they meant it

From the BBC website

Meanwhile RBS confirmed it would not be moving its registered head office now that independence had been rejected

"The announcement we made about moving our registered head office to England was part of a contingency plan to ensure certainty and stability for our customers, staff and shareholders should there be a 'Yes' vote," the bank said.

"That contingency plan is no longer required. Following the result it is business as usual for all our customers across the UK and RBS."

In a statement, Lloyds Banking Group said: "The group is proud of its strong Scottish heritage and remains committed to having a significant presence in Scotland. We remain fully focused on supporting households and businesses in Scotland as well as right across the rest of the UK."

if Scotland votes yes, what happens next

Well the first thing we can be certain of is that the Scottish Nationalist will have a big party over the whole weekend to celebrate the historic decision but when Monday morning comes what happens .

Firstly the time table for Scottish independence is far too long and will have a serious economic impact possibly pushing the whole country including Scotland back into recession. Surely the most sensible situation would be for Scottish independence to coincide with the start of the 2015 financial year.

Scotland would need to create a central bank and a currency which I assume will be called the Scottish pound and arrange for sufficient to be printed so that they can arrange to exchange British currency for Scottish currency at the banks. I would also expect the currency to start at equal value and then the currency markets to decide their relative values.

The Scottish passport office would need to start creating Scottish passports to replace the British passport that people travelling currently use. A decision on whether to share embassies with Scottish and British sections or to have separate buildings will have to be made.

The armed forces would need to ensure that all Scottish servicemen were in areas that were going to Scotland and that non Scottish servicemen moved the other way. In terms of the infantry equipment, air force and navy Scotland’s share will need to be calculated and sent to Scotland.

In terms of national assets and debts they will need to be shared out and the simplest way would be on a population basis but if such an agreement cannot be reached then arbitration will need to be used.

The easiest way to set the first year taxation and benefit levels would be to use the levels set at Westminster but in subsequent years as a sovereign country it would obviously set and collect its own revenue and have its own benefits system.

Those companies that wished to relocate either into Scotland or out of Scotland could then issue their 90 day redundancy notices and have time to either relocate or employ new staff at their new centres.

Scotland could apply immediately to become a member of the European Union and seek any opt outs that Britain has got that it wishes to continue with.

Divorce is never easy but a quick clean break would be the best way.

a Welsh treasury

As taxation and borrowing powers are devolved to the Welsh Government then we will obviously need a Welsh Treasury to deal with these changes, but what will it actually do.

There are two distinct types of public sector treasury that we have in Britain, the treasury at Westminster and the treasuries at Local authorities.

The treasury at Westminster carries out 5 main functions, central co-ordinating and accounting department, a ministry of finance, economics department, foreign economic policy agent and a policy driver.

Local authority treasuries act as tax collectors, control borrowing including debt management, manage expenditure and invest reserves. Effectively they fulfil the first two functions listed above of the Westminster Treasury.

Currently the Finance Department in the National Assembly acts as a central co-ordinating and accounting department where it distributes the money received from the Treasury at the beginning of the financial year and via a series of supplementary budgets allocates additional funding during the year. What it effectively does is receive income from the treasury and distribute it between the different assembly directorates for them to spend.

What a Welsh Treasury will not become is a foreign economic policy agent because that will be still be carried out by the Westminster Treasury or an economics department because the main macro economic policy will also still be set at Westminster. What we do not want it to be is a policy driver, with Treasury policies over riding departmental policies as appears to happen at Westminster.

It will have more similarities with the treasury function of a Council than it will with the Treasury functions at Westminster. It will continue to manage expenditure but will have added to that raising part of the income and managing debt. Also it is inevitable that investing and managing any reserves will become part of the duties of a Welsh Treasury.

Whilst initially the amount of money raised via taxation by the Welsh Government, outside of the block grant, will be relatively small if income tax is either wholly or partly devolved that will lead to a far larger proportion of the Welsh Government income being raised in Wales.

I believe there is a definite requirement for a Welsh Treasury to control debt including debt management, manage investments and income as well as distribute money. What we need to avoid is a Treasury that also wants to be a policy driver setting its own policies and driving Government policy.

