Apart from the fairness issue, I mention this matter today because this is a debate about managing budgets, and Scotland is being short-changed by the unique VAT charge that is levied on its police and fire services, taking significant funds out of those important and hard-pressed budgets. It is simply not fair. The people of Scotland take a very dim view of it indeed, as well they should.
Despite the budgetary pressures that Westminster is imposing on Scotland, with a real-terms reduction in Scotland’s budget of £1.5 billion or a 5.7% cut in the funding for day-to-day public services over the next four years as a result of the comprehensive spending review, crime in Scotland is at its lowest level in over 41 years. Violent crime is down by 55% since 2006-07.
I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said that the only certainties in life were death and taxation. He was certainly right about the first, but what has happened with multinational companies in the UK under successive Westminster Governments may have proven him to be a bit off the mark on the second. There is another certainty in life that Mr Franklin overlooked, which is that the one thing that is sure not to be debated during a Westminster debate on estimates is the estimates. The issue of debating the estimates may not exercise the minds of the general public, but I believe that is because it is not well known outside this place how little scrutiny there is of the spending plans of the respective Departments. The scrutiny is negligible and that has suited successive Governments. If the public knew just how inscrutable the process was, I am sure they would have something to say about it.
The supply estimates process is very technical and that is how spending is approved by Parliament, but we must remember in this debate that during the debates on English votes for English laws, the Leader of the House noted the possibility of a review of this process, while at the same time being adamant that the estimates process already allowed us to affect the Barnett consequentials. I simply say that the Procedure Committee,
on which I sit, is reviewing the estimates process. We have heard from many distinguished and learned experts—far more learned and distinguished than I, if you can believe that, Mr Deputy Speaker. People from all sides of the political spectrum have argued when discussing EVEL that the estimates process is simply not fit for purpose.
Perhaps I may crave your indulgence a little longer, Mr Deputy Speaker, and point out that the way this House deals with the supply and estimates procedure is simply not sustainable. We need proper debate about the supply procedure to achieve clarity on Barnett consequentials. The scrutiny of the estimates process is simply not robust enough, and this Parliament—the so-called mother of Parliaments—has the least scrutinised spending arrangements in the western world. The process is such that the procedures simply do not give MPs a full opportunity to scrutinise Barnett consequentials of England-only, or England and Wales-only, legislation. Such scrutiny is required in a mature and healthy democracy, and a consequence of EVEL should be reform of the supply process, and that the interests of this matter be a “process of development”. That expression is a direct quote from the Leader of the House, who promised and envisaged that on 22 October 2015. Mr Speaker said that he could not conceive of any Bill that did not have direct Barnett consequentials, and that if there is such a Bill, we Scottish Members could take part in the estimates—