The Fool on the Hill: Whatever is not reserved, is devolved

There's a core principle in the Scotland Act that 'whatever is not reserved, is devolved'. I think that's an important principle. It's an important principle for the Scottish Parliament — without it, the powers of Holyrood would be eroded very quickly.

There's another important principle which long predates the Scotland Act, one which may be expressed many ways. One popular expression of it is 'do as you would be done by;' another it 'sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'. It says that similar things — where 'things' includes relationships — should be similar; and implicitly, that they should be similar across scales.

Got that? Good. I'm now going to make a digression. It may seem irrelevant. It's not.

Humza Yousaf has been an SNP politician for twelve years now. He's made a steady but unspectacular climb through the ranks, and this year became party leader and First Minister. He made his first speech as first minister this week.

And generally, it's a good speech; there's lots in it even I agree with, and some bits which, if I don't agree with them, nevertheless seem politically courageous.

But there are some things which are flat wrong: that he should not be allowed — that he should not allow himself — to do.

One of them was that he declared — and, we now learn, without pre-agreeing it with 'local' government first — that Council Tax would be frozen next year.

Well, he can't do that.

Why not?

Everything not reserved is devolved.

There are some things — very few — which there are strong benefits to doing at or above nation state level. Let's list them:

• Foreign policy, and, because of that, the military, if you have one;
• Trading and market standards, with, consequent on that, food, medical and educational standards;
• Justice, as least for more serious forms of crime;
• Strategic infrastructure planning;
• Nothing else.

In the current UK system, of course, there are two levels which share out somewhat unequally the things which should be handled at nation state level, but that's not our problem here.

It's clear that no level of government can satisfy the aspirations of its electors unless it has the power to levy taxes on them, and to set the level and distribution of those taxes. Holyrood would be extremely unhappy, for example, if Westminster sought to override it on levels and bands of income tax.

Scotland, of course, doesn't have any local government at all. Our council areas are the biggest in the world, save only Korea. They're hopelessly dysfunctional in consequence. We do have community councils, but our community councils have literally no power and no tax raising ability.

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