 

 

 

questions on scotish indepenence

Scotland would not be unique if it broke away from the rest of the UK or if it didn’t. We have seen in recent years in Europe the splitting up of the old Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. More recently Sudan split into Sudan and Southern Sudan. Quebec has twice rejected separation from the rest of Canada in a referendum.

That Scotland is large enough to be separate country is self evident as it is larger than a number of other countries in the world. Strathclyde on its own is bigger than Slovenia and almost five times the size of Luxembourg.

We have the three big questions, currency, European Union and share of the debt.

We have a fairly recent example of an amicable divorce by two countries when Czechoslovakia divided into the two new countries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Initially the old Czechoslovak currency, the Czechoslovak Koruna, was used in both countries following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on the 31 December 1992. However, by the 8 February 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia had adopted their own national currencies in the form of the Czech Koruna and the Slovak Koruna. At the beginning, the currencies had an equal exchange rate, but later on the value of the Slovak Koruna was as much as 30 per cent lower than the Czech Koruna. The Czech and Slovak joint currency lasted less than 40 days.What I have been unable to identify is countries splitting up and then continuing with a joint currency for more than a few years.

On debt we again have the example of the split in Czechoslovakia when most federal assets and debt were divided in a ratio of 2 to 1 (the approximate ratio between the Czech and Slovak population within Czechoslovakia).  The same would be expected to occur and if it could not be agreed then we would need arbitration.   If after a split the debt is left behind then it would be in the interests of every region in Europe to split away and leave the debt behind causing another European banking crisis.

Would Scotland have to reapply to the EU and would it be accepted? We need to look at this from a European perspective where many European Countries have regions which have expressed a desire for independence such as Catalonia and the Venice region of Italy. If a split can occur and regions or nations can remain within the EU, then again the fragmentation of Europe looks likely.

I am sure that there are those who see Britain as the centre of the universe who will say things like “There is a considerable difference between the global significance of Sterling compared to the Czech/Slovak Koruna” or “how important sterling is as a  currency”, or “EU needs Scotland”.

On September 19^th we may start finding out who is right regarding currency, debt and the EU.

good news for Morriston

Danbert house has been an eyesore and a safety problem in Morriston for many years.
I am very pleased with the Council's action

From the Evening Post on Wednesday 13th August


"THE owners of a crumbling Morriston landmark have been given an ultimatum by Swansea Council — 'pay for the work we have done on the property or we will force you to sell it'.
The deteriorating state of Danbert House has led the local authority to step in and take emergency action including making the building safe, clearing vegetation and dealing with rats.
The Post understands the council has spent tens of thousands of pounds on the Morfydd Road house in recent years, and now wants to recoup the cash either directly from the owners or by forcing them to sell.
A statutory section 103 notice has been served on the owners — who are believed to live in Australia — giving them three months to pay up or face the sale of the listed building."

Is Williams NUTS

 

When I saw the proposed new structure for Councils in Wales I thought it looked familiar.

The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, (NUTS), is a European Union standard for referencing the administrative divisions of countries for statistical purposes.

The United Kingdom is split into 12 NUTS1 areas and Wales is one of them. Wales is then subdivided into the NUTS 2 areas of West Wales and the valleys, which is in receipt of European convergence funding, and East Wales.  The rules of NUTS 2 is that the average population should be between 800,000 and 3 million so at the last review Wales could have been split into one, two or three NUTS2 areas but it was decided to stay with the two previously used.

Below NUTS 2 are the NUTS 3 areas made up of one or more local authorities and there are 12 of these, for those who have read the Williams report that number should look  familiar. The only difference with the Williams Commission is that in all their proposed options Ynys Mon and Gwynedd are merged, the keeping of Ynys Mon as a  separate NUTS 3 areas is highly anomalous, whilst other proposals involve removing Carmarthenshire from South West Wales and adding Swansea to Neath Port Talbot Bridgend leaving seven unchanged from their NUTS 3 boundaries in every proposed reconfiguration. The proposals consist of keeping 7, 8 or 10 unchanged NUTS3 areas.

a tale of three committees

To put the Public Accounts committee report into context

 

Communities Equality and Local government committee enquiry into Libraries

18 witnesses

35 Written statements

 

Finance committee enquiry into Finance Wales

11 witnesses

82 written submissions

 

PAC enquiry into the Anglesey air link

4 witnesses (3 from the Welsh Government)

4 written submission (3 from the welsh Government)