Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

The talk out of Scotland seems to be of 'reparations' for the unpaid use of North Sea resources...

[scot47]

Many in England have fallen for the line peddled by the tabloids that Scotland receives massive subsidies from London. Simply not the case.

[Dedicated]

I'm currently doing some research at the Institute of Public Policy Research and dug up the following facts:

Since the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999, public spending in Scotland has outstripped tax generated there by 45%. State expenditure in Scotland in 2009 was 45.3 billion GB pounds, over half of the Scottish economy, who only raised 34 billion in taxes, leaving the rest to be paid for by English taxpayers.

Scots receive 1,644 GB pounds more in public spending per capita than the English (9,179 in Scotland as opposed to 7535 in England) hence in Scotland your frozen council taxes, university tuition provided free of charge, free prescriptions.

Taxes raised in Scotland = 34 billion + Oil and Gas Revenues =4.3billion
Therefore, income from Scotland = 38.3 billion GB pounds

Income from Scotland = 38.3 billion - State expenditure= 45.3 billion
Leading to deficit of 7 billion.

Perhaps I'm missing something here? I don't understand how a 7 billion pound deficit could translate into Scotland subsidising England.

As for North Sea oil, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the Atlantic Margin (west of Shetland, that are not geographically part of the North Sea). Five countries are involved in oil production in the North Sea : UK,Norway, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands. Norway currently holds 55% of oil resources and 45% of gas reserves.

Scotland is not a sovereign state so it has no effective maritime boundaries, and any claims Scotland may assert are subsumed as part of claims made by the UK. There is no definitive Scottish sector of the North Sea, in the same way there is no Norwegian, Danish or indeed a UK sector.

Then, of course, we have the bailing out of Scotland's two flagship banks : Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland.....

The rights of the majority are being asserted in Scotland, and I for one will not complain as that is democracy for you. We cannot coerce Scotland, nor should we want to. If the Scots one day choose to become a separate nation, we can and should do nothing to stop them. But we must stop being passive in this matter.

[TheHanMan]

Your figures will still be rubbished, though everyone can see what is staring us in the face. This is not some sort of myth pedalled by the tabloids at all, like a previous poster patronisingly suggested. Scotland is state dependant, is running at a huge loss, and the English make up the difference. So why on earth should we NOT coerce Scotland into breaking with the union? Seems like the English should be severing this particular chain.

[johnslat]

Dear TheHanMan,

Figures - i.e statistics - are notorious for being able to be manipulated to show whatever the presenter wants to show. Here's another example:

�Scotland is a slight subsidy junky, but not if you include oil. Actually including oil at current prices sees a healthy Scottish surplus. However, if money were to be allocated to those parts of the country that �needed� it, ie the parts with lower average living standards, London is hugely over-provided for. Scotland does pretty well too. And the English regions are hard done by. East Midlands, the land of Robin Hood, is robbed blind.�

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/mickfealty/3987151/Where_the_UK_subsidies_really_go/

and yet another:

"It would appear that no serious research into this Subsidy Claim has been done in the past, due in no minor part to the excessive cloud of Secrecy coming from the Civil Service Establishment. The Information was there, but had to be ferreted out of the Stationery Office and Office of National Statistics. Before much of the Government paperwork was put on the Internet, this would have taken a researcher at least a year to extract the figures.

Thanks to the Internet, and the digging done by Colin, Eric, Frank, Neil, Niniane, Peter and Ozzie, whose labours helped to provide many pieces of the Jigsaw, this task has become easier and I personally spent over 400 hours in research to finally put this huge jigsaw puzzle together. Accurate information up to and including the 5th April 1999 (The cut off date selected for this research) was used and only the Governments own figures are used to preserve accuracy. North Sea Oil revenues were difficult to track down as the UK Government regard these as special resources of the UK (Extra-Regio Territories) and not Scottish, even though the Oilfields are in Scottish waters, are policed by Scottish Policemen and supported by an Infrastructure, at Scottish Ratepayers and Council Tax payers expense. Without financial support from Westminster. Following this convention, North Sea Revenues are EXCLUDED from the allocation of revenues to Scotland. When the Scottish Parliament was established, the UK Government annexed 3000 square miles of Scottish Waters rich in Oil, Gas and Fish and transferred them to English jurisdiction. In these cases, I have charged the Tax revenues to the Scottish Tax account as I have also charged the Corporation taxes paid by the Oil Companies based in London for their Scottish operations.

