Tax and Fiscal Policy

Cameron’s monumental error – the pursuit of the mediocre as the enemy of the perfect


SUGGESTED

Regulation
Housing and Planning
In denying the Scots the option of devo-max, David Cameron made arguably the most monumental mistake of any recent premiership. The fairly narrow ‘no’ vote could lead to the worst possible of outcomes.

The economic justification for a union between two countries is that it allows for the provision of joint public goods more efficiently. This may include things such as border control (assuming that both Scots and English would like free migration between the two countries), foreign policy and defence, but probably very little else. It would also satisfy traditionalists who would like to see the two nations stay together: we may be ‘better together’ but we don’t have to have the same pensions systems.

Indeed, if we had a union with nearly all powers devolved, this would take us back to the situation that existed at the time of the Act of Union. At that time, the government did very little except manage debt and provide defence. Everything else was devolved – to the people.

So, what about everything else? Pensions, welfare to people of working age, education, health, policing, justice, and so on, make up the vast majority of public spending. The economic evidence suggests significant efficiency gains from fiscal decentralisation in these areas. However, these efficiency gains are only realised if the decentralised entity is also responsible for raising the taxes to finance the services.

As such, I would propose that, apart from a very small number of union-funded items financed by a single union-wide tax, Scotland should have complete tax raising powers and complete control of its own spending. There would be no direction from Westminster. Existing debt would be managed jointly but, in the future, the union as a whole would only incur debt in relation to the tiny number of things it financed on a union-wide basis. If Scotland could not raise the taxes to pay for spending on welfare it would have to raise debt on its own account with no possibility of any bailout. This debt would not be taken as collateral or bought in monetary policy operations by any union-wide central bank under any circumstances.

There would be other substantial benefits from this approach. The Rest of the UK and Scotland could decide on the policy mix that most closely matched the wishes of the electorate in each nation. Each nation could copy policies that worked from the other. And fiscal discipline arising from Scotland directly raising revenue to fund its welfare system would make it more likely that the system would be reformed. When it comes to issues such as regulation and monetary policy, the two nations – still in the United Kingdom – could either agree to go their separate ways or agree a common policy.

It might be argued that all this will all happen in any case now there has been a ‘no’ vote. However, if Cameron had presented devo super-max as a referendum option at the start, it could have been granted on his terms. There could have been a UK parliament to decide on a very small number of issues (such as defence) and Scottish MPs would have had no say on any other matters.

However, in the post-referendum chaos, it is likely that a scrap between the various interests will lead to a compromise position whereby Scottish MPs are allowed to vote on the additional devolved matters in the British parliament – especially if Labour wins the election in May. In other words, there will be a group of MPs who are voting on issues that have nothing to do with any of their constituents. This situation existed in the nineteenth century through the concept of ‘rotten boroughs’. They were mainly abolished in the 1832 Reform Act. The outcome of the negotiations following the result this morning risks taking us back in that direction. This is the fourth best outcome.

The best outcome would have been ‘devo super-max’, refused by Cameron. The second and third best outcomes (in no particular order) would have been independence and the status quo. The victory for the status quo is likely to lead to the worst of all possible outcomes – devo max with Scottish MPs still voting on issues that do not affect Scotland.

In many areas of government policy we at the IEA argue that the pursuit of the perfect is the enemy of the good. In this case, Cameron’s rejection of the perfect has been the friend of the worst possible outcome. Or, to put it another way, the pursuit of the mediocre has been the enemy of the perfect.

An earlier version of this article was published in City AM.

Academic and Research Director, IEA

Philip Booth is Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He is also Director of the Vinson Centre and Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham and Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. He also holds the position of (interim) Director of Catholic Mission at St. Mary’s having previously been Director of Research and Public Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. From 2002-2016, Philip was Academic and Research Director (previously, Editorial and Programme Director) at the IEA. From 2002-2015 he was Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at Cass Business School. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Kent and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law, University of Notre Dame, Australia. Previously, Philip Booth worked for the Bank of England as an adviser on financial stability issues and he was also Associate Dean of Cass Business School and held various other academic positions at City University. He has written widely, including a number of books, on investment, finance, social insurance and pensions as well as on the relationship between Catholic social teaching and economics. He is Deputy Editor of Economic Affairs. Philip is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an honorary member of the Society of Actuaries of Poland. He has previously worked in the investment department of Axa Equity and Law and was been involved in a number of projects to help develop actuarial professions and actuarial, finance and investment professional teaching programmes in Central and Eastern Europe. Philip has a BA in Economics from the University of Durham and a PhD from City University.


1 thought on “Cameron’s monumental error – the pursuit of the mediocre as the enemy of the perfect”

  1. Posted 19/09/2014 at 17:48 | Permalink

    The best option by far, would be for each MP to become the prime mover in his county, establishing an administration locally with exclusive tax raising and borrowing powers etc and for Westminster to become an administrative entity receiving a budget from each of the counties in order to undertake centralised operations such as defence and infrastructure as required.

    In other words a totally federalised country without a central parliament.

    This would bring power back to the people and, real democracy back to the UK and give these wretched MP’s something to do other than chew the cud.

Comments are closed.


SIGN UP FOR IEA EMAILS