Examination of Witnesses (Questions 978
- 979)
WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE 2009
Mr Liam Byrne, Mr Mark Parkinson and Ms Helen Radcliffe
Q978 Chairman: Chief
Secretary, can I thank you very much for coming. I appreciate
that you have not been in the post a long time, although there
is a familiarity already, I think, with the Treasury, and no doubt
the Barnett Formula will have crossed your desk at some point
in the past. Thank you very much for coming and giving us this
time. Can I just deal with one or two housekeeping matters? The
evidence session will be broadcast live on the Internet. A full
transcript will be taken and you will be sent a copy of the transcript
and obviously you can correct it on Hansard terms, the grammar
but not the content. If there are any issues which you have not
been able to deal with or you want to deal with, then if you want
to write to us we would be delighted to receive that. Do you want
to say anything to start with?
Mr Byrne: Just very briefly, first to say thank
you for allowing me to give evidence, I think a week later than
scheduled. That has allowed me to spend a week and a half in the
job before coming before you. I have brought with me Mark Parkinson
and Helen Radcliffe, whom I think you have met before, and with
your permission, Chairman, I might invite them to chip in when
the limits of my technical knowledge are reached. Just to say
by way of introduction, the Treasury is obviously a great supporter
of devolution. We are also supporters of the principle that there
should be a single tax policy for the UK which allows us to manage
tax risks centrally and conduct spending reviews centrally. Obviously,
in order to bridge those two principles, rules are needed. Our
position is set out in the statement of funding policy. I am a
great believer that pretty much every aspect of public administration
can be improved upon, so as a new Chief Secretary I am very much
looking forward to the Committee's recommendations. I know that
we have provided a lot of evidence so far. I hope to add a little
bit to that this afternoon and obviously if there is anything
more we can do to help your inquiry we will do that.
Q979 Lord Lawson of Blaby:
Thank you very much. Can I say one other thing before we start?
The acoustics in this room are absolutely appalling, so if you
could shout I would be grateful. Can I ask you to start off with
one general point? What effect do you think the Barnett Formula
has in terms of equity as between the devolved administrations
across the UK as a whole? It is really a very simple point. Do
you think it operates fairly—and I use the word "fairly"
quite deliberately?
Mr Byrne: Is the Barnett Formula a formula which
delivers a platonic, absolutely perfect semblance of fairness?
I do not think it does. Does it deliver outcomes which are fair
enough? Yes, I do think it does, because it acts at the margin,
because it acts to share out increments. I think it does a good
job at making sure that increases in public spending are shared
fairly, but obviously what it does not do is disturb the baselines
on which it builds, which date back to 1979/80. So there will
be anomalies which appear when you step back and look at the distribution
of public spending in the round, and no doubt we will go on to
discuss different dimensions to that problem, but I think it is
fair enough.
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