Holtham Report causing more of a stir in Scotland than Wales

It’s been less than a week since the Holtham Commission report was published and while some Welsh politicians were making positive noises on Tuesday about the report’s findings, there were many others eager for the Holtham Report to end up on the shelves in Cathays Park gathering dust like the Richard Commission before it, proving that despite Welsh politics radical reputation when it comes to changing the status quo, Welsh politicians remain very conservative in their outlook.

However if many in Wales are less than impressed by Gerald Holtham latest Commission findings, his conclusions have attracted quite a lot of attention and provoked debate in Scotland over funding, it may be partly out of self interest with another report stating the Scots get too much from Barnett, but most seems genuinely trying to grapple with the issues being raised.

A couple of examples are in the Herald with a piece entitled ‘A perfect example of how devolution should operate’ looking at the implications for the Calman Commission legislation, political relation between Scotland and Wales over the funding issues, and how far Wales has traveled since the 1998 Devolution referendum

Similar themes are picked up by Brian Taylor BBC Scotland’s Political Editor and also looks at the Scottish party’s response to Holtham’s findings, it’s also prompted the SNP to call again for full fiscal powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

With all this in mind it’s worth noting is Alan Trench and his thoughts in Public Finance Magazine for politicians in Cardiff, Edinburgh and London on the future funding for the UK.

His final paragraph states ‘The big question now will be what the UK government does. We’re promised a further white paper, and a bill, implementing Calman in the autumn. The expectation has been that that would just relate to Scotland. Indeed, the Coalition’s Programme for Government not only covers that, but prejudges the Holtham report by promising a ‘Calman Commission for Wales’ at some future date, when the public finances are restored to order. The Holtham report puts the UK government under a lot of pressure to rethink that. It has done much of the heavy lifting to work out how limited fiscal autonomy and a needs-based block grant would each work, and interact with each other. This is work that the UK government appears never to have done at all (it has never published it if it did it). And as the Holtham report argues strongly that this approach can be made to work for Wales as well as Scotland, it creates a basis for a more consistent way of funding devolution across Britain, in contrast to the disjointed and ad hoc approach that has been taken up to now.’

Even if Welsh politicians want to ignore the issues Holtham raised this week, events elsewhere might force them to engage with these complex issues or risk seeing those opposed to devolution gain more of the upper hand in any coming or future debate over Welsh Devolution.Any source