Today the TaxPayers' Alliance has released a new report by Mike Denham, former Treasury and City economist, on the Barnett Formula. It finally answers some critical questions and provides much-needed clarity in the debate over the distribution of spending between...

Poor Lord Barnett again and again he and committees say the Barnett Formula is unfair, yet nothing happens. It's like the words are said in space, where no one can hear you speak. Another committee, this time the Lords have said the Barnett formula is "arbitrary and unfair". Their proposal for a new Barnett formula is for it to link spending and need. Money going where it is most needed seems a fa...

  CEP welcomes House of Lord’s review of the Barnett Formula but is not optimistic ‘We very much welcome the statement Lord Joel Barnett, Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Harold Wilson, has issued this weekend about the Formula named after him,’ Mrs Scilla Cullen Chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament. ‘It should have been

The Taxpayers Alliance has completed its report into the Barnett Formula with some damning conclusions.  Of course, the contents of this report are nothing new - we’ve been telling people for years how much the Barnett Formula is costing the English taxpayer! THE BARNETT FORMULA HAS COST TAXPAYERS £200 BILLION The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) presents a new

The Taxpayers Alliance have produced a report into the Barnett Formula - the unfair formula that automatically hands over billions of English pounds to the celts whether they need it or not - and concluded that it has cost the English taxpayer £200bn in the last 20 years. I wrote about this earlier on the CEP

The Barnett formula is a mechanism used by The Treasury in the United Kingdom to adjust the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales automatically to reflect changes in spending levels allocated to public services in England, England and Wales or Great Britain, as appropriate. The formula is named after Joel Barnett, who devised it in the late 1970s, while Ch...

Chris Vine has received another reply from the Ministry of Justice on the West Lothian Question. Previously Chris had suggested that using the Barnett Formula as justification for Scottish MPs voting on English issues was a make weight argument, because he believed the government would still want Scottish MPs to vote on English matters

The Bloke's paper on the Barnett Formula is published today by the TPA. As you will know, the Barnett Formula is HM Treasury's rule for divvying up taxpayers' cash between the major regions of the UK. When it was established 30 years ago, the idea was that it would gradually eliminate the historic spending advantage enjoyed by Scotland over England. But it has failed. The current si...

It's simple -I'm going to cut your incomeThe Bloke is writing another paper for the TPA, and is currently researching the notorious Barnett Formula, the one that allocates all those zillions of English taxpayers' money to the Scots.It turns out that Barnett was simply a modification to a formula originally laid down in 1888 by George Goschen, Chancellor under Lord Salisbury. He invented the "Gosch...

Yesterday the Western Mail reported on how Labour Minister Liam Byrne considered the Barnett Formula as ‘fair enough.’ The formula which is not based on need and was never meant to be anything other than a temporary measure is highly unfair to Wales. The Justice Committee stated, “The Barnett formula is overdue for reform and lacks any basis in equity or logic.” On his blog...