Barnett Formula

Lord Soley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, apart from the fact that the parties have supported the Barnett formula, the effect of the changes being made is that the relevance of the Barnett formula going forward is being cut by two-thirds and therefore any disparity that it might bring about will be reduced by an equivalent proportion.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this exchange reinforces the view that we must have a constitutional convention and that a core part of that must be to address the relationship between the four parts of the United Kingdom? If we do not do that, we will lose the union, and I for one would deeply regret that.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is absolutely clear that a consequence of the Scottish referendum is that a raft of issues around the way the union operates, not least the way in which power works in the Commons and in England, needs to be revisited. All the parties are setting out proposals at the moment about how they propose to do that.