Calman Commission's report is due out tomorrow

Without wanting to show up the complete uselessness of my subject line, the Calman Commission's report is due out tomorrow.

Thanks to a leaked email we have been given a sneak preview of what new powers Holyrood can expect to have devolved to them in the near future:

• Half of income tax will be received directly by the Scottish Government


• Collection of air passenger tax, landfill tax, aggregate tax* and stamp duty


• Power to set drink driving limits


• Power to ban airguns
• Considerable borrowing powers to finance public projects

Now, on the face of it, more powers for a relatively toothless Government is to be welcomed. Obviously striking some sort of relationship between who earns the money and who spends the money is a sensible step. We've seen how disjointed it can be when the Scottish Government receives a wad of cash each year and is then able to go on a £30bn spending spree with little responsibility for knock-on effects. They'll know that same £30bn will be waiting for them a year hence.

The idea of having a lower drink driving limit north of the border makes sense and will bring us in line with our European neighbours. Indeed, the counter-argument that it would be nonsensical to have an island with different drink drive limits kind of falls down when you think that Continental Europe has that very situation and seems to get on just fine.

Banning airguns will be long overdue but it is the question of tax that I think is a bit messy, a bit of a Highland Fudge if you pardon the pun.

I don't understand the logic in giving Scotland some income tax revenue but then reducing this extra income from the block grant. Will it not just lead to the same result?

If we receive £32bn a year in the block grant, then receive £6bn in Income Tax revenue and then have £6bn deducted from the block grant as a result then we still come back to £32bn. So I'm looking forward to the detail of how this will work as it's all a bit Modigliani-Miller at this stage.

Presumably there will be scope for Scotland to receive more money or less money depending on whether the Scottish economy is successful or not, as yet it is unclear. But either way, it all smacks too much of falling between two stools. Either full fiscal autonomy or none at all is the preferable route to take, you don't merely split the difference and have half fiscal autonomy just to try to please everyone, surely? Reform Scotland has already said the proposals don't go far enough and a Heriot Watt principal believes borrowing powers are compromised by the continuance of the block grant. So no ringing endorsement from the expected concluions so far.

My overriding concern however is the lack of scrutiny that the Calman report will receive.

Wendy Alexander has said that Sir Kenneth Calman should be congratulated for his expediency in creating this report in just 18 months when similar reports took up to 10 years in the past. I personally would have thought that Wendy should be concerned that it was all a bit of a rushed job. Imagine congratulating someone on their report before evening seeing it? I reckon that is an indication of how easily the Calman recommendations will glide through the Scottish Parliament irrepective of what they may be.

I have no doubt that Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems will have decided long ago to nod through this report, whatever it may contain, simply for political expediency in order to combat the SNP's dream of independence.

Whatever tomorrow's report may contain, and I have no doubt that a lot of it is good stuff, at the very least we deserve a referendum on the content of any subsequent Bill that may be prepared. We voted for a Scottish Parliament and we voted for tax-varying powers but if there is to be a substantial change to the powers of Holyrood and a clear risk that the significant alterations won't attract the proper scrutiny that they deserve from our MSPs, then we need to step in and have our say.