Yesterday the Sovereign Fund came into being. Part of George Osborne’s Spending Review last autumn, it changes the way we pay for the monarchy, with the Civil List being exchanged for a 15% share of the revenue of the Crown Estate. We have watched with interest the attempts by the First Minister to ensure that the increasing revenues accruing to the Crown Estate from offshore wind development around the Scottish coast and in Scotland’s coastal waters come to Scotland rather than straight into the Treasury coffers without passing Go. It has been another round of ammunition in the FM’s on-going skirmishes with Westminster. Most political commentators take Salmond’s side on this one, although the Commissioners and the Treasury appear to be paying scant heed. For background to this, we commend For Argyll’s masterly October 2010 article on the Crown Estate’s position in Scotland, and their comments here following the Spending Review. This is prompted Ian Bell’s excellent article in today’s Herald highlighting the dilemma the Sovereign Fund now poses for the First Minister, who wants the money, but has all along said that an independent Scotland would still wish the Queen and her successors to remain as head of state. Yet he has within his party many who are staunch republicans...
Bell thinks that logically the time is maybe also right for a ‘reconsideration of other archaic relationships’. But the majority of the Scottish public, as Salmond knows, would not wish that ‘archaic relationship’ to end. There are potentially £millions at stake here. Watch this space. |
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CategoriesAlex SalmondCharities Civil Service crime Crown Estates Devolution Devo-max ECHR Economy education employment energy foreign policy Holyrood Independence Labour monarchy North Sea oil Northern Ireland police political railways Red Tape Renewable energy republicanism Scottish Conservatives Scottish Nationalists Scottish Voice Solar energy terrorism transport Wales Welfare Westminster
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