The union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is at risk whichever party heads the next UK government. So says the well-respected Constitution Unit at University College London, in a last-minute warning to political leaders. “Devolution policy-making has been rushed to the point of recklessness,” the unit concludes in a report just published. Changes now under consideration “could render the union ungovernable or lead to its break-up as a state”.
As an academic research centre, the Constitution Unit does not tell voters which party to support. But it is concerned that a rushed deal following the election of a hung parliament could leave people in Scotland worse off. Claims by the SNP that full fiscal autonomy would create additional growth are dismissed in the report as “fairyland economics” based on “heroic assumptions”.
In a report written largely by former civil servants, the unit calls for a single cabinet minister to be responsible for devolution and the union. That secretary of state would be supported by junior ministers for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. At present, Whitehall has three low-ranking territorial secretaries of state – a hangover from pre-devolution days – and three more devolution teams in other departments. The last parliament had five separate committees covering devolution.
Readers in England may well take the view that none of this matters much. If the Scots want to set their own taxes, then we can retaliate with English votes for English laws – the aptly named Evel. But the report warns us against such complacency. It begins by explaining that the UK comprises three types of union:
• The economic union encompasses a single currency and a centralised system of taxation. Scottish independence is incompatible with a single currency, the report notes, while full fiscal autonomy is incompatible with the union.
• The social union guarantees equal access to welfare. If devolution extends without limit, the report says that uniform levels of benefit across the UK could be at risk.
• The political union currently allows all parts of the UK to be represented in a sovereign parliament at Westminster, even though some powers have been devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But the lack of devolution within England is becoming increasingly hard to sustain.
Professor Robert Hazell, who edited the report, says that no political party has thought through the consequences of devolution or asked how much further it can go without starting to undermine the union. If Scotland becomes fully responsible for its own taxes, Hazell’s report says, “it would be prohibitively expensive for the Scottish government independently to maintain the current level of UK welfare payments such as the state pension and child benefit, let alone to better them.” Devolution of welfare benefits would leave Scotland in the same position as a small country in the eurozone, sharing a currency but not a fiscal union. “So asymmetric economic shocks which affected the Scottish economy would no longer be cushioned by shared UK resources.”
Turning to Evel, the report suggests that there is still no answer to what used to be called the West Lothian question. It might seem right in principle for English laws to be decided by the votes of English MPs, but the arithmetic would work only in the event of a Conservative-led government. And there would be practical difficulties both in defining English laws as well as in allowing English MPs to veto them. The report predicts that Evel will not go ahead, whoever wins the election. Like House of Lords reform, everybody agrees that “something must be done”, but nobody can agree on what it should be.
Since the Scottish referendum last September and the party leaders’ “vow” of more devolution to Scotland, government policy has developed at what Hazell and his team regard as dizzying speed. Their 80-page report calls for calmer consideration in the new parliament. This may be too much to hope for, at least in the period of frantic horse-trading that is expected to begin on Friday. But the report makes a wider point about the expected outcome of this and future elections. “If the UK has a series of hung parliaments, that may lead to a gradual adjustment of the majoritarian, winner-takes-all political culture,” it says. Power sharing would become easier if we develop a more pluralist, consensual political culture in future. “The archetype of a successful politician would become Angela Merkel, not Margaret Thatcher.”
Can the United Kingdom survive? The Constitution Unit offers us a timely warning. But experience suggests that no one is really listening.
