Month: October 2024

UK Budget Review – 2024

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“Death, taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them.” – Margaret Mitchell

This blog post previously appeared in The National, for which I received a commission.
You can read my donations and support policy here and if you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support this blog, you can here.

image_2024-11-06_110201644

The first budget of the new Labour Government and the first in 14 years is one that would have been more hotly anticipated if it wasn’t for the fact that the Government leaked so much of it to the media ahead of time – in direct contravention of Parliamentary procedure and in a way that would have seen Ministers resign not many years ago – and would have seen Labour complain about had they still been in Opposition. The Speaker rebuked them thoroughly, but – of course – lacks the power to actually sanction anyone involved (in Holyrood, the Presiding Officer could have technically cancelled the budget speech but even when the Scottish Government has leaked material like this, they’ve managed to stay on the side of a mere threat).

Nevertheless, the budget was delivered and it’s worth us taking a look at just a few of the things that happened that will affect Scotland.

Continue reading →

How To Replace Council Tax

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“Is this Paradise?’
‘I can guarantee you that it isn’t,’ Jubal assured him. ‘My taxes are due this week.” – Robert A. Heinlein

This blog post previously appeared in The National as part of Common Weal’s In Common newsletter.
If you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support this blog, you can here.

untitled - 2024-10-31T173408.922.png.article-962

Last week I took part in The National’s series on Council Tax reform with a 20 minute conversation with journalist Xander Elliards on some of Common Weal’s ideas for replacing Council Tax with a value-proportionate Property Tax and then extending that tax to create an effective Land Tax.

You can watch the interview here

You can read Common Weal’s policy papers on Council Tax replacement here:
A Property Tax for Scotland
Taxing Land In Scotland

TCG Logo 2019

Strangled By The Purse Strings

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got lots of numbers in it.” – George W. Bush

This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donate page here.

image_2024-10-27_085107495

Eyes are on the UK Budget at the moment, and for good reason, but shortly after that we’re going to see what the Scottish Government lays out in its own budget and, given the scope of devolution, that is likely to have much more of an impact on Scottish public services – especially at a local level.

This means that recent news from Shona Robison telling Local Authorities that there’s “no money left” for public sector pay deals should be taken as a threat to local democratic autonomy.

Usually when I write an article like this I start by saying “imagine if Westminster treated Holyrood like this” but in this case I don’t really need to as we have the example of the UK Government’s cut to Winter Fuel Payments in England having a knock-on effect on the Block Grant which put Holyrood in the position of making the choice on whether to cut the equivalent Scottish allowance too. They didn’t have to – the Block Grant is calculated based on how Westminster spends money in England but Scotland is free to spend that Grant as it likes, not just on equivalent policies. In this case though, they did indeed choose to cut the payments.

Continue reading →

Scotland’s Population

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” – Carl Sagan

This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donate page here.

image_2024-10-16_123901215

Every year the National Records of Scotland produces an annual population estimate for the nation. While not quite as comprehensive as the once-per-decade census (at least, when the census isn’t marred by the problems of the 2022 Scottish census), it provides a good rolling picture of Scotland’s population both at a national level and at a more local level both on the scale of Local Authorities and per NHS Health Boards (the latter being important for the allocation of healthcare budgets and is gathered because one of the tools used to estimate population change is the number of people who present to the NHS with an illness or injury in a given year). Indeed, a report was published in March comparing the rolling mid-year estimate to the 2022 census and found that the estimate was within around 1% of the census value (which is a fair bit more precise than, say, the 3.4% margin of uncertainty in the revenue estimates in GERS).

The headline figure you’ll have gathered from the news is that Scotland’s population is growing faster than it has since the end of the Second World War (itself a statistical glitch as many thousands of soldiers returning all at once tended to bump the numbers) and that the growth rate is being driven by immigration to Scotland.
I fully expect that line to get more negative attention than it should given the rabidly anti-migrant stance that the UK is rapidly slipping down, driven by increasingly extreme social media cesspits – certainly a view backed up by the fight going on in the comments section of the BBC article reporting on the new figures – so it’s worth doing the thing I often do with reports like this and taking a dip beneath the headlines for a more detailed and nuanced view of Scotland’s changing demographics.

Continue reading →

We Support An NCS – But Not Like This

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“It’s easy for common people to say what they think about the government. No one listens to them.” – Ljupka Cvetanova

This blog post previously appeared in The National as part of Common Weal’s In Common newsletter.
If you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support this blog, you can here.

image_2024-10-07_151459173

So NOW the Scottish Government wants to talk?

In the wake of Cosla withdrawing their support for the National Care Service Bill, the Scottish Government has called for talks to resolve the dispute and to help get their flawed Bill across the line.

The problem is that there’s very little trust left among stakeholders in the care bill – including campaigners like Common Weal. We sympathise with Cosla who were placed in a very difficult position right from the start. Common Weal cannot support the Bill in its current form, or even if the Scottish Government’s proposed Stage 2 amendments pass as they currently are. We, too, are forced to say now that the Bill needs to be massively overhauled or killed and started again.

Continue reading →

The Sun Still Has Not Set

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“You can’t have occupation and human rights.” – Christopher Hitchens

This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal, see my donate page here.

image_2024-10-11_120457719

I threw out this week’s planned newsletter (a defence of the Tourist Levy) in response to some breaking news on Thursday morning that concerns a story that I’ve been following for some years (albeit very much from the farthest fringes of the outside).

The UK, after many years of arguing against an international consensus that campaigned against their illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Chagos Islands, has agreed to hand sovereignty of the islands back to Mauritius who were stripped of the territories when they won their independence from the UK in 1968.

Continue reading →

September in Common Weal

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way.” – Cal Newport

This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.

image_2024-10-03_164920733

Common Weal is one of Scotland’s most prolific think tanks, especially given our size and shoestring budget (you can help us by throwing us a few more shoestrings here). Since I’ve been a part of the team here we’ve had a target of releasing around one publication per month but every year we completely blow past that target. This year is looking like it’ll be no different, especially given that this month we’re publishing FOUR papers for your reading pleasure. This is a testament to our expert working groups – our stalwart teams of some of the best minds in Scotland who volunteer far more of their time than we have any right to ask for to help produce this work. They really have been the model to follow and one that I hope to spend next year developing in a replicable way.

Of course, both of the groups who did the work I want to talk about this week themselves work in very different ways – our Care Reform Group have met via Zoom almost every week for almost four years now whereas our Energy Group function more as an email forum who form ad hoc cells of specialists when they want to talk about a specific topic (such as National Grid transmission or heating Scottish homes). In both cases, they’ve acted as ambassadors to other stakeholders in their respective fields and the result is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the Scottish Government to talk to anyone without encountering our ideas whether they want to or not. I’m immensely grateful for everything our Groups do for us and for the way that they’ve helped make Scotland a better place for All of Us.

As to the papers themselves, since there are so many of them this week, I thought I’d use my newsletter column to give you a quick summary of them and point you to them if you want to read more.

Continue reading →