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48-652: The New Stations Fund is a programme by the United Kingdom Department for Transport to partially fund new railway stations in conjunction with local authorities or developers. The first round was launched in 2013 and funded £20m across five stations: The second round was launched in 2016 and funded £16m across five stations: The third round was launched in 2020 and was originally worth £20m but later increased to £32m. Applications closed on 5 June 2020. The winners were announced in November 2020. The third round

96-485: A 1% budget reduction for the Scottish Government. Opponents of that view claim that these are not cutbacks, merely lower growth, and that spending convergence between the home nations is not a policy objective of the current UK Government or Scottish Government. Also, in reality this erosion has happened extremely slowly − as shown in the table above, Scotland's reduction in identifiable spend per head from 121.5% of

144-613: A 2014 pledge to continue using it a "terrible mistake". In 2009, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Barnett Formula concluded that "the Barnett Formula should no longer be used to determine annual increases in the block grant for the United Kingdom's devolved administrations... A new system which allocates resources to the devolved administrations based on an explicit assessment of their relative needs should be introduced." During

192-491: A UK level for borrowing almost entirely incurred for the devolved nations. In 2007, the UK Government decided that there would be no Barnett consequentials in relation to the more than £7bn of public spending allocated to deliver the 2012 London Olympic Games, despite the fact that a substantial proportion of this spending was to be used to fund regeneration and transport infrastructure in the east London area. The lack of

240-644: A statutory basis for the formula concerns Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh citizens . The devolution legislation states only that the Secretary of State for each country will make a grant of such monies as Parliament makes available. This is seen as relying too heavily on the good will of the Westminster Parliament, and infringing the independence of the devolved executives . A needs-based solution has been suggested as being more fair, especially considering areas of England are not taken into account or compared to

288-800: A year, but the Audit Commission (for England and Wales) concluded in a 1993 report that "needs assessment can never be perfect or fair." Since devolution , once levels of funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been determined by central government in a spending review using the Barnett formula, the UK Parliament votes the necessary provision to the Secretaries of State for Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland as part of their central government departments' Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL). The secretaries of state then make payments to

336-603: Is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom . It is responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved . The department is run by the Secretary of State for Transport , currently (since 5 July 2024) Louise Haigh . The expenditure, administration, and policy of

384-525: Is named after Joel Barnett , who devised it in 1978 while Chief Secretary to the Treasury , as a short-term solution to resolve minor Cabinet disputes in the runup to the 1979 devolution referendums in Scotland and Wales . The Barnett formula is said to have "no legal standing or democratic justification", and, being merely a convention, could be changed at will by the Treasury. Barnett himself later called

432-568: Is shared with Scottish universities, despite Scottish students studying at those universities not having to contribute any extra fees. In contrast, if the Scottish Parliament were to use its tax-adjusting powers, the additional (or reduced) revenue would not be considered in any calculations by the Barnett formula of the block grant for Scotland. Another criticism is despite at times England's fiscal balance almost being in balance between tax and spending, it's still liable for debts incurred at

480-561: The 2014 Scottish independence referendum , the Barnett formula came to widespread attention given Scotland's higher levels of public expenditure. Its principle is that any increase or reduction in expenditure in England will automatically lead to a proportionate increase or reduction in resources for the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Analogous arrangements apply to categories of expense which are only controlled by some of

528-743: The Design Manual for Roads and Bridges and Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG, formerly WebTAG). The DfT maintains datasets including the National Trip End Model and traffic counts on major roads. The devolution of transport policy varies around the UK; most aspects in Great Britain are decided at Westminster. Key reserved transport matters (i.e., not devolved) are as follows: Scotland Reserved matters: Scotland's comparability factor (the proportion of spending in this area devolved to

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576-450: The 2011 Autumn Statement allocated additional funds to aid supply-side reform in the economy aimed at encouraging investment and export growth, noting that where expenditure was undertaken in England, "the devolved administrations [would] receive Barnett consequestials to invest in their key infrastructure priorities". The ultimate predecessor of the formula was the 1888 Goschen formula , introduced by George Goschen when Chancellor of

