Being in Edinburgh for the last week felt a bit like being in a parallel universe.
It’s not just that you can’t move for jugglers, fire-eaters and people doing headstands inside buckets at this time of year or even the fact that the whole city is still plastered with reminders of the hubris of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
It’s more that most of the things we’ve come to take for granted in England since the general election do not apply yet in Scotland. Many of them never will.
There have been few cuts so far - Scotland’s budget for 2010/11 was set before the cuts imposed in the Labour Budget in April and the coalition emergency Budget in June.
Most of the quangos that are being abolished in England do not work north of the border. The names Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps prompt puzzled looks.
The big reforms announced in England for the health service and education do not apply in Scotland. Neither does the abolition of regional strategies and creation of the new homes bonus.
Thanks to different electoral cycles, Scotland even has a Labour party with a realistic chance of returning to power when the elections for the Scottish Parliament are held next May.
The big thing that will apply - housing benefit cuts - is not yet provoking the same concern in Scotland, possibly because the caps that have received most publicity are seen as a London problem.
In the meantime, housing policy continues on a very different course to the one being taken by the coalition in England.
Progress continues towards the national homelessness target of abolishing priority need by 2012. Despite some local authorities lagging behind, Scotland as a whole is perhaps 80% of the way there.
Bills going through the Scottish Parliament will phase out the right to buy for new build homes and for new tenancies and give councils new powers to take action against bad landlords.
In September a new pre-action requirement will give new legal protection to homeowners facing repossession. The fact that it’s a requirement gives it the legislative teeth that the pre-action protocol in England and Wales lacks and there is a good chance that similar measures will be introduced to protect social tenants from eviction too.
But everyone knows it cannot last. Scotland will lurch uncomfortably back into some kind of sync with England on October 24, when the UK spending review will determine a large part of the budget that Scottish politicians and civil servants will have just four weeks to prepare.
Cuts are inevitable from 2011/12 and the postponement of this year’s round in Scotland will make next year’s even worse.
But the politics will be very different, with the SNP government and Labour opposition able to blame decisions by the Tory-Lib Dem government in London in the run-up to the Scottish elections in May.
Whoever wins will still face some tough choices on spending and possibly tax too - will the SNP be able to maintain its council tax freeze and will either party dare to use devolved powers to increase income tax?
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Readers' comments (1)
Sidney Webb | 26/08/2010 11:20 am
At least Scotland will still get the direct benefit of European Regional Support - in England and Wales this will now go straight into the Treasury to be used as Osborn sees fit - or has the Oik already got his greedy mits on Scotlands share?
I believe that if the cuts to be levied on the Scotts are not locally agreed then there will be a real threat to the Union. How ironic that the party that cleared the highlands to make way for their own supporters to hunt and rule could now be on the verge of ending the special relationship that has been the bedrock of British success.
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