Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at Unlock Democracy, Deputy Director Alexandra Runswick warns the Calman Commission against considering Scottish devolution in isolation from the wider UK constitutional settlement.
Sadly the First Report suggests this may well happen. For example, it warns against greater financial autonomy on the grounds that it would lead to less ’shared social citizenship.’ That may be true in Scotland but the experience suggests that, if anything, the lack of financial autonomy is causing resentment in England and goes to the heart of Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question. Fundamentally, we believe this to be a false dichotomy; a fairer and more transparent financial settlement will be good for Anglo-Scottish relations on both sides of the border.
The BBC's Brian Taylor suggests that Calman's concept of 'shared social citizenship' is at the heart of an intellectual defence of the union.
Calman starts from the standpoint of backing the economic union, the defence union, the monetary union and the diplomatic union.
Of greater interest are the views upon a socially integrated Union.
The report asks whether social provision - pensions, welfare, health, education - should be broadly identical from Cornwall to Caithness.
If yes, then that would constrain the potential for further devolution. Essentially, Calman is asking: at what point does social policy autonomy start to place strain upon the Union, thus defined? With free prescriptions in Scotland? With health charges in England? With welfare autonomy?
As both Runswick and Taylor recognise, the concept of 'shared social citizenship' is at odds with the divergence in social policy across the UK that has already happened as a result of devolution. The logic of devolution as 'a process not an event' would suggest that the resulting imbalances should be dealt with by giving Holyrood greater responsibility for financing its own policies. One might have thought that Calman's remit was about finding ways to achieve this.
The Commission's shared social citizenship approach suggests an alternative possibility, that would reign in the divergence of the last ten years. Brian Taylor sees the prospect of a needs assessement that would reduce the scope for Scotland to pursue its more generous social policies in the long term.
If this is the path the Commission goes down, it would be, in David Marquand's terminology, a triumph of democratic collectivism over the democratic republicanism that created the Scottish Parliament.
