Originally Posted by
PetBazaar
No, you're absolutely right. The NHS is under our control, in as much as we can spend however much, or little as we want within the constraints of the annual block grant. However, as part of the system of block grant and Barnett formula if the UK cuts NHS spending in England and Wales then the budget allocated to NHS Scotland (and HSCNI, I think) drops too. Hence the whole "only Indy can protect the NHS budget" argument in the run up to the referendum
The tax rate adjustment is a little more complex, as it's one of those powers that, on paper, looks like a good idea, but in reality doesn't really work. There's also a complication.
Ultimately the goal of any budgets must first and foremost be to balance the books and as we all know, in the budget every year, the Chancellor giveth and the Chancellor taketh away. The problem with the devolved tax powers is that although we have the power to change the standard tax rate we don't have the power to change any other (meaningfull) taxes in order to balance the books. So if the rate is reduced, we can't raise anything else in order to compensate. In addition raising tax comes with it's own very obvious electoral suicide issues so is unlikely to ever happen
However, here's the complication. We can't vary the tax anyway. What isn't commonly known about the tax varying power is that it would have been administered by, at the time, Inland Revenue (now HMRC) and the systems were put in place to deal with it. However, sometime between 2000 and 2003, Inland revenue announced that the system was to be mothballed, presumably after the Lib/Lab coalitions decided not to vary taxes. It's now no longer possible to use the system without IT upgrades which would have to be paid for from the Scottish budget. Given that the system is due to change by 2016 as part of the provisions of the Scotland Act 2012, it seems unlikely that anything will happen before then.