IS BARNETT FAIR?

Pensioner or not: this article will be of interest to every man, woman and child living in England. It is a slightly amended copy of my Pensioners Platform column published in the August-September 2014 edition of the Torbay Times, and it proves UK politicians of all parties since the 1970s have been trying to hide a serious injustice from the people of England...

 

FIRST things first, that’s not a printing error you see in the title of this article. Nor is it intended as a tongue-in-cheek play on the Cockney Londoner rhyming slang for “hair”. On the contrary, the title is spelt correctly, and it raises a very serious question that affects all of us here in England.

Let me explain: way back in 1978, Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Cabinet were so troubled by the rise of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, they invited the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Joel Barnett to devise a formula that distributed the funding for UK public services in a way that favoured the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

By his own admission, the now Lord Barnett drew-up his formula “almost on the back of an envelope” and it was quickly enshrined into law. Nearly forty years on, the Barnett Formula is still in force, and it continues to benefit every person in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, at the expense of the people of England. Even Lord Barnett himself has admitted that his Barnett Formula was only intended as a short-term measure. In fact, at a public enquiry in 2009 he said, “I do not consider it is successful. I do not think it is fair. I thought it might last a year or two before the government would decide to change it. It never occurred to me for one moment that it would last this long.”

Nevertheless, successive governments have not only kept the Barnett Formula in-place, but they have also gone out of their way to conceal its skewed and deeply discriminatory – some might say racist – mechanism from the English people.

Consequently, for some thirty-seven years, the people of England have lost-out to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and here’s the proof:-

The latest Treasury public expenditure figures (2012-13) detailing the Barnett Formula sums allocated for public services across the nations of the United Kingdom show that Northern Ireland was granted £10,876 per head of population; Scotland £10,152; Wales £9,709 and England £8,529 per head of population. That means every person in Scotland (when looking at the UK average) is being allocated £1,364 more than everyone else. And that translates to a whopping £1,623 advantage every Scot has over every person in England.

In fact, it gets worse because, when broken down further into England’s nine regions, we here in the South West are in a rather lowly sixth place behind London, the North East; the North West; Yorkshire & Humber and the West Midlands, with an allocation of £8,219 per head of population.

Adding even more weight to the unfairness of the above allocations, earlier this year, the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils south of the Border, revealed that the Barnett Formula system means England’s communities are being “short-changed” by £4.1 billion a year.

Is it any wonder, then, that Scotland has been able to offer free prescriptions for all, while the NHS in England struggles to meet some of the basic demands placed upon it? Then there’s the Scotland government’s funding of education that guarantees free university tuition, while England’s universities are forced to charge up to £9000. Both of these advantages – and quite a few others – come about because Scotland’s devolved parliament can spend its Barnett Formula annual windfall as it sees fit.

Now, I ask you, is that fair in a so-called equality conscious United Kingdom? Come to that, is it right to deliberately disadvantage the majority English population by forcing us, as tax payers, to contribute to Scotland’s disproportionate Barnett Formula hand-outs? After all, when all the facts and figures are laid on the table, England and its tax-paying workforce still represent the power house of the UK’s economy.

So, whatever the result of Scotland’s Referendum on September 18, surely it’ll be time to scrap the thoroughly discredited Barnett Formula, and give back to the people of England their rightful – and equal – share of public service funding?

In the meantime, we’re left to ponder one simple question: is the Barnett Formula fair on the people of England? Given the statistics and quotes mentioned above, the answer appears to be a resounding … NO IT ISN’T!