British Prime Minister Not Willing To Grant Scotland Fiscal Autonomy

David Cameron surprised a lot of people in the UK and across the world when his party won the recent election and gave him another term as British Prime Minister. Cameron recently travelled to Edinburgh to meet with Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister. Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party won the election by a massive margin showing that Scotland trust her leadership and decision making.

Cameron and Sturgeon discussed a number of important issues and Cameron appeared to agree with most of the points Sturgeon raised except for one key issue which he immediately shutdown. Sturgeon was pushing the British government to grant Scotland full fiscal autonomy as the country currently has to send all its fiscal policies and decisions to the British government for final approval.

Scotland functions as an independent country having its own government and parliament. The country makes its own decisions on a number of important policies such as education, healthcare, justice and tourism. The official currency used in Scotland is the Great Britain Pound (GBP) and the fiscal policy is the only area where Scotland has to get approval from the British government.

Sturgeon has been pushing for Scotland to be given more authority from the British government to make decisions pertaining to spending policies, taxes and investment. Cameron did not agree with her views or policies and believes that the time is not right for Scotland to take full responsibility for their fiscal policies. However, he did agree to grant a Scotland a little more freedom by allowing the country to control rates of welfare spending and income taxes.

Cameron was against granting Scotland a full reign over their fiscal policy as he stated he wanted Scotland to continue to be a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England are the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. The Scottish National Party pushed hard in 2014 to get Scotland to leave the United Kingdom and stay independent. However the move failed as Scots voted and a majority confirmed that they wished to be a part of the U.K.

After his meeting with Nicola Sturgeon, Cameron said

I’m a great believer that in our United Kingdom we want a strong Scottish parliament. But we also want the solidarity between the different parts of the U.K. and I don’t want to lose that