If Peggy Fitchett lived 160 miles north of her home in Staffordshire, she
would be at least £4,000 a year better off. Not because of different tax or
work - but simply because the Scottish government would spend a lot more on
public services for her than she receives in England.
For Fitchett, it could mean the difference between keeping her sight and going
blind. The 67-year-old discovered last year that she suffers from an eye
disease called “wet macular degeneration”. After the condition was diagnosed
by her optician, an NHS consultant dropped a bombshell.
“He said there was a treatment - a drug called Lucentis - but that it wasn’t
available on the NHS in England,” said Fitchett, who lives near
Newcastle-under-Lyme. “I applied to the local primary care trust, and they
turned me down. I made an appeal just after Christmas but I haven’t heard
anything.”
So far Fitchett has had to spend £4,000 on private treatment to get the drug.
“It’s definitely made a difference,” she said. “I’ve got my colour vision
back and I can now actually make out people’s features, whereas before I
could barely make out the shape of their face.”
To continue treatment she will have to pay thousands of pounds a year. Yet in
Scotland she would receive Lucentis free on the NHS.
It is far from the only difference in public services between the two
countries.
Just north of the border in Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, lives Richard
Barker, who moved from England some years ago. He says his family have saved
thousands of pounds on education. His two sons, Liam, 21, and Sam, 20, went
to college in Scotland - with all the costs met by the state. They left with
no debts. By contrast, their older brother Allan, 22, studied in Lanca-shire
and left university with a £4,000 overdraft.
In addition, Barker’s girlfriend Helen has lung cancer and though it is in
remission she might in future need an expensive drug called Tarceva. “She
has been told it will be available if she needs it,” said Barker. “But the
treatment is not available on the NHS in England. I would never consider
going back to England. We’ve a lot to be thankful for in Scotland.”
He’s right. What Scotland has to be thankful for is the huge subsidy it
receives from English taxpayers. Scotland’s largesse on health, education
and much else is possible because the English are the losers when the
British government dishes out funds for public spending.
The latest figures on public spending per head show that in 2006-7 it was
reckoned at £8,623 in Scotland; £8,139 in Wales; and just £7,121 in England.
(The figures may seem modest, but they are for “identifiable spending” that
differs between regions and do not include items such as defence that are
deemed to be national.)
The Scots, with £1,500 more to spend per person, are lavishing services on
their 5m population. Free care (up to £210 a week) for the elderly, free eye
tests, dental checks and, in future, free prescriptions. Yet in England, it
was announced last week that the prescription charge will rise to £7.10.
In Wales, which has £1,000 per person more to spend than England, the
authorities last week announced plans for free hospital car parking. It
infuriated taxpayers in England.
“It seems that in the UK, the poor relation is England,” said John Cherrett, a
campaigner for pensioners in Dorset, where some hospitals charge £7 a day
for parking. “Whatever way we look at it, public transport, drugs, pensions,
whatever, England is a poor relation. We are the wealth-maker of the four
parts of the UK and we lose out all along.”
In total the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group calculates that the “cost of
being English” could amount to more than £7,000 a year – from £3,000 for
university tuition fees to thousands more for care of the elderly, £25 for
an eye test and £15 for each dental check-up.
Last week the issue flared in Westminster, only for Alistair Darling, the
chancellor, to bat it away in typical Labour style. “It is important that we
have [this] debate,” he said, “and I will be publishing something, probably
in the summer, that will contribute to that debate.”
English taxpayers would rather have action, not debate. As they contemplate
higher food and fuel costs, rising council tax and poor services, they
increasingly ask: why should the English get so much less than the Scots,
Welsh and Northern Irish? The way public funds are divided up goes back 30
years to a system created by Joel (now Lord) Barnett, who was chief
secretary of the Treasury in James Callaghan’s Labour government. Barnett
was asked to devise a formula that would provide a fairer distribution of
funds - and combat the rising threat of the Scottish National party (SNP).
The result was that Scotland, Wales and Ireland received proportionately more
than England per head. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, with the
differences eventually eroding. It hasn’t worked out like that.
Even Barnett has come to think it is inequitable. In 2004 he said: “It was
never meant to last this long . . . It has become increasingly unfair to the
regions of England . . . Successive governments have failed to deal with it
for fear of upsetting the Scots.”
