The Devolution Journey: Devolution and Tax

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 13 Comments
A comparison of the % of devolved control in Scotland now, under 2012 and under Smith as well as a comparison with Spain and Canada. Source: Scottish Government.

A comparison of the % of devolved control in Scotland now, as it will be under the Scotland Act 2012 and under Smith Commission recommendations as well as a comparison with Spain and Canada. Source: Scottish Government.

Monday the 9th of November saw the Scotland Bill 2015 make a further step towards completion. This Bill, which has been the result of the aftermath of the 2014 independence referendum, will mark another milestone on the devolution “journey” Scotland is traveling upon.

Some of the commentary both during the actual debate in the House of Commons and in the days since have shown considerable confusion at just how the system of devolution in the UK works at the moment and how it is to change with the implementation of the Bill. Before we really settle into a meaningful debate on whether or not any “additional powers” for Scotland will be to and for Scotland’s benefit we need to actually understand what those new powers are, what we have now and how they can be used.

This article shall focus on the powers over taxation devolved to the Scottish Parliament as this area will be undergoing several rapid changes over the next few years and much of the confusion amongst members of the public has arisen from the conflation of several phases of devolution.

One must understand the rather unplanned and piecemeal nature of the progression of devolution for Scotland, there is certainly no clear “destination” to that “journey”, and this reflects and contributes to the confusion but there are three major points in the form of the Scotland Act 1998 which formed the Scottish Parliament after the success of 1997 Devolution Referendum; the Scotland Act 2012 which resulted from the 2007 Calman Commission and the aforementioned Scotland Act 2015 resulting from the Smith Commission of 2014.

Continue reading →

The Tories Have Delivered Us EVEL

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments
Naval_Ensign_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg

The White Ensign. Possibly a fitting flag for the United Kingdom of England (plus others).

Thursday, October 22nd 2015. The day that Westminster ended, finally, any pretence that the United Kingdom consisted either of “One Nation” or of four nations joined as equals.

Now we live in a state in which one of those nations maintains a right and power over the other three and representatives from those latter nations have fewer rights to speak, to influence and to legislate than their colleagues and, by way of extension, voters from those nations have less control over how their state is run.

Continue reading →

The (Economic) Madness of George

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Giddy

Last night George Osborne’s Fiscal Charter was voted on and rammed through Parliament on the back of the Tory’s majority. Today, the media focusing more on the shambles that is the current Labour party and their confused approach to supposed Opposition combined with the rumbling rebellion in the ranks as the party tries in vain to come to terms with what their members actually want the party to stand for.

Consequently, as usual, much less has been said about the actual contents of the Bill and its effects on our economy.

Continue reading →

20,000 Visits to The Common Green

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

20,000 Views

The blog hit a bit of a milestone today. 20,000 pageviews and over 16,500 visits!

All I can say is thank you for all of the support, especially in the last few days when things have went a bit viral. Here’s to the next few thousand visitors and to continuing efforts to shine just a little bit of light and opinion on the topics to come.

I’m still here to talk about all things Common and Green but if there’s anything else you think I can provide some insight on just give me a shout and I’ll see what I can do.

TCG logo

We Need To Talk About: Budget Underspends

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 39 Comments

Victoria Quay

Q. When is a surplus not a surplus?
A. When someone is talking down the Scottish Government.

Today the Auditor General published its annual report detailing an independent opinion on how well the Scottish Government is managing its finances (or how badly it is failing to do so).

This year, as last, there have been howls of anguish from those opposed to the Scottish Government at the fact highlighted by the Auditor General that the Government spent £350 million less last year than it was given in the Block Grant.

As the opening question suggests in most normal countries when your government spends less than it has available to spend then it is running what is known as a budget surplus. This is, especially in today’s economic climate, generally considered to be a “good thing“. Not so in Scotland, apparently, where the phrase to be used instead is “budget underspend”.

How this has occurred, is due to the peculiar way by which the Scottish Government is funded and is constrained to spend its money.

Continue reading →

Lying Track

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Ian Murray, Scotland’s sole Labour MP, lied to the people of Scotland today.

