By stewartb

Cut to funding for nurse training in England – what impact on Westminster’s spend for England on health, or will the ‘saving’ be from the Department of Education’s budget? Is this leading to a reduction in overall departmental spend or more likely, a more limited increase in departmental spend overall than England’s services (and devolved equivalents in NI, Scotland and Wales) need?

What impact of this – and the cumulative impact of multiple other – spending decision by the British Labour Party government in Westminster on the so called Block Grants to the governments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh since it came to power in mid 2024?

In the House of Commons, the SDLP MP for Belfast South and Mid Down asked this question of HM Treasury: “To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether there will be a Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland following the roll out of free breakfast clubs in England.” (my emphasis)

Reasonable question: the Westminster government gets lots of favourable press coverage for such announcements, coverage that reaches voters in NI, Scotland and Wales too. It’s a question which arguably should not need to be asked: let’s have each and every change in Westminster government spending decisions accompanied by transparency over budgetary significance for the three parts of this Union that are not England!

In confirming there will be a Barnett consequential in this instance, the government minister’s response (Hansard record for May 6, 2025) included this: 

“The Block Grant Transparency publication breaks down all changes in the devolved governments’ block grant funding from the 2015 Spending Review up to and including Main Estimates 2023-24.

“The most recent report was published in July 2023.

“An update to Block Grant Transparency to include Autumn Budget 2024 changes will be published in due course.“

However, the last Block Grant Transparency report was published in July 2023 by Sunak’s Tory government. This is now June 2025: and we’ve already had the Main Estimates 2024-25 submitted to the Westminster parliament.

What’s happened to the annual Block Grant Transparency publication that was due in mid 2024?