Free dosh for Scotland

[snaw]

Not trying to burst your bubble but increasing taxes on Businesses in London is likely to have the effect of moving them away from Britain entirely, not moving them up to Birmingham/Wales etc as you seem to imagine.

[AtW]

I don't expect them to move to Wales or even Birmingham - just be outside of M25, target businesses where most of people commute from outside of M25 - those businesses are ideal for moving to that place since it would have most cut on traffic into London.

Will businesses move out of UK completely? Well, if you just raise taxes in London then yes, but if you drop taxes outside of M25 so that they PROFIT from moving there, then it would make a good case. At the very least make sure that all NEW businesses start outside of M25.

Also there is a big need to start encouraging distance working - many jobs don't require people being in office all of the time, give tax breaks to encourage this, but tax breaks for say at least 15-20 years so that companies could count on them, not like Brown does - give today take back (and more) tomorrow

[DimPrawn]

give tax breaks to encourage this, but tax breaks for say at least 15-20 years so that companies could count on them, not like Brown does - give today take back (and more) tomorrow

What colour is the sky in your world AtW?

[DodgyAgent]

I
Also there is a big need to start encouraging distance working -

It is already a multi billion £ business AtW, popularly known as "offshoring"

[wendigo100]

Several big companies moved offices out of the capital 20 or 30 years ago. Leeds and Manchester were going to be new financial hubs.

However, most companies still did not want to go, even with large financial inducements from the state, so you'd have to ask yourself why that might be.

The cost and trouble of relocating 3000 staff, nearly all of whom do not want to go, might be one reason.

[vetran]

Move Business out of London they did this 20 yrs ago with places like Greenford and Stockley park. UNfortunately they failed to ensure the transport links were
in place and just made it worse.

Move government out of London, good idea but it does make most of Westminster an unemployment blackspot, who is going to employ an ex DTI / DOE employee?

Crossrail is a good idea, if you improve transport across London and Join it with the rest of the infrastructure business will congregate at the major hubs, so long as you put those hubs outside London and make building relatively easy then business will move. Business likes being to get to their customers or suppliers in under an hour hence Londons success.

I think they should use the Heathrow express to link London with fast regional trains instead of trying to put intercity traffic through Londons old infrastructure. Have the London-Manchester train go via Heathrow with one stop, 300mph all the way from Heathrow.

[Pondlife]

Maybe that's where the money should have went in the first place instead of building this rail thing that very few people in the UK will actually use: companies should be forced out of London to decentralise rather than create artificial demand in a place that is already overcrowded.

Sorry AtW but do you actually think about this carp before you post it? From now on please stick to threads entitled 1...2..., or squirrel related.

[shaunbhoy]

The row over perks for Scotland reignited today after it emerged that Edinburgh will get £500 million extra simply because Crossrail is being built in London.

Amid signs that the Tories will present themselves as the "English party" at the next election , David Cameron said for the first time that he would review the controversial Barnett formula that allocates cash to different parts of Britain.

The Standard has discovered that, under the formula, Scotland will automatically receive a huge payment to compensate for Crossrail's £16 billion worth of spending in the capital.

The revelation prompted fresh claims that the cash windfall will be used to subsidise free university tuition, elderly care and other perks.

A poll yesterday showed that one in three English voters now favours a break-up of the union with the Conservatives determined to highlight Gordon Brown's Scottishness. Mr Cameron is pushing a plan to allow only English MPs to vote on English affairs at Westminster. But a much bolder move is the review of the Barnett formula, which means the Scots end up getting £1,500 more per head a year than the English.

MPs of all parties are already worried-that English voters resent subsidising free university tuition and care for the elderly north of the border. There is increasing anxiety that Scots are now also in line for free school meals for all and free prescriptions under the Scottish Executive, which is led by the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Now even Labour MPs are complaining about the Barnett formula after the revelation about Crossrail. Jim Cousins, a Labour MP on the Treasury select committee, said: "There is a great slug of money, a Crossrail bonus going to Scotland, that reappears in free prescription charges, free home care, free everything else, extra grants for heating, abolition of the graduate endowment.

"When is there going to be a north of England bonus?"

All sounds perfectly fair to me. London uses their £16Bn handout to get a swanky new railway that nobody particularly wants, and Edinburgh uses it's piffling £500M handout to look after young students, the sick and the elderly.
Hard to see where the problem is here unless you take into consideration the fact that the Scottish Parliament are only putting into practise policies that ought to be given top priority in an advanced caring society. It is not as if Edinburgh is complaining that the Government in Westminster are spending/wasting £130M a year getting a few dozen junkies off crack cocaine/heroine is it?

[The Lone Gunman]

All sounds perfectly fair to me. London uses their £16Bn handout to get a swinky new railway that nobody particularly wants, and Edinburgh uses it's piffling £500M handout to look after young students, the sick and the elderly.
Hard to see where the problem is here unless you take into consideration the fact that the Scottish Parliament are only putting into practise policies that ought to be given top priority in an advanced caring society. It is not as if Edinburgh is complaining that the Government in Westminster are spending/wasting £130M a year getting a few dozen junkies off crack cocaine/heroine is it?

The problem is Shaun that Edinburgh can only afford to run these programmes due to a subsidy from the English. Then the Scottish MPs vote against all these freebies in England.
It is distinctly two faced to say we do not want to be governed by you, but we want you to fund our government handouts.

[snaw]

That's a big assumption to make - there's enough Scottish people who don't want to be governed by england and don't want the handouts either. Then you can go into oil funding the english economy for years while growth in Scotland declined at the same time etc etc.

Anyway, if it wasn't Scotland then it'd be the south complaining about funding the north. Personally I'm happy for my English earned tax money to go towards funding Scotland.