This morning, 14th September 2015, he was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland primarily on the extent of his agreement with his party’s political realignment in the wake of their most recent leadership changeover.

In one segment he makes the statement that the Scottish Government appeared to favour awarding the Scotrail contract to the Dutch Government owned Abelio rather than renationalising Scotland’s railways.

The relevant comment beings at 5.50.

He appears to forget that under the Railways Act 1993 enacted by the Tories and never repealed under Labour, the Scottish Government is currently barred from either renationalising the railways or forming a company in which they own a controlling stake to bid for contracts and tenders.

Indeed, under this bill any government on the planet could potentially own and operate our railways except our own.

I’m sure that rather than this being a lie, personal or political, today’s comment was merely a slip of the mind and that Mr Murray will be submitting a bill to repeal this clause in the near future.

TCG logo

Unweaving Tangled Skeins

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments
The Old Clock Square in Hom, Syria. Left - Before the war. Right - The ruins of the war.

The Old Clock Square in Homs, Syria. Left – Before the war. Right – The ruins of the war.

 It seems certain now that within the next few days or weeks the House of Commons will, for the second time in as many years, be asked to vote to go to war in Syria. I have no doubt that the picture painted will be one of us plucky Brits bravely defending ourselves against an utterly inhuman, utterly irredeemable, utterly evil and, most importantly, completely monolithic force and that after a short, sharp military action peace will be restored and reign supreme. The difference between this time and last is that last time the evil monolith was the Assad Regime. This time, it’s ISIS.

 We always seem to be sold war on such simple terms. Often, we seem to buy it because of them. But the world out there beyond the red-top tabloids is rarely so black-and-white. The conflict in Syria is less so than most.

Continue reading →

How To Start a Currency From (Almost) Scratch

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 10 Comments

An RBS £1 Note – Scottish Parliament Commemorative Issue

It’s fairly widely acknowledged that one of the weaker aspects of the 2014 Scottish Independence debate was that surrounding currency. I still hold to my long-standing view that all options open to us were and are equally viable. All come with unique benefits, all carry characteristic risks. All that was required was the will to manage those risks. Scottish Independence should never have even been about the question “Which currency should we use?”. I believe that instead, the real question was “Should we, in Scotland, have the right to ask that question?”

Recently though, the catastrophic circumstances facing Greece have focused minds back to this first question and many are now convinced that before we go into another debate on independence we must be able to answer the questions we failed to answer last year. So let us take a scenario where Scotland is faced with setting up its own currency. Just what would that involve?

Continue reading →

Greening Your Vote

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 3 Comments

Note: This article assumes that readers are fully familiar with the AMS voting system used in Scotland. If you are not or would like a refresher please read this article first:- How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the Scottish Elections

Greening Your Vote in the Scottish Elections

SGPlogoI’ve mentioned in a previous post that we in the Greens general regard the First Past the Post voting system as an unfair and unrepresentative system. It punishes all of those parties which poll less than about 35% of the electorate with fewer seats than they deserve whilst rewarding those parties which can achieve just slightly more than that with almost all of the power. For a smaller party like the Greens this means that looking for seats within the constituency vote is a particularly difficult enterprise and, in all likelyhood, would result in a waste of resources more effectively spent elsewhere.

For this reason it is very likely that you, as a voter, will not see a Green candidate on your constituency ballot paper next year (although exceptions like party co-convenor Patrick Harvie’s campaign in Kelvin will be one to seriously watch).

The great advantage within Scottish politics, however, lies in the Regional ballot. I’ve detailed in my How Scotland Votes article how this ballot is used to ensure proportionality within the parliament as a whole but this article intends to deal with another of its great strengths. The regional ballot allows voters who may describe themselves as “traditional” voters of one party to compliment or nuance their voting intentions by voting for another party as well.

I will here argue that in the Holyrood elections next year there is great scope for many voters to consider seeing a regional vote for the Greens not as a “splitting” of their vote but as a strengthening of it. Even when your “traditional” Constituency affiliation has been with the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats or with the SNP there is much that you may also find appealing within Green politics and much which may lead to you to giving us your Regional vote.

Continue reading →