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The North Sea was long ago divided up my the national governments surrounding it for prospecting and extraction. Oil & gas on the west side of the middle line is a UK, not Scottish, resource. In the same way you will find that should there be oil or gas under your personal mainland property, were you to own acres and acres, you will not have the rights to it.

To get the facts straight - yes, England in effect subsidises Wales. This was the case before devolution (just as the South-East of England subsidises some other parts of England), in an amount calculated by the Barnett formula. It has probably been the case for about 80 years, one way or another, in the case of Wales, ever since the coal industry went into decline in the 1920s. In the 19th century, Wales probably made a net contribution to the UK economy via coal, steel and so on. How long should the accounting period be in this type of calculation?

With devolution, the Welsh Assembly was granted a budget by the UK government. (Scotland was allowed to raise some tax of its own, if it wanted to - an extra 1% of income tax iirc, Wales was not.) This particular measure will be paid for out of that budget. Yes, English taxpayers pay for part of it, but they will pay no more than they would have done without this measure on prescription charges, as the Welsh Assembly cannot increase its budget. Without the measure, the money would have been spent in another way.

If England was 'indepenent' of Wales and Scotland it would probably have a permanent Conservative government and could kiss goodbye to ever having free prescriptions. Be careful what you wish for.

A further historical note - the founder of the National Health Service, Aneurin Bevan (Welsh), resigned from the post-war Labour government when prescription charges were first introduced. They were later removed and then re-introduced, both under Wilson I think.

alec wrote:

> To get the facts straight - yes, England in effect subsidises
> Wales. This was the case before devolution (just as the
> South-East of England subsidises some other parts of England),
> in an amount calculated by the Barnett formula. It has probably
> been the case for about 80 years, one way or another, in the
> case of Wales, ever since the coal industry went into decline
> in the 1920s. In the 19th century, Wales probably made a net
> contribution to the UK economy via coal, steel and so on. How
> long should the accounting period be in this type of
> calculation?
>
> With devolution, the Welsh Assembly was granted a budget by the
> UK government. (Scotland was allowed to raise some tax of its
> own, if it wanted to - an extra 1% of income tax iirc, Wales
> was not.) This particular measure will be paid for out of that
> budget. Yes, English taxpayers pay for part of it, but they
> will pay no more than they would have done without this measure
> on prescription charges, as the Welsh Assembly cannot increase
> its budget. Without the measure, the money would have been
> spent in another way.
>
> If England was 'indepenent' of Wales and Scotland it would
> probably have a permanent Conservative government and could
> kiss goodbye to ever having free prescriptions. Be careful what
> you wish for.
>

Some excellent points, Alec. The last paragraph being far and away why I oppose an English Parliament.

Some 'working-class' people do. As you have implied, a solely English Executive would be the worst thing imaginable for their standard of living.

It would be a disaster, and would pressage the overturning of most progressive measures achieved by the actions of 'one nation' Tories and Labour alike over the past 40 years.

I like the way you think.

If England was 'indepenent' of Wales and Scotland it would probably have a permanent Conservative government and could kiss goodbye to ever having free prescriptions. Be careful what you wish for.

You might say that, but "New Labour" have increased stealth taxes on the poor much more than the Tories did before them. They've also abolished things like DLA for people like epileptics. Under the Tories epileptics could still get DLA, but as soon as Blair got into office they scrapped it straight away. Now "New Labour" even plan to scrap sickness benefits for epileptics too by forcing them back to work, even if it means them working in places such as building sites and other such physically dangerous places.

Couldn't agree more.

I support-with the retention of counties- English regional assemblies for that reason; but the public don't. Fair enough- that's democracy!