The regional discrepancies are even more striking than the national ones. The
latest figures show that eastern England, hardly one of the richest areas,
gets just £6,144 in public spending per head, almost £2,500 less than
Scotland.
The southeast, with its congested roads and overburdened services, gets
£6,304. The East Midlands gets £6,491 and the southwest £6,677. Only the
northeast and London come anywhere near the funding provided for Scotland.
While many ordinary taxpayers are only vaguely aware of the differences, in
Berwick-upon-Tweed some locals are stung by the discrepancies with the scale
of spending over the nearby border.
“The sooner Berwick joins into Scotland the better,” said John White, 55, a
taxi driver. “Scotland has far better social care than England.”
Last month two polls showed that a majority of residents in the town would
prefer it to be part of Scotland, not England.
While England imposes higher education tuition fees of up to £3,000 a year,
Scotland has none; it also plans to scrap a tax levied on students when they
graduate.
For some families the difference may even make the cost of moving worthwhile.
Findlay and Beth Skivington-Jones live in Cornhill-on-Tweed, a village just
south of the border. With a son due to go to university and an elderly
relative in their care, they are planning to move a few miles north into
Scotland.
“I never thought devolution would lead to this,” said Skivington-Jones. “But
the gap is growing wider.”
In Wales the differences are less marked, but enough to make the Welsh smile
at English expense. Nurses are getting a 2.5% pay rise compared with about
2% overall in England. Prescriptions have been free since last year;
pensioners and disabled people can travel on buses free at any time;
children under 16 receive free swimming lessons; and Welsh students who
study locally may be eligible for a grant of up to £1,890 towards their
fees.
“It’s fantastic that we can swim for nothing at the new pool,” said Nicola
Rees, a mother of two in Cardiff, which has a new, multi-million-pound
Olympic-size pool. “And the free prescriptions for everyone are a real boon.”
By contrast the Scots play down the largesse they receive, presumably fearful
of drawing more attention to the £1,500 extra per head they get. “The idea
that England is subsidising Scotland is nonsense,” claimed Elizabeth Duncan,
director of Help the Aged in Scotland. “Elderly people here are not
conspicuously better off.” Robin McAlpine of Universities Scotland echoed
her: “The anti-Scottish sentiment is nonsense. We get the rough end of the
stick for England’s decision to impose top-up fees.”
The defensiveness, though, fails to answer the fundamental question: why
should Scotland get so much more public funding than England?
ENGLISH taxpayers could be forgiven for thinking that the personal prejudices
of the prime minister and his chancellor, both of whom represent Scottish
constituencies, play a part. Such suspicions were summed up by Graham Brady,
MP for Altrincham and Sale West in Cheshire, last year when he asked Brown:
“Why should my constituents pay more tax so that the prime minister’s
constituents pay no prescription charges?”
The suspicions surfaced again last week when George Osborne, the shadow
chancellor, brandished cabinet minutes that he said showed the government
was split on the Barnett formula. He claimed ministers representing English
constituencies want it reviewed, while those from Scottish constituencies
are happy to let the status quo continue.
Meanwhile, the SNP wants to have its cake and eat it. It would like “full
financial independence for Scotland”, including control of North Sea oil
revenues. But failing that, it’s happy to stick with the Barnett formula.
It is a moot point who owns North Sea oil. But the subsidy provided by the
English to the Scots is more than the government’s receipts from petroleum
revenue tax (though less than the total tax received from oil companies). No
wonder the English are restless. Corin Tay-lor, research director at the
TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is wrong that English taxpayers are
subsidising so many additional benefits in Scotland that they themselves
don’t receive. If voters in Scotland want these extra services, they should
pay for them directly.”
Frank Field, the former Labour minister and MP for Birkenhead, said: “It’s a
big issue, not just in my own constituency, but with people writing and
e-mailing from all around the country. At some stage it will have to be
faced.”
Field has previously introduced motions in the Commons to reform the Barnett
formula and to prevent Scottish MPs voting on matters that are exclusively
English. They were blocked by the government.
He believes there should be no bias towards different countries in the UK;
funds should be allocated purely on need. “The system should be unified and
based on need, not geography,” he said. “What’s so interesting is that it’s
just like the debate over the [marginalising of the] white working class . .
. there’s a real reluctance to face the issues [in parliament] where they
should be faced.”
As the Edinburgh parliament’s and Cardiff assembly’s largesse towards their
people becomes ever greater, it is an issue that will only grow in
importance in English minds.
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