Scotland's devolution pain
Dame Commander of the British Empire Baillie gaslights Scotland - again
Published in the August 14th edition of the Edinburgh Evening News and The National.
Jackie Baillie slams the Scottish administration for “presiding over a 2-tier health system … where the price of poverty is pain.” She’s gaslighting us - again.
Scotland’s main funding source - its ‘allowance’ - is a Block Grant from London. Holyrood has some limited direct taxation powers, but most are reserved to Westminster. And what Holyrood raises in taxes, must be balanced with its devolved expenditure.
The size of the Block Grant is determined by the amount Westminster spends on English public services. As an example, for each £1 spent on the English NHS, a small proportion based on population size, is allocated to Scotland’s Block Grant. Holyrood can move expenditure around the various devolved areas, say from education to healthcare, but the total amount of money is fixed. There’s no fiscal autonomy with devolution.
Westminster devolved responsibility for the Winter Fuel Allowance to Holyrood, but not the power to raise the additional £100 million which will disappear from the Block Grant, courtesy of Westminster’s cuts. Holyrood has to find the money from elsewhere - it can’t create it like the UK government can because it owns a central bank and the Scottish administration doesn’t.
And Reeves vowed not to increase public spending until economic growth resumes, which is unlikely given her austerity policies. So, where’s the money coming from to ramp up defence spending by £13-15 billion a year (2.5% of GDP) as Starmer promised? Simple - English Labour will rob the public sector which means a cut to Scotland’s Block Grant. Neat, huh?
If Baillie had an ounce of integrity, she’d be saying “the price of devolution is pain.” The problem is the UK government’s domineering control over Scotland and its economy. Only by terminating this fake union and restoring Scottish Popular Sovereignty can end the pain.
Yep the EngGBUK government red Tories have Scotland by the short and curlies don't they, it's what devolution was designed to do and even with a pro Scottish government at Holyrood, the SNP, devolution is still doing what it was designed to do for the EngGBUK government. God help us if the anti Scottish thieves (LabCons, Tories, LibDems) get their dirty scheming lying paws on power at Holyrood again.
They had ten years at Holyrood, and plunged Scotland into £billions of debt with their PFI scheme (scam) and sent £billions back to Westminster, saying, ''nothing to spend it on in Scotland'. 'Nothing', not housing, jobs, education, health, infrastructure, energy investment, not even learning support for youngsters like my sons at school, left on the scrapheap, and constantly told 'no money' for support, unforgiveable.
Of course at the time Scotland had the LOWEST life expectancy of any country in the western world and Glasgow was the DRUGS capital and crime capital of Europe and most likely beyond Europe and that's just exactly what was convenient for the BritNat state and they will make sure to take Scotalnd back to those days if given half a chance.
SNP have started to repair some of the damage of centuries and of course decades of neglect since England started to thieve Scotland's VAST oil reserves, all taken as gratis, by the EngGBUK governments. ScotGovs' mitigation are against massive odds which are becoming even bigger and will do in run up to the election in 2026.
I bet Labour set up a type of cold weather payment for people in England in run up to winter, just watch 'em, sleekit lying scheming you know whats.
Thanks for article Leah... :-)