The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Reading your recent article in The Voice regarding the Chief Constable’s concern that, due to a £10.4 million shortfall in funding, the policing of Lincolnshire will be “unsustainable”.
If Mr Rhodes is so concerned then we should all be.
But this situation made me think of how unfair the system of government funding is in the UK.
Just before the Scottish independence referendum the Prime Minister promised the Scots that the current system of funding Scotland, called the Barnet formula will be maintained if Scotland stays within the UK.
The Barnet formula guarantees that a higher rate of funding, per person, will be given to Scotland than that allocated to people in England.
This enables Scotland to give free prescriptions to all, scrap tuition fees for students (while students in England leave university with huge debts) and a host of other benefits.
If Lincolnshire was funded to the same level as Scotland then we would receive an extra £1,400m per year.
This would solve Mr Rhodes’ problems and a whole lot more.
With such a massive injection of funds the whole Lincolnshire economy would boom and everyone would benefit from an extra £2,000 per year per person of extra spending.
Sadly this will not happen as the current government, as with the previous one, will not allow England to have its own parliament, which would fight for a fairer UK funding system.
Instead they want to divide England into separately funded regions so that they will squabble amongst themselves for the available cash.
I believe the current situation will not change as most politicians in England do not have the same passion as their Scottish colleagues to fight for their constituents.
Phil Clay
Spalding