I am not satisfied that I have the true picture of North Sea Oil and Gas revenues as I feel some of these have been allocated to the Gross operating surplus and Crown Estates Income. In this event, they may well be understated for the Scottish Tax revenues, but I have found it impossible at present to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds this heading. (Perhaps a SNP MP might ask a Question in Westminster?) The U.K. Government use the figure of 8.6% to express the percentage of Scottish Populace to the whole U.K. Population and I have used this percentage in Annex A where it was impossible to ascertain the correct percentage per Annex A. (Tables of Taxation Revenue and Percentages). It should be Noted that the least ambiguous sites were those of the Customs and Excise, followed by the Inland Revenue. The worst site being the Treasury.

GENERAL NOTES and OBSERVATIONS

"It was interesting to note the disparity between Income tax receipts in Scotland and those of the S.E. of England. Scotland's Share of the Income tax and National Insurance Contributions is 7.4% which reflects the lower Incomes of Scots in general. Inland revenue figures strongly suggest that there are a higher proportion of Scots, whose earnings fall below the minimum Tax level and therefore pay no tax at all, than in the rest of the U.K. A pointer to the relative levels of poverty in Scotland.

Another anomaly is the number of people of pension age who continue to work, this would naturally be expected of Hill Farmers and Crofters whose incomes are desperately low, but it extends right across the board. In the U.K. the average number of Pensioners working is 6.6% of all pensioners. However in Scotland the ratio is 9.4%!.

Also Included in the figures are Council Tax and Business rates, as quite properly these are taxes to be taken into account. Council Tax at 9.3% is much higher than the population percentage of 8.6%. Business rates are even higher at 16.1%. In Fraserburgh one high Street shop has a rates bill of a similar sized shop in Regents Street in London! One would expect Rural areas to have higher charges than Urban areas, but this does not account for the difference, which may occur to the high costs of providing the infrastructure for the Oil Industry on the East and North East coasts, but is more likely in the Central belt, to be the result of Labour Councils Bad Management, inefficiencies and profligacy."

http://www.alba.org.uk/scotching/biglie.html

As Mark Twain (or Benjamin Disraeli or Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke - take your pick) remarked:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

So, who can be believed?

Regards,
John

[Dedicated]

John wrote:

[TheHanMan]

Dear John,

I think the poster above just answered that one for me.

Of course, your profile states you reside in Santa Fe and not England; so you don't have to worry about working hard to pay off student loans, buy medical prescriptions needed, and see a frankly exhorbitant sum of money taken off you each month in council tax, while a measure of the tax you yourself pay goes to your 'friends' north of the border - who seem to like nothing better than to point out what a terrible nation of people you are at every available opportunity anyway - yet who just so happen to attend university for free, avoid paying a penny for prescriptions, and have a freeze in the level of council tax that they pay, all thanks to you and others like you.

But feel free to provide me with another clever Mark Twain quote that proves to me what a silly reactionary position I'm taking.

[johnslat]

Dear Dedicated,

I guess the UK is different from the US. In the US, there are a number of like "think-tanks," but here they all have a bias:

"Think tanks may have a decided political leaning. There are twice as many conservative think tanks as liberal ones, and the conservative ones generally have more money. One of the important functions of think tanks is to provide a way for business interests to promote their ideas or to support economic and sociological research not taking place elsewhere that they feel may turn out in their favor. Conservative think tanks also offer donors an opportunity to support conservative policies outside academia, which during the 1960s and 1970s was accused of having a strong "collectivist" bias."