624-565: The Barnett formula, there are also significant variations in identifiable spending between the regions of England, in 2012/13 ranging from £7,638 in the South East (87% of the UK average), to £9,435 in London (107%). As noted below, no account is made of the amounts raised by taxation in each of the home nations , nor the relevant fiscal need (based on factors such as sparsity of population, cost of travel, unemployment rates, health, age distribution of

672-592: The Barnett formula. In one example, the top-up tuition fees introduced in England are counted as additional English public expenditure (as the extra income is spent by the universities) and, therefore, an equivalent amount from the Consolidated Fund , paid for by UK-wide taxation, has been transferred to the Scottish Government . It was argued that this meant that only the English paid tuition fees, yet this money

720-551: The Commission proposed a floor to the Barnett formula to limit any further squeeze in the Welsh case. This proposal was eventually accepted and the Act of 2017 instituted a floor whch ensured Welsh expenditure per head would not fall below 115 per cent of the English level. At the present time no such floor exists for the other devolved administrations although it has now become a matter of debate in

768-515: The Department of Health, the comparability factor for Scotland and Wales was 99.7%. Therefore, if £1 billion was to be added to planned health expenditure in England, then the extra amount added to the Scottish block, compared to the year before, would be £1bn x 10.34% x 99.7% = £103 million, and the amount added to the Welsh block would be £1bn x 5.93% x 99.7% = £59.1 million. For areas of funding where

816-463: The Department of Transport are scrutinised by the Transport Committee . The Department for Transport has six strategic objectives: The department "creates the strategic framework" for transport services, which are delivered through a wide range of public and private sector bodies including its own executive agencies. The DfT sponsors the following public bodies: DfT publications include

864-578: The Exchequer, as part of the proposals for Irish Home Rule . This allocated 80% of funding to England and Wales, 11% to Scotland and 9% to Ireland; hence the Scottish share was 13.75% of the English/Welsh amount. By 1970, in preparation for devolution, changes in the relative populations were examined. By then the relative populations were 85% in England and 10% in Scotland, meaning that the new Barnett formula set changes to Scottish expenditure at 10/85th of

912-752: The Scottish Government) was 91.7% for 2021/22. Northern Ireland Reserved matters: The department's devolved counterparts in Northern Ireland are: Northern Ireland's comparability factor (the proportion of spending in this area devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive) was 95.4% for 2021/22. Wales Reserved matters: The department's devolved counterpart in Wales is the Minister for Climate Change. Wales' comparability factor (the proportion of spending in this area devolved to

960-407: The UK average to 115.5% took nearly 30 years. In 2009, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Barnett Formula concluded that, "A new system which allocates resources to the devolved administrations based on an explicit assessment of their relative needs should be introduced." The Scottish Liberal Democrats commissioned Lord Steel of Aikwood to investigate what options existed for changing

1008-741: The Welsh Government) was 36.6% for 2021/22. This represents a significant reduction (e.g. it was 80.9% in 2015) due to the controversial classification of HS2 as an 'England and Wales' project. The Ministry of Transport was established by the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 ( 9 & 10 Geo. 5 . c. 50) which provided for the transfer to the new ministry of powers and duties of any government department in respect of railways , light railways , tramways , canals and inland waterways , roads , bridges and ferries , and vehicles and traffic thereon, harbours , docks and piers . In September 1919, all

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1056-412: The allocations with a regression formula and applied this to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Ireland was found to be funded roughly appropriately, perhaps a percent or two above the consistent level but Scotland was receiving disproportionate expenditures - some 125 percent of English expenditure per head, whereas if treated as an English region it would receive 108 per cent. Barnett was to eventually view

1104-504: The case of Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action highlighted problems with the current system, key of which have been the potential to make corporation tax more attractive for investment, and that the formula favours Scotland much more strongly than it does Wales or Northern Ireland. The Scottish National Party pointed to what has been termed the Barnett squeeze . They point out that rather than protecting

1152-501: The change in England (or 11.76%), 2% lower than the change that was being received under Goschen. The population percentages have been recalculated annually since 1999, and the Scottish share of changes was in 2002 set at 10.23% of the English amount. The original calculation was based on incorrect population estimates, and no attempt was made to adjust the baseline for these errors though changes in expenditure are based on more current population numbers. Political unwillingness to manage

