Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520
- 539)
WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH 2009
Rt Hon Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market and Sir Brian
Unwin
Q520 Chairman:
What I find fascinating is clearly the base line, the block line,
went on from year to year without any re-examination of what it
should and should not be and no re-examination of needs either.
The Barnett bit of it was really to do with changes in the existing
expenditure round.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: That is absolutely
right. I have every sympathy with the point that Lord Barnett
was making to you. I can remember 1978 very clearly. He was having
a terrific problem with his Finance Bills because we had quite
a powerful team on our side and these were the days when we went
through the night. It was almost a full-time job in handling it.
It was a tremendous pressure period and to get them off your back,
in a public expenditure review, having to argue the minute details
of the territorial departments was a great prize in the negotiations
and so the Barnett Formula was created. Doing it on the basis
of one year should not have meant that it lasted as a formula
for 30 years. It was never conceived that way at all.
Q521 Lord Lawson of Blaby:
Lord MacGregor mentioned, and it was also my recollection of that
time, that as a government we were fighting battles on a number
of fronts. We had to choose, and I am sure it was true with every
government but it was certainly true with that government, which
fronts we were going to fight because you cannot fight on every
front at the same time because that would be stupid. The political
battle on making an adjustment would have been a very considerable
one and, therefore, you can say, even though objectively this
does not stand up this arrangement, it is ludicrous, the battle
would be such a big one that you choose battles where you are
going to get a bigger return. The fact is that in the first instance,
whether you have a needs assessment or whether you adjust on population
because of the base line on population, it comes to much the same
thing. The number one premise must be that needs are greater the
greater the number of people. In the first cut, as you said, the
population thing is the same as the needs and then you refine
it further, of course. You say, "If we are going to do this
we cannot do it straight away; we are going to have to phase it
in over a number of years". If you phase it in over a number
of years then the gain each year is relatively trivial and so
you say, "We are not going to fight that battle. We are going
to reserve our ammunition and our strength for fighting other
battles" and that is, in fact, as I recall it, what happened.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I see that
convergence has featured quite a bit in your discussions. I do
not recall convergence ever being mentioned from the time I was
there. The first time I was aware of the convergence argument
was in Lord Lang's book which came out in 2002 and its pages on
the Barnett Formula mentioned convergence. That was the first
time I was aware there was a convergence.
Sir Brian Unwin: If I may just endorse what
I think Lord Lawson was, in principle, saying, from the point
of view of the public expenditure control troops fighting in the
Treasury trenches, it was extremely convenient to have a formula
which had automaticity each year however intellectually defective
that might be. If the rest of Whitehall accepted it, it was convenient.
You got that out of the way before you got on to the big stuff
in the public expenditure battle.
Chairman: If you look at it now, clearly
it was intellectually defective and for 30-odd years nobody has
looked at the defects.
Q522 Lord Lawson of Blaby:
We were aware of them but we had bigger fish to fry.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: Several of
us have advocated the fundamental assessment of the Barnett Formula
in Parliament since. It has not been 30 years without it being
challenged.
Q523 Lord Smith of Clifton:
All these arguments about bigger fish to fry will always apply
and, therefore, there will always be the convenience and opportunity
across Parliament: let us leave it alone. Lord MacGregor said
that he thought you should do this at the beginning of a Parliament
and it would take two years. One of the questions I was asked
to put was what would be the level of administrative resources.
It seems to me the level of administrative resources would be
disproportionate just to get an intellectually coherent formula;
you might just as well carry on as before.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I do not agree
with that.
Q524 Lord Smith of Clifton:
I am not saying I agree with it. I am saying the argument would
be persuasive at any one time.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: Personally,
I think the time has come to really look at it and it is up to
your Committee to decide whether that is feasible and how it should
be done. There are the grounds of equity and we all know those
arguments. There are grounds that the base line was set in 1978
in totally different circumstances. We would probably have to
look at the needs assessments in 1978 too, but it has carried
on ever since and all of those arguments. The argument about convergence
only makes a marginal difference. All of those arguments seem
to be pointing to a need to look at a real needs assessment, and
both in Scotland and England they do have it in local government
in the way in which we distribute grants to local government.
It is a big issue and that is why I think it needs to be tackled
at the very beginning of Parliament.
