Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Calman Commission on the future of Scottish devolution has today published its first report. It's very much a provisional exercise, but it provides some important indications of the Commission's thinking.
The maintenance of the union was always going to be a key principle for the Commission, which is backed by the three main unionist parties in Scotland and boycotted by the SNP. However, even within the unionist spectrum, it has become increasingly clear that Calman is headed for a much more cautious set of proposals than the fiscal autonomy advocated by the Lib Dem Steel Commission.
Today's report states:
our consideration of finance follows from our discussion of the nature of the Union. As well as being an economic Union, the UK has a shared social citizenship. Greater tax devolution would be associated with less shared social citizenship, while high dependence on grant funding implies some common expectations about the need for welfare services like health and education. We have not reached a view on the appropriate point in what is a spectrum of possibilities, but we do recognise that this must reflect the expectations of the Scottish population. In the next phase of our work, with further help from the Independent Expert Group, we will identify the possible combinations of the funding mechanisms and their implications for the nature of the Union.
The Commission has identified a number of areas where there is a case for further devolution of powers, including: "broadcasting; energy policy; animal health and movement; firearms; misuse of drugs; regulation of heath care professionals; and marine planning among others."
The concept of a 'common social citizenship' has clearly played an important role in the Commission's thinking, but many in England would question how far common expectations about health and education provision exist today.
Dougthedug said:
Wed, 2008-12-03 19:20In simple terms the Calman Commission is about improving the functioning of the Scottish Parliament within the Union and making the Scottish Parliament in some way responsible for raising the money it spends. It is nothing to do with any Scottish aspirations of more autonomy and all about ensuring that Wesminster has full control of all important economic, energy and planning policies to defend the Union and to remove any potential flashpoints.
Under the Section "Financial Accountability" in the Summary it says in para. 9.17:
In other words, the financing of the Scottish Parliament is not to be the best system for Scotland but the system which causes the least problems for the Union.
The Liberals are finally coming to the conclusion that most others came to at the inception of the Calman Commission, that they are a bunch of suckers and Labour and Brown have hooked, played and landed them.
Their cherished pipedream of, "Financial Autonomy", within the UK has just been shot down and what's left is a Commission to return powers to Westminster.
The SNP avoided the Calman Commission like the plague as they saw through it from the start, the Conservatives are quite happy to see powers returned to Westminster and Labour set it up with the express purpose of ensuring that Westminster had all the real levers of powers.
Only the Lib-Dems marched in with happy smiles and empty heads and thought the Calman Commission was set up to give more powers to Scotland.