h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This kind of debate annoys me in some ways. Novo's initial post shows he doesn't really understand what's going on in Scotland, which is fair enough in a way because he's English. But starting a thread commenting on how the Scottish Parliament's budget is spent without knowing how it's generated seems particularly rash. I mean, Jesus Christ Novo, do you think your council tax is going up so I can get free prescriptions or something? As SWL said, it's a block grant the SP gets, and within limits it can spend that as it chooses.

The fact is that we have an imperfectly federal UK, with all the baggage that brings. Scotland has a parliament, but England doesn't, with the West Lothian inconsistencies that entails. Most Scots voted *for* the SP, and presumably would vote against it being abolished. My personal view is that we should go the whole hog and give England one as well, and keep Westminster* as the British one.

The Economist article had one *very* salient point: the SP has no real incentive to increase tax revenue, as it's not responsible for generating them. If it was responsible, then the SNP might be lowering corporation tax by 3% to attract companies north. As it is, they've decided to abolish endowment fees as well. As a student, I think this is brilliant. When I graduate next year, I'll be £16k in debt instead of £18k. Wonderful.

And as for oil revenues, they're mentioned because when English 'subsidies' to Scotland are mentioned, it's only fair to mention revenue the exchequer gets from Scotland. If we were independent then the revenue would disappear along with the so-called subsidy.




*The first nugget who calls Westminster the 'English' parliament deserves the torrent of vile abuse s/he gets (from me)

At the start of developing North Sea oil the oil companies were ready to set up in Dundee but due to the level of local corruption they upped and off to a man to Aberdeen. Talk about killing the goose that was about to lay the biggest commercial golden egg in Scottish history.

Yeah, that's the story I heard WA. The Dundee councillors took the attitude "What's in it for us?" whereas the Aberdeen councillors said "What can we do for you?".

Well, Scotland contribution to the Union is a very complicated equation and you can prove anything by cherry-picking statistics and making basic assumptions. I would challenge one oft-cited basic assumption though - that per capita state expenditure should be the same in different parts of the country.

Scotland has a 10th of the population of England but roughly the same land area, so far more infrastructure to maintain per head. Demographics are different, industries are different, incomes are different. You can't simply compare the entity "Scotland" with the entity "UK" and expect their populations to have exactly the same average requirements.

If you did the same comparison between, say, greater London, rural Oxfordshire, Cumbria or Bradford I'm sure you'd find the same differences in per capita expenditure.

At the other (also entirely arbitrary) extreme, why don't we calculate government handouts per square mile and see which country comes out better off?

Yes but, isn't the point that one specifc part of UK, i.e. Scotland, is getting more spent per capita on education and elderly care to name two contentious subjects.

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The point of what? Seriously, this thread is really vague, hence my earlier post.

Is it the point of the Scottish Executive having more discretion over budgeting than Birmingham council? Or is it the point of having an unbalanced distribution of powers throughout the UK?

Under the present system, the SP (or SE, rather) can, within limits, spend its budget on what it wants. As noted before, it's not spending it on giving tax breaks to attract business because of the structure of its budget generation. So what's the fuss?

But that's down to specific calculations of need decided by the Scottish Executive.

In 2004, the Executive spent 2.5m on visual arts whilst the English Arts Council spent 32.9m.

Where are the massed ranks of Scottish artists marching in complaint?

So, really we're arguing that, because we're all funded from the same source, Scotland shouldn't have any benefits that England doesn't? Even though this decision does not, in fact, appear to affect England in any way? Scotland has always been more socialist, I'd expect them to spend more on things like this.

Apologies for the following rather crass and obvious statement, but I was a student in the days of decent grants and paid fees. Just before a government Scotland didn't vote for decided to cut them. The SP now has the power to reverse those decisions. Good on 'em I say.

Ahha, I spy the West Lothian question sialing over the horizon. England now has a government it didn't vote for.

There really should be an Abort Post button. Sailing or Sallying take your pick.

maybe we could just have one forum thread titled:-

"Yawn: West Lothian thread" rather than it being brought up endlesly every where else.....

I predict it will be the major issue for Brown's government, so, as from next week it's here for however long he manages to cling on.

So presumably you would welcome the end of the union?

No, I think we're stronger as UK and I am a Europhile for the same reason. What I do object to and would welcome some sort of constitutional change is the inequity of Scottish MP's voting on English matters and providing New Labour with a built in majority not reflected across England.

Seeing as how this thread is about money, Scotland & all that, this is quite interesting -

SNP wins first vote to scrap council tax

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1490745.0.0.php

WA, were you upset when English MPs voted on Scottish matters?

Neither would I , but then they are Labour are they not?

Novo