The answer to why Scotland should recieve additional funding is 4 hours 43 minutes.

I had a lovely lunch with the family at Cherwell Boathouse in Oxford on Sunday.  Inevitably the election came up.  And the Barnett Formula.  How come Scotland can get free prescriptions and England can’t?  

Now this question is frequently addressed to me by southern cousins because in England the people have never really had it explained to them in the media what the Barnett formula actually is for.  I suppose the easiest way to explain it is to say if you see someone in need, you help them.   

Or to put it more in political terms, if, because of geography, it costs 10% more to treat the average patient in Scotland, the rest of the UK will help them out.  If you don’t get the geography bit go to www.travelinescotland.com and work out how long it takes to get  from Campbeltown to the nearest big general hospital, Glasgow University Hospital, formerly known as the Southern General.  I’ll save you the search time.  It’s 4 hours 43 minutes.   

So in order to ensure no matter where in the UK you live you get similar levels of care, there is an adjustment in the block grant that Scotland gets to compensate for the additional costs of providing the same treatments in such a geographically challenging environment.  And that can be reflected in many other areas that the Barnett Formula was intended to address.  Now I know it’s not perfect.  But while Scotland remains in the UK, it’s the best we have.  Indeed, being able to help each part of the UK when it was in need was a key justification given in the referendum for Scotland staying in the Union.

Now this is where it gets interesting.  Scotland gets its adjusted block grant.  But the settlement says that the Scottish Government can then prioritise what it spends given situations can and do change.  So we have a Scottish Government deciding that, because of local economic situations, prescriptions should be free.  But it doesn’t get any more money from Westminster to fund it.  No, it has to make cuts elsewhere to fund it. 

So the premise that England is paying for free prescriptions is one cultured by the media in London and really rather disingenuously doesn’t tell the whole story.  No new news there I guess!