Kirsty Scott 

Scotland creates a new north-south divide

Free care for pensioners and a 21% rise for teachers pose a big challenge to Westminster.
  
  


Devolution is drawing an indelible line across the UK. On one side students pay tuition fees, the teaching profession is in crisis, and many of the frail and elderly must pay to help meet the costs of their care. On the other there are no tuition fees, teachers have won a 21.5% pay deal, and now it looks as though all pensioners will enjoy free long-term care.

Scottish executive proposals to fund long-term care for all pensioners has opened up the biggest policy divide yet between Holyrood and Westminster, and raised the spectre of a two-tier UK society split along the Scotland-England border.

Yesterday, as pressure grew on the UK government to follow Scotland's lead, there were warnings that Labour risked losing the grey vote over the issue, and predictions that Scotland could become a giant nursing home as pensioners rushed north to take advantage of any better deal.

Sir Stewart Sutherland, who chaired the royal commission which recommended free personal care for the elderly, said he believed its introduction in England and Wales was now inevitable. But the health minister, John Hutton, ruled out any policy reversal in England and Wales, where nursing care is free but personal care is means-tested.

"Devolution means that it is for the Scottish parliament to make decisions on its response to the royal commission on long-term care," he said. "Both the government and the Scottish executive are committed to improving health and social care services for older people, but we are doing this in different ways."

Analysts say the government and the public have to accept that Scotland can follow a different path, however awkward it might prove. "This is exactly what the Scottish parliament was designed to do," said Malcolm Dickson, professor of politics at Strathclyde University. "It was designed to take decisions that reflected the broadest strand of public opinion.

"But it is an embarrassment for Labour in the run-up to a general election and following on from tuition fees and the teachers' deal. What the Scottish parliament has done is provide a stick with which to beat the party. People will say if it's good for Scotland why is it not good for the rest of the UK? But this is something the political parties need to get used to in a post-devolution situation."

Downing Street may have been spared some difficulty by the fact that the Scottish executive will not reveal the detail of its proposals or take a final decision until August.

Yesterday, the Scottish National party and the Conservatives demanded clarification of the executive's apparent commitment on free long-term care, but the first minister Henry McLeish would not comment further. However, the Liberal Democrats, whose rebellion forced Mr McLeish to rethink his earlier refusal to fund all long-term care, said the executive's position was unequivocal.

Enormous impact

Public policy experts say this will have an enormous social impact across the UK. "This is absolutely huge," said Allyson Pollock, chair of the school of public policy at University College London. "It is really a triumph for Scotland if they really do go down this road. Over the last 20 to 30 years a lot of care has been shifted to being a personal responsilbity and what the Scottish parliament is saying is that care is now a universal collective responsiblity."

Professor Pollok said the issue would shine a light on the "covert privatisation" of the health service in England and Wales. "You have to ask why in England we are shunting more and more care into the unregulated private sector," she said.

Teachers leaders have already warned that a recent 21.5% three-year pay deal for Scottish teachers will cause deep discontent south of the border.

Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, has said schools in England could find it even harder to attract teachers. "I think morale of teachers in England and Wales will be severely depressed if they do not get at least equal treatment." Pensioners' groups in England have also warned that there will be great anger and bitterness if Scotland's elderly get a substantially better deal, but warnings that Scotland wll be colonised by middle class English pensioners have been dismissed.

John Curtice, a political analyst at Strathlclyde University, whose elderly mother lives in Cornwall, said: "At the point which people need that kind of care the last thing they are going to be capable of doing is making a long-distance, long-term move."

Others say the biggest question raised by the care issue is how Scotland can afford to be so generous. The country has traditionally enjoyed a favourable slice of public funds in its £17bn budget, some 25% higher per head than the rest of the UK.

Some analysts say the care issue will increase pressure for a complete review of funding, but economist Arthur Midwinter says Scotland has an appropriate share for its level of need and can afford the £110m cost of universal free care.

"If it's a priority they can find the money," he said. "I don't see any difficulty in funding it. They might have to adjust some of their other programmes, but they won't need to put up the tartan tax to do this."

Mr Curtice, however, said much of the unease at this latest policy departure comes not from Scotland's ability to pay for it but the process that allowed it to happen.

"It illustrates the impact of PR and the different power balance from Westminster," he said. "What is shows is that, boy, oh boy, haven't we got a different parliament up here."

 

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