Would a Scotland yes vote be good for London?

Having just got back from Edinburgh, I was sitting on the plane taking in some of the conversations I've been having with Scots on my visit. I was trying to think what I could possibly add to the debate. It occurred to me that no one has really focussed specifically on what a Yes vote would mean for London. On a purely economic level it is 100% clear that a Yes vote would be excellent news for London. We've already heard various banks have contingency plans to move head office functions to London. This can only mean more jobs and more prosperity for the capital. It is also likely to mean  a redistribution and rethink of priority for infrastructure projects, which is again likely to be concentrated on London and the South East.

At present we only have three fully electrified High speed main line railways in the UK. Two go to Scotland and one goes to France. I do wonder if the Govt would have bothered to electrify the East and West Coast mainline to Scotland if it had been independent. My guess is that one effect of Independence would be to ensure that HS2 never reaches Glasgow and Edinburgh. Whilst this is very bad for the concept of the UK, it is very good for London as it means huge amounts of capitol will be available for local projects. Roads and Rail infrastructure spending is likely to be spent where it will deliver the most benefit to the most people, which in the UK is in the South East. Once Scotland is taken out of the picture, the picture gets radically redrawn. If the banks have moved to London, then that means that the people who provide the finance for infrastructure projects have no vested interest in spending that money north of Carlisle and Newcastle. In fact I think areas such as Carlisle and Newcastle will be huge losers in this process. It seems likely that they'll be far less well served when the cash is splashed. By default such areas have hugely benefitted when the routes to Scotland were improved.

What about the social effects of devolution? These are far less easy to read. Presumably once the BBC is split into two, there will be far less interest from the corporation in Scottish news and events. Culturally one wonders whether the UK will get behind events such as the Commonwealth games in the way they did for Glasgow. I hugely enjoy the Edinburgh festival, but I can't see how devolution will really help it to maintain its profile.I suspect that the fallout in London will actually be positive as the arts community looks a little bit less north. I don't expect this to mean the demise of the Edinburgh festival, but it would mean that London would feel no qualms about setting up its own rival, should it so be inclined.

I've many Scottish friends living in London and most of them are bemused by the swing towards Yes. Most are proud of their Scottish heritage, but don't associate themselves with the Salmond brand of pride in their nation. Many have said that it has actually made them appreciate London even more.

I was trying to think of a negative effect of the vote. One effect of devolution has been that far less Scottish students come to London to study, as they get a free education North of the Border. I don't think this can be  a good thing, but it is already happening. It will only make the Scots more insular and inward looking, which must be a bad thing in the global economy.

You may think that with this in mind, I'd be supporting independence, as I am a Londoner through and through. Not a bit of it. I believe London is the capital of the world and a little bit of the world will get a little bit further away. When Alex Salmond talks about the oil wealth and how rich Scotland is, he neglects to mention the fact that the real losers if he keeps all the oil money will not be London. London has a booming economy. The losers will be deprived English regions on the periphery of the country. These are the real victims in all this, if you take the economic view. Salmond would clearly say "So what, that is an English problem" Whilst on one level he's right, I believe in the long term he's very wrong. We are stronger and better together. Salmond may cherish the flower of Scotland, but what happens to a flower that is cut off from its roots? I guess the big difference between my viwpoint and Salmonds is that whilst it is clear that a Yes would be good for London, I think it would be a tragedy for the Scotland and the rest of England and so I cannot possibly support it.

The Friday Joke 12/9/2014 - Scottish Independence Special

The Queen is in Glasgow and she bumped into Alex Salmond.

HMtQ:  How nice to see you Mr Salmond.

AS:  Nice to see you Ma’am. Now, what are we going to call Scotland when we win Independence? How about calling it a Kingdom, and then I’ll be a King?

HMtQ:  No, we don’t like that, it'll upset Charles, you know he sort of has an eye on that job.

AS:  Empire, and I'll be Emperor?

HMtQ: Oh no, that will be a real step backwards into the past.

AS:  Alright, so how about calling it a Principality, and then I’ll be a Prince?

HMtQ:  No Mr Salmond, we've already got enough of them, we've even got another one on the way.  I suggest we call it a Country and you can carry on as you are.

Scottish Independence - The death of a National rail network?

One of my biggest fears for the UK, in the event of a Yes vote for Scottish Independence is the calamatous effect it is likely to have on the UK rail network. There are two huge issues that no one really seems to have considered or discussed.

