Thank you for the interruption. I am perfectly aware of that, and the game incorporates the fact that there are certain taxes, such as VAT, that you cannot change because at the moment they do not work under European legislation.
The question that Malcolm Chisholm asked was about an element of solidarity and redistribution. Let us take the whole idea of home rule across the UK. At the moment, of the £740 billion that is spent on public services across the UK, £430 billion would be associated with home rule activities if England was to have the same home rule as the other three countries in the United Kingdom. That represents approximately 60 per cent of all government expenditure. That would involve a huge amount of fiscal transfers right the way around the UK and, to our mind, it would distort the responsibility and accountability of Parliaments in each of the four home countries—or three, because there is not yet one in England.
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Under our model, with each of the four home countries raising what they spend, if we allocate the deficit fairly, on a per-head basis across the four home countries, the net result would be that Scotland breaks even over an average of the past five years, because the Scottish deficit is roughly the same as the UK average deficit. Wales and Northern Ireland are about £10 billion under. It is difficult to get those figures. Wales has not broken down its Government expenditure and revenue figures since the 2010-11 figures, so we cannot be totally accurate, but the sum is about £10 billion—we could call it £15 billion. England is a net contributor of about £10 billion or £15 billion, which goes to Wales and Northern Ireland.
With the home rule that we suggest right across the United Kingdom, that would be the result. In the context of the UK, £15 billion is about 2 per cent. In order to get a redistribution—solidarity, if you like—across the UK and keep the no-detriment principle—that the situation should be no different from where we started off—there would have to be a redistribution of about £15 billion, which is about 2 per cent of total expenditure in the UK. With that 2 per cent, we could have across the four countries within the UK an economic and needs-based fund to help areas that run into economic difficulty or which need help with poverty alleviation, based on the methodology that Holtham put forward in his report.
I asked a number of people whether, if Scotland did fantastically well, say though oil, people would feel comfortable contributing 2 per cent or maybe a little bit more to help other people, principally in Wales or Northern Ireland—although who knows what might happen to England going forward. Conversely, I also asked whether, if Scotland ran into problems—let us say because oil revenue disappeared and we needed some help—others in the United Kingdom would contribute. It comes down to degree. If the amount was 2 or 3 per cent of the total budget, people would not feel that there was a problem with contributing to a solidarity fund across the UK. Such an amount would be enough to redress the balance, based on current figures. What we are trying to avoid is the current huge fiscal transfers, which mean that 60 per cent of expenditure at local level is funded from Westminster. Those fiscal transfers take away responsibility and the levers to do things in different economic parts of the United Kingdom. We can achieve solidarity at Westminster level through a central economic and needs-based fund to alleviate poverty. That could be a perfectly acceptable outcome and it is what Westminster should be doing.