Devolution is a good thing for the UK because it has allowed regional authorities to have more control over issues that affect them individually. An example of this is health and education. The Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly now have a major say on how these issues are handled in their respective nations. One reason why it can be argued that devolution is bad for the UK is that devolution has caused a row over public spending. For example due to the powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament, university tuition fees and prescription charges have been abolished in Scotland even though these services are not free in England. This has become a problem because these public services are paid for by all UK taxpayers under the Barnett formula which allocates funding to the various nations that make up the UK. It could also be argued that this isn’t much of a problem because the Scottish Parliament can raise funds for these various services due to its power to raise the basic rate of income tax by 3p in pound, although this might not be enough to cover the cost of health which runs into billions yearly. This has also caused major upheavals because people in England don’t like the idea of paying for the education of a Scottish student through taxes while they have to pay for their own education in England.
Devolution can also be argued as being a bad thing for the UK because it will lead to an increase in demand for independence, most regional authorities now want more powers. For example local authorities in Manchester now want to have an Office similar to the GLA for the Mayor of London. The recent elections for police and crimes commissioners have shown that these might have a negative impact on the economy and it might end up being wasteful. Wales for example had a total turnout of 14.9% in the election to appoint its first police and crime commissioner, this was after millions of pounds had been spent on the election. Although it has been argued by major political figures such as the opposition leader, Ed Miliband that the cause for the low turnout for this election was the time of year in which the election was held, November, and the lack of publicity placed on the importance of the elections. The prime minister on the other hand argued that the cause of the low turnout was the low amounts of funding for the election. Overall an increase in the devolution of powers would be bad for the UK financially due to the amounts of money and time that will be spent on conducting elections and drafting legislations to make this happen.
Devolution on the other hand can be a good thing for the UK because in recent years it has led to a growth in nationalism. One of the main reasons why devolution occurred in the UK was because of growing discontent about the effectiveness of some institution. The fact that devolution leads to a growth in nationalism can be argued to be a good and bad thing. It can be seen as bad because the increase in nationalism led to serious disruptions and political discontent. On the other hand this could have been a good thing morally because the people in the various nations would have had more pride, knowing that they were being governed by people who had an interest in their affairs not MPs in Westminster who rarely visited Wales for example. Although they would have had their own elected representatives in Parliament, they would not have had enough support to make much of a difference, for example MP’s representing Scotland are likely to be members of the SNP (Scottish National Party), they don’t have a substantial amount of support in Parliament.
To conclude, devolution is good for the UK because it boosts the confidence and support that the people in other nations apart from England have for the government, although the increasing demand for more devolution can lead to a break-up of the UK because the nations that have had a taste of devolved powers now want to hold referendums to gain independence. An example of this is Scotland which will like to hold a referendum for independence in the autumn of 2014. The main reason why devolution is not going to be bad for the UK is that the nations that make up the UK are interdependent and they require unity to stand successfully, as mentioned above various services which are available for free to tax payers in some nations are not available to taxpayers in other nations even though they are all funded by the same tax payers.