Q525 Lord Smith of Clifton:
What do you think would be the level of resources?
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: It depends
how you intend to do it. It depends on what form of inquiry. You
would have to have an independent inquiry of some sort, an independent
task force, and not politicians, that would look dispassionately
at the issues and the actual facts. I do not know how long that
would take or how many resources.
Sir Brian Unwin: Probably the argument against
it, as you imply, is the can of worms argument rather than the
administrative effort and resources that would have to go into
it. Even if you commissioned an external independent inquiry,
it would not require all that much to do a decent job looking
at needs and all the other factors, perhaps including tax although
that takes you into another very controversial area.
Q526 Baroness Hollis of Heigham:
I understand the comments made by Lord MacGregor and reinforced
by Lord Lawson about bigger fish to fry and prioritisations. That
would have a political judgment that we all sympathise with. What
I do not understand however, and still do not, is the role of,
if I may use a generic term, the Civil Service. In my limited
junior experience, all the time benefits, forms of taxes and so
on are kept under review. This is part of the guardian trustee
role of the senior Civil Service, certainly for Grade 5 and elevated
levels above. The fact that political masters may decide not to
act on it is perfectly comprehensible given the situation. What
puzzles me is the withdrawal from any apparent contemplation in
a way that seems to me unprecedented from my experience, certainly
on the benefits side. I would have expected every three to five
years a senior civil servant, Grade 5 or above, to come along
and say, "This benefit is now no longer adequate or fit for
purpose. We believe we ought to review it. You may or may not
find the recommendations acceptable, palatable, desirable or whatever
but, minister, we will be failing in our duty as trustees and
guardians of public monies if we did not go down that path."
What baffles me is that failure of the Civil Service, particularly
the Treasury, to act. I take Lord MacGregor's position and he
might well have said "Go away. We are not going to do this"
or it might go into the manifesto or what was thought appropriate.
I do not understand the Nelsonian blind eye that the Treasury
was knowingly engaged in. It seems to me really a dereliction
of public duty.
Sir Brian Unwin: If I may answer as a former
official, although I was not in the Treasury at the time but in
the Cabinet Office, the Treasury's overriding duty was to control
public expenditure in accordance with the economic policies of
the government. In this case there was a formula which, though
not perfect, and the report says there is no right answer, had
been broadly accepted by Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and
England as being an adequate one and was carried on from year
to year with no particular challenge. I do not think there was
any reason or incentive for either the Treasury or the Scottish,
Welsh or Northern Ireland offices to seek to reopen the formula;
it worked broadly.
Q527 Baroness Hollis of Heigham:
I would have expected you to be evidence-based driven and clearly
you were not. The fact that because politicians were not shouting
about it then it was OK effectively, I am surprised at that.
Sir Brian Unwin: This review took place in 1986.
The Formula was produced in 1978-79 so it was not all that long
after the Formula was agreed and put on the table.
Q528 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
The Formula was based on the base line and the issue was the base
line. In my recollection, rather like Lord MacGregor, I was against
a needs-based assessment when I was a minister because I believed
that it would be disadvantageous to Scotland at that time. It
was widely believed, mainly because people looked at the expenditure
per head, which for example on health would have been about a
quarter more, that Scotland was doing better particularly in respect
to the English regions. Taking up your point about getting value
for money for the taxpayer, every negotiation that I was involved
with at the Treasury started from the proposition that Scotland
was doing rather well and they were looking for ways to claw some
of it back. Lady Hollis's question was why officials would not
try and find a system which they could put to ministers which
was fairer and which allocated public expenditure in a way which
was more appropriate. I think one of the consequences of having
that extra public expenditure was that value was not delivered
because although we had 25 per cent more per head spent on health
it is very hard to see that resulted in a Health Service that
was 25 per cent better.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: First of all,
I slightly correct Lord Forsyth. I did not believe that a needs
assessment should not be looked at. I believed that it should
be; I just did not think it could be done at this moment in time.
Q529 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
As a minister you took the view that what you thought should be
done could not be done in your own office and I did the same.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I would have
gone on later strongly to argue it should be looked at because
I felt very strongly about what I thought were the inequities.