1. Network Rail. This is a 'not for profit' company which is wholly owned by the government. Presumably it will have to be split into two organisations in the event of Independence. This will require a whole new layer of bureaucracy, a whole raft of new IT systems and a massive team of lawyers to sort out issues arising from this divorce. Presumably the new "Network Rail Scotland" will be given its orders from the new Parliament and these will be a whole set of different orders from those issued to "Network Rail UK" in Westminster. What will this mean in practical terms? For one thing it will mean that HS2 will never reach Scotland. It is likely to ultimately also mean a massive shift away from freight on the railways to more and more lorries thundering up and down overused and underinvested motorways. Political decisions about transport spending will not be made for the benefit of the UK economy. Instead, they are likely to be made with short term pork barrelling in mind, which invariably means projects which benefit small areas rather than a more strategic long term plan to ensure freight is move efficiently and in an Eco freindly manner around the UK. Upgrading railway infrastructure is horrendously expensive and why on earth would Westminster invest a penny to improve links with a foreign country, with little benefit to the UK economy. The Scots are likely to make their infrastructure spending decisions around projects which will deliver votes, ie small scale improvements close to large centres of population. This means that longer term schemes, which deliver few votes but have massive eco benefit such as upgrading long distance freight handling capacity will be put on the back burner.

2. Awards of franchises. At present these are awarded on a UK national level. What happens with the franchises that straddle borders such as the East and West Coast main line contracts? At present Virgin runs the West Coast and the Government runs the East Coast, following the last debacle. It is inconceivable that the newly elected Scottish government will be happy to simply let the UK govt dish out such important contracts. So the franchise bidders will have to dealw ith two governments with presumably very different agendas. Once the divorce is completed, there is no reason why the UK government would have any interest in ensuring decent services north of the Border. One presumes that for the Scots, they will be keen to preserve services and ensure that any franchise award doesn't damage their economy, but how on earth can this be practically achieved? Of course where there are lucrative contracts on well used services this will not be too much of a problem, but over the course of time the network is likely to evolve into a more Uk centric system. With ever increasing demands on capacity, it seems likely that services to Scotland will be the first to go when making decisions as to timetabling constraints on overcrowded lines. It seems highly unlikely that the UK government will want to give any subsidies to prop up less well used regional services and will divert this money towards improvements which benefit the UK rather than the Scottish taxpayer.

Furthermore, one has to wonder what will be the view of the UK government on cross border road links. If the cross border rail network is run down to provide better inter UK services, then what will happen to the roads as traffic builds up? Will the ministry of transport sanction huge spending and development on expensive new roads and upgrades to existing roads? Again this seems unlikely if the chief beneficiaries are the Scottish taxpayer.

So who will benefit? It seems likely to me that the biggest winners will be the low cost airlines. They will take up the slack. Both Scottish and English airports will benefit from this, but again there are only so many air traffic control slots and can they cope with a massive expansion of cross border short haul flights. What seems fairly clear is that flying, which is the most polluting and non eco friendly mode of transport will be the growth area for transport in this brave new world.

So to sum up, what will the likely effect on the transport network.

1) Move away from rail freight between UK & Scotland
2) Running down of long distance passenger services between UK and Scotland
3) More concentration on urban rail services
4) Running down of UK/Scotland Motorways
5) Increase in cross border flights & air traffic congestion

Is this a problem? Well for someone like me who lives in London and rarely visits Scotland, but travels into London every day, a huge refocussing of transport spending away from Scotland and into more local services could actually be a good thing. I don't liv near enough to any airports for the extra noise to overly disturb me and in actual fact more spending on transport in London would probably improve air quality locally. I wouldn't be so sure it was a good idea if I was Scottish though. I can't logically see how any of these developments would persuade international businesses that Scotland is a good place to invest.

The Saturday List #66 - Scottish Independence - The massive hidden costs for us

I was thinking about Scottish Independence and all the things which will suddenly need to be completely changed. Some of these costs will clearly be borne by the Scots, but there will be huge costs involved in "de-integrating". Let me explain. Think how much every govt dept etc costs to run. Think how many departments there are. Each on of these will need to be split into two, have two sets of management where there was one. All the relevant data for those north of the border will need to be stripped out of the existing systems and loaded into new ones built from scratch. This is a major undertaking and will cost the taxpayer millions, the question is "which taxpayer"? The UK taxpayer had no say, so why should we pick up the bill for all this work? Here's a list of just a few organisations which one assumes will have to be set up from scratch, and will require huge IT projects, funded by taxpayers to get up and running. Even if the Scots pay for all the new systes, will they pay to have the data extracted and checked from the existing systems, work which will be done on existing UK systems.

1. UK Passports
2. DVLA licencing
3. HM Customs and Inland Revenue
4. Network Rail
5. UK Air traffic control
6. UK Immigration services
7. Coastguards
8. UK roads authorithy
9. Food standards agency
10. British Transport Policy
11. MOD
12. Royal Mint

Each of these will need to be split in two, HR systems replicated, databases split/shared, a new management structure enacted. All this work wil cost us a fortune, as we all know how bad the govt is at IT projects. It is not as simple as simply saying "Hoorah, we are Scottish" - how do you split air traffic control? Who pays for what?

I've not seen anyone explain how any of this would work and no one has told me how much it will cost me