By David Scott
9 September 2009
A new and more positive relationship needs to be developed between the devolved administrations and the UK government if the Union is to be preserved, leading academics and public officials have been told.
Guy Lodge, an associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, warned that the greatest threat to the Union might not be separatism or English resentment ‘but indifference and a gradual drawing apart’.
Lodge and Roger Gough, head of government and the Constitution Unit the Policy Exchange, made the case for a ‘re-cast relationship’ between Westminster and the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, when they spoke at a seminar in Edinburgh organised by the Scottish Policy Innovation Forum.
They argued that, so far, there had been little appetite for strengthening the mechanisms of co-operation between governments within the UK, especially at the political level.
Lodge and Gough, co-authors of the 2008 study, The constitution, suggested that the Calman Commission, which examined the case for greater powers for the Scottish Parliament, offered an appealing way forward by proposing greater fiscal freedom as the ‘sweetener’ for reduced support from Westminster.
They agreed this offered a basis for a re-cast relationship between Westminster and Holyrood and rejected the claim by some that it added to the ‘drift towards separation, with Westminster cast as a scapegoat for spending cuts in Scotland’.
Lodge told Public Finance: ‘Our argument is that devolution has settled down well, and has worked effectively. But not enough attention has been given to inter-governmental relations and to how the four governments relate to each other and collaborate.
9 September 2009
A new and more positive relationship needs to be developed between the devolved administrations and the UK government if the Union is to be preserved, leading academics and public officials have been told.
Guy Lodge, an associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, warned that the greatest threat to the Union might not be separatism or English resentment ‘but indifference and a gradual drawing apart’.
Lodge and Roger Gough, head of government and the Constitution Unit the Policy Exchange, made the case for a ‘re-cast relationship’ between Westminster and the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, when they spoke at a seminar in Edinburgh organised by the Scottish Policy Innovation Forum.
They argued that, so far, there had been little appetite for strengthening the mechanisms of co-operation between governments within the UK, especially at the political level.
Lodge and Gough, co-authors of the 2008 study, The constitution, suggested that the Calman Commission, which examined the case for greater powers for the Scottish Parliament, offered an appealing way forward by proposing greater fiscal freedom as the ‘sweetener’ for reduced support from Westminster.
They agreed this offered a basis for a re-cast relationship between Westminster and Holyrood and rejected the claim by some that it added to the ‘drift towards separation, with Westminster cast as a scapegoat for spending cuts in Scotland’.
Lodge told Public Finance: ‘Our argument is that devolution has settled down well, and has worked effectively. But not enough attention has been given to inter-governmental relations and to how the four governments relate to each other and collaborate.