One of the reasons why I suspect that the Scottish Office did
not want to look at this was they knew, as you, Lord Forsyth,
have brought out very clearly, there was a big benefit to Scotland
calculated at somewhere between £1.5 billion and £4
billion. £1.5 billion and £4 billion is a very different
figure from £2 million.
Q530 Lord Moser:
It may be relevant to mention that we had evidence from the Treasury
last week. The written evidence included a question, "What
do you regard as the advantages and disadvantages of the Barnett
Formula" and they could only think of advantages. I think
it was the Chairman who asked what about disadvantages and they
were rather lost to think of any. The present Treasury does not
give me the feeling that they want to move on. Maybe there is
something to be learnt from that.
Sir Brian Unwin: Although the Treasury always
wants to come back on a departmental programme when it comes to
the public expenditure round, there was no deep feeling, in my
recollection, across Whitehall, either in the Treasury or in the
territorial departments, that this formula was wildly out of kilter.
All departments were happy to let the Formula roll over each year
subject to some argy-bargy at the margins. As we see in the report,
following the 1979 needs report the Treasury did actually cut
the Scottish allocation down by over £200 million over that
period. The report also shows that over the period between the
establishment of the Formula and my report the increase in spending
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland moved very closely in
line with the increase in spending in England. It was not perfect
but I think everyone was reasonably satisfied that it was equitable
and in the context of the annual public expenditure round it was
a very convenient way of rolling the figures over.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I take a very
different view from the officials. I do think it needs to be looked
at. I think that basing expenditure rounds territorially today
on a base line that was established in 1978 does not make any
sense. I do actually think that it is inequitable or may be inequitable,
I do not know. It looks as though it is inequitable with other
parts of England and to England as a whole. We talk about Scotland
being 126 if it is a 100 base for England, actually the eastern
region of England, of which Lady Hollis and I are representatives,
or I was, was 83 per cent. There was a huge disparity between
eastern England and Scotland. Maybe that was justified but I do
not think you can actually establish today whether it is justified
without doing a needs assessment.
Sir Brian Unwin: I was only referring to the
position in 1986 as compared to 1978 but, of course, since 1986
it has changed profoundly for all sorts of reasons.
Q531 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
You, Sir Brian, keep focusing on the Formula which was supposed
to produce convergence even though no-one noticed it.
Sir Brian Unwin: It was maintaining divergence.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: No, it was
not.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: In practice it
was.
Q532 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
If the Formula provided for a 10 per cent increase, to make the
numbers simple, and the base line on health was 25 per cent more,
then the effect would be that it would produce convergence ultimately
between what was spent per head in England and Scotland. Where
it all went wrong of course was that the Scottish population was
falling at the same time and the convergence effect was cancelled
out by the population effect. There was no-one on either side
of the border arguing about the Formula; what was being argued
about was the base line. In those years we had phased discussions
and every year the Treasury would try and do over the Scots, whether
it was on council house receipts and how they treated on the capital
programme, or the agricultural support programme or whatever,
and there would be an endless negotiation. The premise behind
that negotiation was: you are already doing very well on your
base line. People were not arguing about the Formula, the 10 per
cent, the additionality; it was the base line. I am with Lady
Hollis on this. I do not have clear in my mind why nobody in the
Treasury thought they should not be looking at the base line.
To say that we were content with the Formula, of course you were
content with the Formula because it was going to deliver ultimately
if you dealt with population, convergence.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I take the
view that convergence has not occurred even with the population
aspect and, of course, Formula by-basses have made it even more
difficult.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: This exposes most
of the really important issues we have to deal with as a Committee.