1200-560: The corresponding central government department funding covers England and Wales, such as the Home Office and legal departments, the formula for funding to Scotland and Northern Ireland consists of a baseline plus increases based on the increases in public spending in England and Wales in comparable programmes, applied in proportion to current populations: For areas of funding where the corresponding central government department funding covers England, Wales and Scotland, such as Work and Pensions,

1248-651: The department was reorganised into three major sections: Secretarial, Finance and Roads. The ministry's functions were exercised initially throughout the United Kingdom. An Irish Branch was established in 1920, but then was taken over by the government of the Irish Free State on the transfer of functions in 1922. The department took over transport functions of Scottish departments in the same year, though certain functions relating to local government, loan sanction, byelaws and housing were excepted. In May 1937, power to make provisional orders for harbour, pier and ferry works

1296-678: The devolved administrations from the DEL as block grants , which means that they can be spent by the devolved legislatures on any devolved responsibility however they see fit. In 2011–12, the Scotland Office Total DEL outturn was £27.567bn, and from this the block grant to the Scottish Parliament was £26.985bn. The Wales Office Total DEL outturn was £14.625bn, and the Northern Ireland Office Total DEL outturn

1344-419: The devolved governments. The formula is not applied to all public expenditure, but is the default option if no other decisions are made. Expenditure is allocated en bloc , not by service, allowing each devolved administration to allocate these funds as it believes appropriate. For areas of funding where the corresponding central government department funding covers England only, for example education and health,

1392-499: The disabled and commuter protests relating to Govia Thameslink Railway a group of commuters crowdfunded £26,000 to initiate a judicial review into the Department for Transport's management and failure to penalise Govia or remove the management contract. The oral hearing to determine if commuters have standing to bring a judicial review was listed for 29 June 2017 at the Royal Courts of Justice . Barnett formula The formula

1440-474: The earlier report of the Independent Commission on Funding and Finance for Wales, was reserved for bilateral negotiation between the two governments, The original formula has the effect when public expenditure is growing of very gradually reducing the relative share of countries with higher spending per head than England. Since at the time of its report Wales received less than equivalent English regions,

1488-516: The favourable spending position of Scotland, the Barnett formula steadily erodes that advantage: As it gives equal cash increases (per head), and Scotland's per head spending is higher than England's, Scotland's increases will be smaller as a percentage of their total budget than England's. For example, if a 4% increase is needed to cover inflation, the same cash increase which provides a 4% increase for England may translate into an increase of only 3% of Scotland's budget – after inflation, that would mean

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1536-440: The formula for funding to Northern Ireland consists of a baseline plus increases based on the increases in public spending in England, Wales and Scotland in comparable programmes, applied in proportion to current populations: When additional public expenditure is planned in England, the corresponding additions which are made to the devolved administrations' funding allocations are referred to as "Barnett consequentials". For example,

1584-534: The formula for funding to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland consists of a baseline plus increases based on the increases in public spending in England in comparable programmes, applied in proportion to current populations: For example, in 2000, the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh populations were taken to be 3.69%, 10.34% and 5.93% (respectively) of the population of the United Kingdom (comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). For programmes in

1632-520: The formula that he devised as unfair. In The Scotsman in January 2004 he wrote, "It was never meant to last this long, but it has gone on and on and it has become increasingly unfair to the regions of England. I didn't create this formula to give Scotland an advantage over the rest of the country when it comes to public funding." According to Scotland on Sunday , moving to a needs-based allocation of government finances would cost Scotland around £2.5 billion

1680-542: The funding arrangement can be found in HM Treasury's Statement of Funding Policy . Estimates of government spend by region are given in HM Treasury's annual publication Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA). These estimates of the spend per person have consistently shown highest levels of spending in Northern Ireland, followed by Scotland, then Wales, and finally England. For example: The persistence of per capita public expenditure being lower in England than

1728-426: The other regions continues to attract calls for the formula to be renegotiated. As these variations were not ever a consciously decided policy of the Treasury or Parliament, this inequality has been cited as a reason for reform. Moreover, the erosion of these differences over time has been very slow and uneven. The change in Scottish identifiable expenditure as a percentage of English expenditure from 2001/02 to 2012/13

