conservative Party to address English grievances with the devolution settlement. Conservative MPs tend to think that England has suffered as a result of asymmetric devolution and that the devolved nations are too generously funded (Kenny and Lodge forthcoming).
To an extent. I actually don't think the English will be that aggrieved by the offer of deferred cuts to the devolved administrations. However, I do think the continuation of the Barnett Formula will feed English and Welsh grievances, and the deferral of the cuts may exacerbate that problem and heighten the wide-spread perception that Scotland gets too much money.
We were given what looked like cast-iron assurances that the Barnett Formula would be scrapped but, as I mentioned previously, political expediency has dictated that the coalition puts Scotland's interests first. English and Welsh people are entitled to ask why Scotland, the most affluent country in Britain, receives such favourable treatment through a completely discredited (and disowned) fiscal formula.
Links
By deferring cuts, Cameron ‘will only anger the English’ - Times Online
David Cameron’s Northern Ireland cuts deal ‘angers England’ - Belfast Telegraph
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“I know that there will
“I know that there will always be arguments and concerns, particularly about the issue of money. To me, the UK is a family. It is a family of Scotland, of Wales, of Northern Ireland and of England.
“And I want to keep that family together. Now families sometimes fall out over money, this can happen. I don’t want our family to fall out over money."
So said Dave at the Assembly Senedd. We got the homily and Scotland gets the money.
He was also asked about the privatised PFI defence training academy at St Athan and had some warm words for it (but no commitment). I hope that particular project doesn't get to be seen as a sweetner for Wales to make up for Barnett. Vince Cable was right; the whole thing needs to be scrapped.
There just making it up as
They're just making it up as they go along. The footy chant "You don't know what you're doing" is suitable to be sang at all three of the main political parties when it comes to devolution.
We need a transparent and fair funding formula. And there is no reason whatsoever why we should have to wait until after the recession to get it, we've waited long enough already, and if anything transparency and fairness is more important during times of austerity.