I would like to defend, if I may, Sir Brian Unwin and the Treasury
from Lady Hollis's accusation of a dereliction of duty. That is
a very serious suggestion indeed. The fact of the matter is that
the Treasury's overriding duty was to maintain proper control
of public expenditure. That was what the Treasury was doing and
that was its priority. Going into a detailed needs assessment
might have been somebody else's responsibility, I do not know,
but certainly the Treasury's overriding responsibility was to
have proper control over public expenditure, and indeed one might
say that is something which is rather important today. In any
case, I do not think you can accuse the Treasury of dereliction
of duty. As for the question of convergence, it might be of some
interest, and maybe academic advisers have done this, to do a
simple statistical exercise of how many 100 years it would require
to secure convergence under this absurd system. As to the question
of the needs assessment or the population basis, what has happened
particularly, which Sir Brian was saying, since 1986, which is
almost a quarter of a century ago, the main thing that has happened
and why this is a more serious matter now than it was then, and
no doubt why this Committee exists, is that over the 23 years
the divergence of the population of Scotland and the population
of England has continued. It was alluded to in Sir Brian's report
but of course it has got far, far worse since then and the difference
is projected, if you look at the projections of population for
the United Kingdom, to get even starker. Therefore, having a base
line, unlike the annual increment, which does not reflect these
changes at all is a much more serious matter now than it was in
1986 and likely to become even more so. Who is it who makes these
projections for the government of population?
Lord Rooker: It is the National Statistics
Office, formerly the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: If you look at
their projections it is going to become even more absurd.
Q533 Lord Rooker:
Going back to the time when you were dealing with the issue you
talk about the Formula taken each year one with another and it
was not worth looking at it. There was also another issue which
I think Sir Brian touched on in the sense that the Formula only
delivered half or two-thirds of the expenditure. We were given
one of the Treasury documents, these comparability tables of each
department's percentage of UK. Did you ever look at those? Were
those ever altered? One thing I should have asked last week was
whether they had been stable throughout the 30 years as different
things have come and gone. Was that an issue that was dealt with?
Sir Brian Unwin: We certainly did. As the report
brings out, we looked at three expenditure aggregates: the territorial
blocks which were allocated to and under the responsibility of
the Secretaries of State; the total expenditure in the territories
under the control and responsibility of the Secretary of State;
and total public expenditure. In the last category were things
like defence, and so on, which were not allocated between the
territories. We looked at all those aggregates and the broad conclusion
was that over the fairly limited period we were looking at, 1978
to 1985-86, all these aggregates had moved in a broadly consistent
fashion. In particular, spending in the three territories had
moved in line with the general trend of expenditure in England.
There was no dramatic divergence or lessons derived from that
given the base line.
Q534 Baroness Hollis of Heigham:
Simultaneously you, in conjunction with what was then still called
the Department of the Environment, were making quite detailed
adjustments to the RSGs going to local government within the regions
on transitional periods over three years, and cushions and all
the rest of it, so this was an exercise. When I was talking about
dereliction of duty, I was not talking about bad faith but I am
saying that I think there was a vacuum that should have been filled,
in my judgment and in my view, by officials in the same way and
analogous to what was going on within local government and regional
expenditure. We expected this to happen. One of our difficulties
in local government was we were always changing. There were always
cushions, dampening, underpinning, caps, and so on, but this exercise
was done, and done continuously, and continuously adjusted in
the name of control of public expenditure, subset value for money,
subset fairness, equity, et cetera, et cetera. In an attempt
to meet the gap between needs and resources, however much that
might be contested, sparsity versus density or whatever, we did
this and that remains puzzling to me. Did the Treasury ever look
at the regional heads, not necessarily the individual authority
as that would be a matter for the Department of the Environment
when I was involved in those negotiations? Did you ever look at
the regional dispositions relating to your regional offices for
similar activities?
Sir Brian Unwin: I cannot answer for the Treasury,
Lady Hollis. I was in the position of, as it were, holding the
ring in the Cabinet Office and chairing the group on which were
representatives of the territorial departments, the Department
of the Environment, the Treasury and so on and so forth. Whether
or not during that time the Treasury were doing what you suggest,
I do not know.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I am not aware
of it. I certainly think that if I had sufficient time to get
it done and was in a position to commission it I would want to
do that because I think you are absolutely right. You put the
subset of fairness and equity rather low down; I would put it
higher up. We were always trying to do that based on need in local
government, rates for grants and negotiations and so on, and the
Scots were doing the same in the rate for grants negotiations.
This would have been a bigger exercise but it has the same principles
behind it. On the convergence point, when preparing for this I
was struck by an argument on convergence on page 24 of the House
of Commons research paper on the Barnett Formula which I would
suggest you have a look at. It is a curious result, according
to them, of convergence based on the amount per capita that actually
the lowering of population in Scotland makes the convergence worse.
