Ludo Thierry
A very rapid rush through the various beeb pages offers some interesting (and some puzzling) info re. Johnson’s budget impacts on Scotland. Links and snippets below;
The beeb politics page talks about a Scottish site being included in the Carbon Capture and Storage project – see below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51832634
An extra £640m for Scotland, £360m for Wales, and £210m for Northern Ireland.
Treasury to open new offices in Wales and Scotland and civil service hub in the North of England, employing 750 staff
£800m for two carbon capture and storage clusters, creating 6,000 new jobs in Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside and Scotland
Stamp duty surcharge for foreign buyers of UK properties to be levied at 2% from April 2021
The beeb science correspondent rather more equivocal regarding inclusion of a Scottish site in the CCS project – see below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51835950
Two carbon capture clusters will be funded for up to £800m in the north of England and possibly Scotland,
The beeb Scotland page identifies this info:
Other spending commitments in the Budget which specifically affect Scotland include:
£1m promotional campaign to promote the Scottish food and drink sector
£10m over three years to help distilleries “go green”
Increase 4G coverage in Scotland from 42% to 74%
£5m for trials of 5G mobile networks in Scotland
Some of this info needs clarifying as bits seem to ‘overlap’ reserved and devolution settlement responsibilities.
Confess I’m interested (but puzzled) at the Treasury office being opened in Scotland (and Wales) – need to see more detail of what’s involved.
Beeb also describe a ‘UK’ special 2% stamp duty surcharge for ‘foreign’ nationals purchasing ‘UK’ properties – I was under impression that ‘stamp duty’ was devolution settlement territory (LBTT in Scotland) so maybe just beeb using ‘UK’ out of habit – need more info:
The food/drink promo spend of £!M sounds, on initial consideration like a direct win from the National’s fierce and focussed campaigning – so well done there.
The distilleries ‘going green’ funding – if coming from a ‘UK’ budget is fine by me – leaves more in Scottish budget for similar schemes in other industries – but sounds curious – more info required, methinks.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
No details – but PA are reporting a £25M “..growth deal..” regarding Argyll and Bute included in Johnson’s budget. Am presuming it is a remote and rural area version of a City Deal. Something similar to the scheme announced for the Scottish/England borders area previously – These have always been joint ventures between Scottish and Westminster Govts so we’ll doubtless learn more in due course – The City Deals have routinely involved Westminster trying to weasel out of their stated commitments so let’s see the small print on this Argyll and Bute announcement first.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/chancellor-urged-to-confirm-scotlands-share-of-cash-to-tackle-covid-19/ar-BB113hFq?ocid=spartandhp
A growth deal for Argyll and Bute, with £25 million of funding, was also confirmed.
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Interesting first pass, LT. Are you planning a more detailed assessment at some point?
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Carbon Capture and Sequestration. How many times have we heard about money for such projects that never come to anything.
Longannet anyone? Pilot project, money available to take it full scale but in 2007 SNP win the election and Gordon Brown does not release the money – did not want to hand a ‘victory’ to the SNP. 2010 Coalition takes over at Westminster and Chris Huhne, Energy Minister pulls plug on CCS. He says we can buy in the technology. Longannet eventually closes. Other sites mentioned – Peterhead – does not come to anything.
2014 Boundary Dam coalfired power station in Canada goes ‘live’ as a CCS system
https://www.saskpower.com/Our-Power-Future/Infrastructure-Projects/Carbon-Capture-and-Storage/Boundary-Dam-Carbon-Capture-Project
Just what exactly are these CCS hubs going to be doing? A man interviewed on CH4 news tonight seemed to say, if I heard correctly, that they would be research centres – the first in the World. Really, I think not. Go talk to Statoil as was about that.
Just about every item they headlined in this budget when you look behind the headline you find all the caveats and timescales eg £5 billion for flood defences … over 6 years. Less than a billion pounds per year.
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Every budget requires close and forensic reading of the fine print, once published. I recall Andrew Neil doing that in the past – whereas in his BBC show tonight he limited himself to a platitudinous chat with dear Laura (is she an economist now?), followed by a poor attempt to persuade John McDonnell that the Tories have stolen his centre-left clothes. The latter is a joke in very poor taste. At best, the budget restores a little bit of what was lost during austerity and austerity is not over! Many of the numbers pulled from the hat are rather small, and do not negate austerity, nor are they sufficient to combat the Covid-19 shock.
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The best thing to do with these sorts of documents is to read them from the last page to the first page. They bury the ‘good’s stuff at the back on the assumption that most people wont make it past the Executive Summary. An assumption that works with most people. A notable exception was Alison Thewlis MP who learned as a Councillor to read reports etc from back to front. She did this with one of George Osborne’s budgets and so discovered the two child cap.
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The BBC were using UK out of habit – “Overseas-based buyers of residential property in England and Northern Ireland will be forced to pay a 2% stamp duty surcharge from April 2021.
This is from Which, which is quite good on some of the details – https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/03/budget-2020-what-you-need-to-know/
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