Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

HS2 is just the current hot topic, but is a good example of "UK" spending which seems to only benefit certain regions and not the whole of the UK.

Why shouldn't the spending be proportionally attributed to the regions it is benefiting?

My understanding is that the costs of hs2 (which to date are fairly insignificant but expected to be very large in the future) are apportioned entirely to England in the spending figures and appear in the capital expenditure on transport line in the figures.

The Scot Nats beef with HS2 is not that it is being unfairly apportioned to Scotland in order to make Scotland's budget deficit look higher than it is. It is that for the purposes of calculating the amount of money that Scotland receives under the Barnett formula, HS2 has been classified as a project which benefits the whole nation and that therefore there will not be a compensatory adjustment to Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) in accordance with the Barnett formula.

It is not actually clear yet whether this is true or not as no one has decided what happens to the Barnett formula in the years when the bulk of the expenditure is going to be incurred (ie after 2015/16).

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Ok, so on what basis is the claims that London supports the rest of the UK made?

You will have to ask someone who made that claim.

Again, I have never denied that Scotland has a deficit as does the UK.

The discussion is trying to ascertain what is contributed in revenue and what is returned as expenditure.

Something I was trying to break down even further across the whole of the UK to ascertain where contribution is higher than the UK average.

If you want to work that then I humbly suggest you need to start with tax revenue rather than GVA which is much higher than tax revenue. You cannot work it out by using GVA as a proxy for tax revenue because taxes are not calculated by reference to GVA.

According to Shakey it is impossible for anyone to work this out anyway as she read an article in money week saying that no one knows what Scottish tax revenues are and the figures that anyone presents are necessarily just random guesses. On that basis perhaps there is no point even trying.

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

My understanding is that the costs of hs2 (which to date are fairly insignificant but expected to be very large in the future) are apportioned entirely to England in the spending figures and appear in the capital expenditure on transport line in the figures.

Interesting.
Where is this English spending figures reflected?
I think another poster was calling for this

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The Scot Nats beef with HS2 is not that it is being unfairly apportioned to Scotland in order to make Scotland's budget deficit look higher than it is. It is that for the purposes of calculating the amount of money that Scotland receives under the Barnett formula, HS2 has been classified as a project which benefits the whole nation and that therefore there will not be a compensatory adjustment to Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) in accordance with the Barnett formula.

I wouldn;t say that is why I was bringing it up.

Sure I was trying to understand the spending as a potential way of balancing the facts relating to the Barnett allowance.

I've never cited its a case for more funding to Scotland.

It's certainly not something that benefits the Whole nation though.
Maybe you could help explain how it helps Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland

chewmylegoff

I don't think it does benefit the whole nation. Frankly I don't think it benefits anyone other than the people employed building it and the shareholders of the relevant companies. But whatever you say about it the bulk of the cost is in the future and it hasn't impacted (materially) any financials that have been published to date.

chewmylegoff

And the regional expenditure breakdown is here - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264286/Country_and_Regional_Analysis_2013.pdf

.string.

Excuse me, please, if this has been posted before, but this set of data presents the data in an interesting set of graphs.

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I don't think it does benefit the whole nation. Frankly I don't think it benefits anyone other than the people employed building it and the shareholders of the relevant companies. But whatever you say about it the bulk of the cost is in the future and it hasn't impacted (materially) any financials that have been published to date.

Fair enough, but doesn't mean we can't question where it is planned to be captured.

Surely this has already been identified

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

And the regional expenditure breakdown is here - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264286/Country_and_Regional_Analysis_2013.pdf

Yes expenditure is a worthwhile topic and something we have touched on.

We will have an opportunity to dissect this, but we are still at the stage of defining the revenue in order to consider a full rounded analysis.

Incidentally, I recall that the figures in Table A.2 were represented differently elsewhere. That will be worthwhile when we discuss later

Froggitt

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

HS2 is just the current hot topic, but is a good example of "UK" spending which seems to only benefit certain regions and not the whole of the UK.

Why shouldn't the spending be proportionally attributed to the regions it is benefiting?

What about all those underused bridges to nowhere in the highlands? They don't benefit the rest of the UK.


And spending should be spent where the most benefit will accrue, not dependent on how much each country/region puts in.

Froggitt

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Would you not think it is a fair calculation.

Can't remember the exact figures (and can't be arsed to go back and verify once more), but West Midland GVA was circa 17000 and got back circa £8,500, meaning their contribution to Westminster was circa £8,500

Scotland contributed circa £21,000 and got back circa £10,500, meaning their contribution to Westminster was circa £10,500.

Now both regions got back similar relation to what they contributed in percentage terms.

Scotland got more back, but at the same time contributed more than the West Midlands

I can't see what the big issue you guys are all making out of this.

1. Pull in the money2. Decide where its best spent.


Not related to who puts in what.