Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Calman Commission on Scottish devolution today received a report on the future of taxation and public spending from its economic advisors.
The report's contents have been heavily spun over the past couple of days. Several members of the expert group told Scotland on Sunday that it would favour greater powers for Holyrood.
Today's Times had a slightly different version:The expert group, led by leading economist Professor Anton Muscatelli, argues strongly that Holyrood must be made more accountable by having greater powers to raise taxes.
"The report is saying that total fiscal autonomy may have some downsides, but that doesn't mean that greater degrees of fiscal autonomy may not be more desirable," said Professor David Ulph, head of the school of economics at St Andrews University and a member of the group.
The report will not come down on the side of any particular model and will leave any recommendations on fiscal powers to the Calman commission which ordered its evidence-gathering work to be carried out. Suggestions that the economists favoured greater power over taxes being transferred to Edinburgh were dismissed by the UK Government yesterday.
A source said: “That is untrue. The report is a survey of what goes on in other places around the world. It will tell us about the principles of various systems and the trade-offs involved, but it will not recommend anything.”
No doubt the politicians on the commission will have the final say, but as Brian Taylor notes, they are not necessarily united among themselves.
I still believe that the competing interests within Calman may ultimately prove divergent. The LibDems want radical reform, including substantial tax powers. Labour is much more cautious and, at the UK Government level, partly preoccupied with the wish to placate English opinion.
The Conservatives are, quite understandably, using Calman as a think tank to prepare for what they might have to confront in government, should they win power at Westminster. This has a long way to go.
Comments
"A parcel of rogues", is an apt description.
I couldn't agree more Doug, the commissions main flaw is that it lacks legitimacy, never mind competency though.
Unlike the Claim of Right, or the National Conversation, its simply an ad hoc group packed with appointees, and increasingly used as a de facto forum to lob constitutional issues back at Holyrood (eg. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5127257.ece)
It's completely against the idea of devolution and a way of avoiding the other channels and structures meant to be in place to resolve dispute and difficulty (the Council of Isles etc). The inherent tensions between the parties may or may not be realised, depending largely on the passivity of the Liberals.
The Calman Commission is a throwback to the bad old days of royal commissions whose terms of reference and composition guaranteed the outcome the government wanted. It has also been very chary about engaging with the general public. For both of these reasons this commission is a backward step and evidence of the unionist establishment reverting back to type after the non-typical process of the Scottish Constitutional Convention.
But how one argues one’s case is vital. It was established by a majority vote of the Scottish Parliament so it is difficult to argue that it is not legitimate. Its has been set up as a general review of devolution, so it doesn't fall into the category of dispute resolution either. It does, however, subordinate an analysis of which levers of decision-making Scotland needs to reverse decades of decline to the overriding requirement of not jeopardising the union.
This is Calman's intellectual Achilles heel. Professor Calman's own pronouncements, regarding English grievance, suggests he sees the commission's role as primarily that of taking the tensions out of the system. The outcome could, therefore, potentially be judged a success in England, but a failure in Scotland but this depends on how successful each side is in prosecuting their case.
Calman’s usefulness for both Labour and the Tories is that he provides a veneer of legitimacy and political cover for any changes they might want to make. But this is only the case if a settled view in Scotland doesn’t develop that Calman will lead to an outcome that is detrimental to Scottish interests.
Calman's own attempts to trail the commissions likely suggestions on English grievance in order to soften up public opinion in Scotland and the spinning that has taken place around this announcement suggests that those involved are well aware of this danger. So the public's impressions are central to whether this commissions is going to be useful for the unionist cause or not.
It is equally important to those who do not want Scotland to go backwards to hone their critique of Calman in order not to fall into the trap of being seen as fanatical or unreasonable, which is exactly how Labour will try to portray them.
Calman has a right to exist because the Scottish Parliament voted him into existence, but he doesn't have a right to do Westminster's dirty work without being challenged and challenged vigorously.
As a previous LibDem voter, I know it is a particularly bitter pill to swallow, but the last month has proved, once again, that the only way to push constitutional change in Scotland (whether you are interested in full independence or not) is to vote, or threaten to vote for the Scottish National Party in large numbers. Its just a simple fact now.
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