It is well worth developing that argument too.
Q535 Lord Rooker:
In some ways we have batted this around. Looking at the slot between
1978 and 1985-86 it is useful to know what we know about that
but now we are in 2009. We are in a completely different situation
now because we have got the regions, if I can call them that,
Scotland and Wales, competing with Englandand I will give
one example in a momentwhich did not happen before because
the political control was different. That is what is different.
I am not saying that is the reason for opening it up but the fact
is the English regions, the RDAs and that, effectively are not
allowed to compete with each other. They are all doing their bit
for each region in terms of competing, whereas there is an example
I was unaware of until yesterday that the Welsh Assembly Government
are offering a wage subsidy to manufacturing industry which Wales
is not strong on so it does not cost very much. On the Hereford/Shropshire
border in England you have got large manufacturing plants still
and some of them have plants in Wales. Why have a plant in Welshpool
and Telford when you can now go all to Welshpool and get a subsidy
from the Welsh Government paid for by the excess. You have this
competition across the border which did not occur. I am not arguing
for total political change, although there is a Plaid Cymru-Labour
coalition there and Scotland is clearly competing in lots of other
ways. If we are going to have a reason to do this, if it is an
independent bodywe do not have Royal Commissions any more
because they take so longif you do something immediately
at the beginning of a Parliament, a Royal Commission, it is 18
months at least and it reports and there is a debate. We are then
back in the position we are in now coming towards the end of a
Parliament when you have to take some action. I am not offering
the best time but clearly enough people are looking at in now.
The circumstances are completely different. The history is useful,
but if we look at it now and assume for the foreseeable future
the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Government and the
Welsh Assembly Government and the Government here for England
in Westminster will consist of different political parties which
are by and large competing with each other, although you may get
a couple the same, that is a completely different scenario from
what we have assumed in the past. Devolution is the factor but
devolution has brought about different competing parties using
the money for competing across the borders within the UK. That
is something I do not think was ever envisaged and that is the
thing that is fundamentally different now. You could argue after
30 years is well worth a look at as to how the money gets divided
up. If we go for a needs assessment in the sense of today's needs,
we have to take out the competitive elements because they are
building in these needs now. If we are not careful we are getting
a false picture of what the needs in Scotland and Wales actually
are based on what has been happening under devolution. Would you
see major issues in assembling what the needs would be in the
circumstances we are in now, not when you were in government?
That is the key difference now.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: Leaving aside
questions of fiscal autonomy and all that sort of thing, which
I know you are not allowed to look at, undoubtedly these sorts
of issues will continue to increase. We already have them in relation
to Scotland with tuition fees and the rest which we are all very
familiar with and yours is another example. I think these will
increase. How you tackle it politically is an issue but I think
it would illuminate all our thinking about it if we did have a
proper needs assessment. That is the starting point.
Sir Brian Unwin: I think, if I may say so, if
we had been asked to do a full examination formula and do a needs
assessment in 1986 one of our guiding principles would have been
equality of services throughout the United Kingdom. I am not sure
that now applies for the reasons you were suggesting because with
the devolved administrations there are different political priorities.
There are different weights attached to the value of different
services, so it would be a more complicated exercise now given
the changed political situation.
Q536 Lord Lawson of Blaby:
I said I would ask question three and you have confirmed there
was no needs assessment done. This reinforces, in a sense, Lord
Rooker's point. It always struck me when I was Chancellor that
there was an element of make believe in all this where needs assessments
were decided and calculated and this led to figures in the public
expenditure White Paper for education and various other services
which came under local government. People used to argue vigorously
as to whether we had done the right thing in terms of too much
or too little in education compared with other things. In fact,
these figures in the White Paper bore only an accidental relationship
to what was actually spent because local authorities, provided
they fulfilled their legal statutory obligations, could use the
money they got from the rateable grant for whatever they wanted.
