5 Jun 2017

Responding to the news that Carwyn Jones has said that Welsh Labour would scrap the Barnett Formula, Scottish Conservative shadow finance secretary Murdo Fraser said:

“This is total chaos. The Scottish Labour manifesto is based on the Barnett formula operating – under their plans, spending on policies from arts education to council funding in England is supposed to lead to an increase in the Scottish budget.

“In the past, Kezia Dugdale has actually said that scrapping it would lead to £4 billion in cuts for Scotland.

“The Conservatives have explicitly promised to keep the Barnett formula.

“Jeremy Corbyn needs to come clean – and quick. Will Labour keep the Barnett formula? If they will, why is Labour in Wales saying they won’t?

“And if they won’t, why is it used in their manifesto and how much will Scotland lose if they cut it?”

Scottish Labour’s manifesto relied on Barnett to fund its spending promises:

The manifesto said:

• Labour will extend the current provision of free school meals to all primary school children in England, paid for by removing the VAT exemption for private schools. Scotland would benefit from the Barnett consequentials of this policy, which would allow it to be replicated here. (p.42)
• A Labour government will give councils in England extra funding next year – and Scotland will benefit financially (p.84)
• Labour’s pledge to recruit 10,000 more police officers to work on community beats in England and Wales will mean Scotland will benefit from an investment of £70 million. (p.76)
• A Labour government will halt cuts to fire services in England and Wales, and recruit 3,000 new firefighters – investment which would mean a boost to Scotland’s valued emergency services (p.79)
• The arts pupil premium we will introduce for every primary school in England – a £160 million a year boost for schools – will mean more money for the Scottish government to invest in arts education. (p.93)

UK Labour’s manifesto promised huge spending increases in Scotland based on Barnett:

• The Scottish Parliament will receive a huge funding increase from our policies, and massive numbers of Scots will benefit from our plans in areas reserved to Westminster (p.104).

Ian Murray has said said Barnett was ‘incredibly important’ to Scotland

• Ian Murray: “It is incredibly important that Scotland’s position in the UK is maintained through the block grant and the Barnett formula” (Ian Murray, Hansard, 21 July 2016, link).

Kezia Dugdale has previously said that scrapping the Barnett formula would lead to £4 billion in cuts and could cost 138,000 jobs:

• ‘Alex Salmond’s plans to scrap the Barnett formula means £4 billion worth of cuts’ (12 January 2015, link)
• ‘Buy a Daily Record to read why I’m backing Nicola Sturgeon’s efforts to protect the Barnett formula.’ (14 February 2016, link)
• ‘I’ll keep the Barnett Formula today, tomorrow, forever @JimforScotland #Scotdebates’ (8 April 2015, link)
• ‘Scrapping the Barnett Formula for Full Fiscal Autonomy is economic madness and would cost 138,000 jobs’ (6 January 2014, link)

The Scottish Conservative manifesto reads:
‘We will continue to work in partnership with the Scottish and Welsh governments and the Northern Ireland Executive, in a relationship underpinned by pooling and sharing resources through the Barnett Formula’ (Scottish Conservative Manifesto 2017, link).

Thank you Mr President, and thank you Stephen for your powerful briefing and for all that you do on this crucial issue.

We’re meeting today exactly five months since a ceasefire was declared in Syria. Sadly, as Stephen has set out, it’s a ceasefire that exists in name only. The past five months have seen continued fighting, continued atrocities, continued destruction. Throughout, civilians have been maimed and killed, starved and besieged. And in towns like Khan Sheikhoun, they’ve been exposed to the very worst of humanity.

Like many others here in this Chamber, we cautiously welcomed the ceasefire and the Astana agreement on de-escalation zones. After six years of fighting, we’re all ready to support a genuine effort to bring an overdue end to the bloodshed. But the fact is, Mr President, the Astana plans have done little to help the people of Syria. Instead, so far, they have done a great deal to help the regime and its allies. The guns have fallen silent only where it has suited them. The guns have been deafening elsewhere.

So in some places, yes, there has been an overdue reduction in the violence. But only where it suits the regime. We need only ask the people of Daraa province, one of the four so-called de-escalation zones, what the ceasefire feels like on the ground. Last week barrel bomb after barrel bomb, airstrike after airstrike rained down on opposition-held areas there. Is that what the regime means by ceasefire? Is that what they mean by de-escalation?

And just as the attacks have continued, so have the sieges. At the end of April, the UN estimated over 620,000 people were living under siege in Syria, the overwhelming majority in towns and villages besieged by the regime and its allies. How can anyone claim there is a ceasefire in place when the equivalent population of Las Vegas is being besieged? Quite simply, you can’t.

Going hand in hand with continued attacks and continued besiegement is the continued failure to improve humanitarian access. As Stephen said, in the last two months, just only one aid delivery to an area besieged by the regime. That delivery was too little, too late, providing supplies for the bare minimum of the population.

