The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

The_Rainmaker

Not our fault guv, it's all Wesminster's fault. This default excuse is threadbare now.  

Una_Voidable

The_Rainmaker said:

Not our fault guv, it's all Wesminster's fault. This default excuse is threadbare now.  

Somehow I don't think them's the "reserves" Herzlos was dreaming talking about earlier. 

Herzlos

Nope. How big is the English equivalent? How much of this is due to Scottish Government needing to try and mitigate Westminster austerity? Could we do any better (or worse) on our own?

John_Doe

Herzlos said:

Nope. How big is the English equivalent? How much of this is due to Scottish Government needing to try and mitigate Westminster austerity? Could we do any better (or worse) on our own?

The stat's for last year aren't out yet (the year ends in April as I'm sure you know) but in England the reserve rose in the last reported year by £2 billion to £25.5 billion as of 31st March 2019 according to localgov.co.uk

Since Scotland receive more per head than England it is disingenuous to suggest that mitigating austerity would cost so much more in Scotland than in England. Read the report above to see why Scotland's is lower:
"wasting money on vanity projects and mismanagement" sums it up.

Enterprise_1701C

And they reckon they can do without money from the rUK.  Or is it that they are convinced they would continue to get payments if they achieved independence, rather than actually having to settle their bills.

Herzlos

Enterprise_1701C said:

And they reckon they can do without money from the rUK.  Or is it that they are convinced they would continue to get payments if they achieved independence, rather than actually having to settle their bills.

Whilst I'm sure we've been over this dozens of times, they don't want to maintain the payments in either direction - the money they get from Barnet is less than they send Westminster. So they want to keep their money and use it directly.

Almost exactly like our payments to the EU.

Moe_The_Bartender

Herzlos said:

Enterprise_1701C said:

And they reckon they can do without money from the rUK.  Or is it that they are convinced they would continue to get payments if they achieved independence, rather than actually having to settle their bills.

Whilst I'm sure we've been over this dozens of times, they don't want to maintain the payments in either direction - the money they get from Barnet is less than they send Westminster. So they want to keep their money and use it directly.

Almost exactly like our payments to the EU.

So you think that Scotland shouldn’t pay for the services that the rest of the UK provides?

Enterprise_1701C

Moe_The_Bartender said:

Herzlos said:

Enterprise_1701C said:

And they reckon they can do without money from the rUK.  Or is it that they are convinced they would continue to get payments if they achieved independence, rather than actually having to settle their bills.

Whilst I'm sure we've been over this dozens of times, they don't want to maintain the payments in either direction - the money they get from Barnet is less than they send Westminster. So they want to keep their money and use it directly.

Almost exactly like our payments to the EU.

So you think that Scotland shouldn’t pay for the services that the rest of the UK provides?

Should be interesting if they find out the true cost of running a country, with embassies, defence, bank of last resort and all the other things needed by any country.

Oh, and they would have to pay back their not inconsiderable portion of the UK deficit.

The_Rainmaker

Herzlos said:

Whilst I'm sure we've been over this dozens of times, they don't want to maintain the payments in either direction - the money they get from Barnet is less than they send Westminster. 

Do you have any figures to back this up?

Herzlos

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17837412.barnett-formula-knew-dead-means-scotland/

[quote]Calculations we made in 2014 indicated that, if one assumed that Scotland had paid for the funding it received via the block grant, plus its share of UK administered services like social security, plus a population share of UK defence spend and an inherited share of debt interest, then a Scottish government would have been about £150 billion better off, (on very cautious assumptions), had it controlled its own tax revenues.[/quote]

So Barnett is essentially a percentage based share of some chunk of government funding going to the devolved parliaments based on population, which seems fair. The issue is that not all of the money raised in Scotland (such as oil revenue) isn't included and thus we're getting a proportional chunk back of a short-changed pot.

All we want is to raise taxes in our own country, and keep the money we raise. Like I said, a big part of Brexit was apparently giving so much money to the EU and them only giving us some of it back. It's the same principle but the numbers are a lot more obfuscated.