1776-520: The population, road lengths, recorded crimes, and numbers of sub-standard dwellings) in each area. The Barnett formula never claimed to address these issues and was a basic calculation on the basis of proportions of the population. A needs assessment study was undertaken by the Treasury in 1979 in preparation for planned devolution, to assess the relative needs just with respect to the policy areas which were to be devolved (i.e. excluding non-devolved government spending such as social security). This study

1824-565: The powers of the Road Board, the Ministry of Health, and the Board of Trade in respect of transport, were transferred to the new ministry. Initially, the department was organised to carry out supervisory, development and executive functions, but the end of railway and canal control by 1921, and the settlement of financial agreements relating to the wartime operations of the railways reduced its role. In 1923,

1872-599: The present arrangement. The report of the Steel commission was published on 6 March 2006 and called for greater fiscal powers for the Scottish Government, similar to the Common Purse Agreement that exists for the Manx Government . The Scottish National Party proposed Full Fiscal Autonomy for Scotland which would have given the Scottish parliament full control of Scottish taxation, the result of which would have been

1920-461: The responsibility of: The name "Ministry of Transport" lives on in the annual MOT test , a test of vehicle safety , roadworthiness , and exhaust emissions , which most vehicles used on public roads in the UK are required to pass annually once they reach three years old (four years for vehicles in Northern Ireland ). Following a series of strikes, poor performance, concerns over access for

1968-406: The task of making the changes necessary to rebalance existing expenditure meant that the Barnett formula was applied only to changes. Nevertheless, the expectation was that as inflation led to repeated application of the formula, average expenditure per head on devolved services in Scotland would over the years fall nearer and nearer to the English figure (the so-called "Barnett squeeze"). Details of

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2016-598: The three devolved nations of the UK. In Northern Ireland, there has been no review of the mechanisms involved in regard to devolving of fiscal power and responsibilities – unlike Wales with the Commission on Devolution in Wales , Scotland with the Scotland Act 2012 , and England with the Heseltine Growth Review . The Silk Commission in Wales was expressly excluded from considering the Barnett Formula, which, following

2064-471: The total need and spend, including non-devolved services. A needs assessment was carried out by the Independent Commission n Funding and Finance for Wales (2010), established by the Welsh government. It used the allocation formula employed by the UK government for English regions and applied them to Wales, determining that Wales was then receiving some 3 per cent less spending per head than it would receive if treated as an English region. The Commission modelled

2112-469: Was 121.3% to 119.0%. Previous estimates that these differences would disappear in 30 years now appear unlikely. The average UK total identifiable expenditure on services is approximately £8,788. Instant abolition of the Barnett formula, and adjustment of the four countries' spend to this average would result in a large decrease for each person in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but an increase of about 3% per person for England. Although not subject to

2160-1109: Was supplemented on 26 May 2021 when in a DfT news story "£401 million investment into upgrades to deliver brighter rail future" an additional £15 million was allocated to build new stations at Marsh Barton in Exeter, and White Rose and Thorpe Park in Leeds. The latter pair were among the four first mentioned in DfT's 29 November 2017 policy paper "Connecting people: A strategic vision for rail" (page 25, paragraph 2.43). Department for Transport King Charles III [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee The Department for Transport ( DfT )

2208-433: Was transferred to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The growth of road transport increased the responsibilities of the ministry, and in the 1930s, and especially with defence preparations preceding the outbreak of war, government responsibilities for all means of transport increased significantly. Government control of transport and diverse associated matters has been reorganised a number of times in modern history, being

2256-465: Was updated in 1993. Both studies found the highest need for devolved services in Northern Ireland, followed by Scotland, then Wales, and finally England. In 1979, Northern Ireland and Scotland received more to spend on services which would have been devolved than the needs assessment suggested they should, and Wales less. By 1993, all three countries had increased the gap between the needs assessment and actual spend. However, this does not necessarily reflect

2304-456: Was £10.465bn. The Barnett formula only applies to the devolved administrations' expenditure classified within DEL, which for Scotland is about 85% of the Scottish Parliament's total budget. Other sources of income for the devolved administrations include: The Barnett formula is widely recognised as being controversial but there is no consensus on how to change it. Taxation and charges applied in only one nation or region controversially affect

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