You were given this complicated needs assessment, so much for
education, so much for local social services, and the public expenditure
White Paper was just a make believe document apart from the totals
which of course were very important. This has become even more
so following devolution for the reasons Lord Rooker has pointed
out. I am not saying we should not have a needs assessment at
all but we need to be absolutely clear that what emerges from
the needs assessment is most unlikely to be what happens on the
ground. For example, there will not be an amount of money allocated
for the Welsh Assembly to subsidise manufacturing across the border
in Wales but that does not mean to say they cannot take it out
of one pocket and put it in another. It is all a bit of make believe.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: In terms of
looking at the table in the White Paper, that may be so to some
extent but I do not think it undermines the general principles
because the two general principles are more devolution of decision
taking down to the local level to distribute resources in accordance
with what they see as local need but a fairer way of distributing
to the regions and to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland nationally.
It is inevitable that if you base your distribution on needs in
some regards, and that local authority decides to spend it somewhat
differently, that will occur, but it is not necessary to say it
is wrong.
Q537 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
A third of the Scottish block was distributed to local government
on a needs-based basis. The next largest slice was the Health
Service, and the Health Service money was distributedI
cannot remember what it was calledon a very complicated
needs-based formula to work out what the health boards got. In
practice, although the money may have come as the base line plus
the percentage increase that happened in England, when it was
dished out and when the Secretary of State decided its priorities
the bulk of it was actually distributed under a needs-based system.
I just wanted to follow up on what Lord Rooker has said. My experience
of the operation of the Barnett Formula was that you needed to
have Formula by-pass to deal with particular exceptional circumstances
that arose because the base line was higher. For example, if there
was a nationally agreed pay settlement in the Health Service which
was substantial the Formula consequences of that for Scotland,
given the base line for Scotland was 25 per cent higher and given
that three-quarters of the money went on pay, would have been
far short of what was required to meet the pay bill. We knock
on the Treasury door and say, "We are poor Scots. Can we
please have an extra dollop of money?" We got that money
in 1986-87. I think it was after you left. There were various
adjustments made from time to time which is another reason why
convergence has not happened.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: Absolutely.
Q538 Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
Now we have devolution and what appears to be happening is there
is no dialogue at all between the Scottish Executive and the British
Government and they simply get the straight Formula consequences
and ultimately that will lead to pressure on those budgets. Is
there not an argument that you need to have a needs assessment
in order to be able to defend what you are getting? There must
come a point where what they think you are receiving will be not
overgenerous but less than what is required in order to meet the
needs. If you have not got some objective method of doing that,
given that you have lost the ability of having one party in government
and colleagues who do not want to embarrass each other and make
it difficult, is there not a requirement arising from the devolutionary
situation, even if they pursue the same policies, to have some
kind of system? The fact that they are pursuing different policies
makes it even more important to draw the line at an early stage.
That I think is the key question.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I agree with
that conclusion. Could I say that it would not necessarily follow
the consequences of pressure, with your Health Service for example,
on the base line leading to the negotiations either side of the
Formula. What could well happen, depending on the political strength
and the position of the Secretary of State, is you would take
the base line as a given and then argue in negotiations that of
course the base line is there but he must have something extra
because of the consequences of the National Health Service National
Pay Agreement. That could lead to moving in the other direction,
that the Formula by-pass gets bigger and bigger while the base
line is still much higher than the financial average and is 126
against 100. It could work that way but I think we end up with
the same conclusion.
Sir Brian Unwin: A key question, if I may just
comment, is that whatever its defects the Barnett Formula, with
some changes as we went along, was accepted over a long period
as a reasonably fair and sensible base for the annual decisions
on public expenditure. Perhaps the question for your Committee
is whether there is a prospect of producing a substitute formula
which is any fairer or more realistic or more acceptable in the
more complicated circumstances of devolved government in the territories.
Q539 Chairman:
You are absolutely right. One thing that is perfectly clear is
the convenience of the Formula. Successive governments found it
much easier just to let it run than to have a good look at it
and decide how they wanted to finance the devolved administrations.
It has not been done in any meaningful sense of the word. We had
six questions on the paper and I think you have answered them
all. Is there anything else you wish to add?
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: It is interesting
that two former Chief Secretaries had to go along with the Formula
for the reasons I have described with me and Lord Barnett described
with him, but both of us did not like it and, in fact, think it
needs to change.
Chairman: Can I thank you very much for
coming? It has been a terribly helpful session. We have learnt
a lot and had some enlightenment and are grateful to you for coming.
Thank you very much indeed.
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