Although, I believe that the Institute of Public Policy Research describes itself as being "progressive." In the US, that would be a "code word" for "liberal" but perhaps it's different in the UK.


Dear TheHanMan,

You're quite right that I don't have to work hard to pay off student loans -
as a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, I used the G.I. Bill to get my BA and my MA (of course, I had to work two jobs as well while attending school, but I was a lot younger then.) I do, however, have a lot of younger friends and relatives who will be working to pay off their student loans here for many, many years. Are you, perhaps, under the impression that higher education is free in the US? Are you also under the impression that medical prescriptions are also free here? Let me assure you that they're not.
Also, here in the US, my tax dollars go to the federal government, which then redistributes them among the other 49 states. To be honest, I'm not all that fond of any of those dollars going to, say, Texas, or being used to finance a lot of our "military adventures" around the world. But there's not much I can do about it.
I don't, though, see the problem here - some of the Scottish people seem to want independence. and you seem to want them to be independent. So, it seems to me that you'd both be on the same side.

Regards,
John

[TheHanMan]

[johnslat]

Dear TheHanMan,

It seems that the free ride may soon be over:

"Mark Russell (the Scottish Education Minister) said the current situation was untenable. "Scottish universities have always been cosmopolitan institutions � that is part of their attraction � but we cannot allow them to become a cheap option for students who have to pay to go to university in their home countries," he said."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/13/european-student-numbers-soar-scotland


So, your animus is directed only at the Scottish who don't want independence, right?

Regards,
John

[Dedicated]

Dear John,

The Guardian article you flagged up refers to the influx of EU student numbers to Scottish universities.

Scottish ministers fear its universities have become a "cheap option" for EU students although a loophole in EU law means English students must still pay (and they will pay 9,000 from 2012). Scotland is not a member state of the EU. The UK's system of devolved government means English students are not able to attend for free because they are regarded as citizens of the same member state as Scotland - the UK.

Scotland's universities have warned that current funding levels would leave them at least 202 million GB pounds short next year because Alex Salmond's government refuses to introduce fees for Scottish students, yet has cut funding by 67 million next year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/29/english-students-top-tuition-fees-scotland

It won't be difficult to work out who will be subsidising the shortfall.....

[TheHanMan]

Dear John,

Forgive my abrupt manner, but the article you chose to flag demonstrates very clearly that you don't grasp the problem.

For the record, MY problem is that this talk of Scottish independence will more than likely come to nothing, because for all their big talk they don't have an alternative source of income to replace the gigantic subsidy they receive each year from England.

I'm bowing out of this silliness.

Warm regards,
The Han Man

[johnslat]

Dear Dedicated,

"The Guardian article you flagged up refers to the influx of EU student numbers to Scottish universities "

Yes, I know - I read the article. As I mentioned in the first sentence, the article suggested that one of TheHanMan's main complaints (i.e. free higher education for Scottish students) might soon come to an end.

Perhaps I misread it, but it seemed to indicate that since so many EU students (though not English ones) are "entitled" to also take advantage of Scotland's largesse, the free higher education there may soon have to end.

Dear TheHanMan,

"Forgive my abrupt manner, but the article you chose to flag demonstrates very clearly that you don't grasp the problem."

These are not my countries (England, Scotland), so while it's true that I probably don't grasp the problem, I'm trying to educate myself. I think you will admit, though, that there do seem to be at least two viewpoints on this issue, and both sides seem quite sure that they are right.

I'm sorry that you find my attempts to find out which side has more credibility so irritating. I hope that you have more patience with any of your students who may ignorantly express opinions that might differ from yours.

Regards,
John

[TheHanMan]

Like Saul on the road to Damascus, I have seen the light on this issue!!!! COME BACK SCOTLAND...ALL IS FORGIVEN!!!!

[johnslat]

Dear Paul,

Praise be to God!!!!!! Another sinner saved.


Regards,
John