Debate: Scotland's fiscal options - a response to Midwinter

Abstract

First paragraph: As John Curtice (2006, p. 95) succinctly put it: [unionist] advocates of devolution ‘hoped it would strengthen public support for the maintenance of the United Kingdom, whereas its critics feared it would have the opposite effect’. Fifteen years on from the initial devolution debate, Curtice’s question has crystallized with the prospect of a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014. Critical to the early skirmishes is the question of whether a ‘middle option’, popularly known as ‘Devolution-Max’, should be offered to the Scottish public in the referendum. Although yet to be fully defined, ‘Devo-Max’ essentially combines the transfer of those ‘domestic’ policy competences, such as broadcasting, trading standards, drugs and firearms, currently held at Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, with the wholesale transfer of economic powers to Holyrood so that Scotland attains fiscal autonomy, that is that the Scottish Parliament be responsible for generating all (or substantially all) of its revenues in addition to determining its spending priorities.