And yet it doesn’t have to be this way. The United Nations is standing by, ready to deliver aid and medicine to those in critical need. They know the route they’ll take. They have the assurances they need from the opposition. And they have the mandate to act; all of us around this table have agreed, in countless resolutions, that access must be granted.

But instead, the UN teams are forced to wait. Not for aid, not for supplies, but, instead, for the regime’s letters of approval; letters that never arrive. So the children continue to go hungry and the sick and wounded continue to die in pain. This isn’t about bureaucracy or about paperwork; these are the cold, calculating actions of a regime that chooses to starve its fellow Syrians into surrender. You can see why the UN judges that this kind of behaviour constitutes war crimes.

In light of these continuing atrocities, it’s clear that the guarantors of the Astana process need to do more, so much more, to make the ceasefire and de-escalation zones a reality.

This must mean a genuine end to the violence – a ceasefire in deed and not just in thought. It must mean effective and impartial monitoring mechanisms, ideally reporting to this UN Security Council, so that those who violate the ceasefire are named and held to account.

And it means sustained humanitarian access for the UN and its partners, with the UN being allowed to assess what each de-escalation zone needs. Those with influence over the regime, must ensure that this access is given; it is long overdue.

Above all, Mr President, if there is to be long-term peace in Syria, there has to full implementation of Resolution 2254, as our Egyptian colleague has just said, and there has to be justice. There has to be justice for the people of Khan Sheikhoun, for the people of Aleppo, for the people of so many places across Syria who have endured for so many years.

Without these steps, there simply isn’t a credible plan; there is just the fiction that we have today. It is a fiction where ceasefires exist and yet bombs still fall. It is a fiction that has endured for too long.

Thank you.

Responding to Montenegro’s accession to NATO, the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:‪

NATO is the bedrock of our collective security and I welcome Montenegro as the 29th member. The UK has long been a firm supporter of Montenegro’s accession, as well as its commitment to reform and progress. I congratulate them on a historic step forward.

Montenegro now takes on both the benefits and responsibilities of NATO membership and collective defence. We look forward to building on our close relationship for the defence and security of our citizens.

5 June 2017

* Caroline Lucas: “This Government is fining people for falling sick”

* Molly Scott Cato: “Prescription charges undermine the principle of universal free healthcare”

* Event details: 2pm, Easton Day & Night Pharmacist, 192 Stapleton Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 0NY [1]

Caroline Lucas will announce the Green Party’s plans to scrap prescription charges as part of its commitment to a national health service that’s genuinely free at the point of use.

Lucas will accuse the Government of fining people for being sick and creating barriers which stop people accessing the medication they need.

GPs have warned that the £8.60 prescription charge in England [2] is forcing some people to make a choice between food and medication [3].

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already scrapped prescription charges, and the Green Party wants to adopt the same scheme in England.

Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party, is expected to say:

“Let me start by saying my thoughts remains with all those affected by the horrific acts in London yesterday. It is with a heavy heart that I speak to you today, but one which knows how important it is not to let those who seek to divide us succeed, or our democracy be cowed by fear.

“So I am here today to talk to you about the NHS. Every day this Government is fining people for falling sick by charging for prescriptions. GPs have warned that prescription charges force some patients to choose between spending their earnings on food – or essential medical treatment. This is not acceptable. It’s also a false economy because not taking prescribed mediation can cause people to miss work and lead to additional GP or hospital appointments.”

Lucas will announce the Green Party plans while visiting a community pharmacy in Bristol with Molly Scott Cato MEP.

Molly Scott Cato, Green South West MEP and Bristol West candidate, is expected to say:

“The NHS was founded on the principle of universal access to free, publicly funded and provided health care at the point of use. Prescription charges in England undermine that principle and the Green Party would not make people pay for access to vital medication.”

Scrapping prescription fees would cost an estimated £550 million annually [4]. The Green Party argue these costs could be more than met by getting rid of the NHS internal market – a move which would save an estimated £4.5bn according to the Centre for Health and the Public Interest [5].

ENDS.

For more information contact: press@greenparty.org.uk / 0203 691 9401

Notes:

1. Event details: 2pm, Easton Day & Night Pharmacist, 192 Stapleton Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 0NY.

The Green Party has suspended national campaigning until Sunday night after the London terror attack. We are in discussion with the other parties and if campaigning does not resume tomorrow another email will be sent.

2. http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Pages/Prescriptioncosts.aspx

3. http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/commissioning/commissioning-topics/prescribing/prescription-charges-adversely-impact-on-patient-care-say-40-of-gps/20007736.article

4. https://www.sruk.co.uk/media/filer_public/ca/f8/caf8a735-b265-40f6-8d52-40d69152060f/20170428_letter_from_prescription_charges_coalition_-_rt_hon_jeremy_hunt_-_conservative.pdf

5. https://chpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/At-what-cost-paying-the-price-for-the-market-in-the-English-NHS-by-Calum-Paton.pdf

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