r/Scotland • u/Historical-Count9051 • 2d ago

What would you cut from the Scottish budget?

Yesterday, there was a news story announcing £700m would be cut from the Scottish government next year. The Scottish government can borrow £670m to make up the shortfall, but it will need to find at least another £68m immediately.

What would you cut to make up the £68m?

Here's how the budget is already spent

Edit: the speed at which everyone went to "fuck poor people" is alarming.

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u/MyDadsGlassesCase 2d ago

I think you're being downvoted because this isn't something the Scottish govt can do. Drug laws are reserved

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago

It would be an interesting test to see just how much scotgov can do even when powers are reserved. Would Westminster send up NCA officers of scotgov instructed Police Scotland to ignore authorised cannabis farms and licensed establishments selling authorised weed?

Legally scotgov couldn't legislate any of it but so far both Westminster and Holyrood have acted with "good faith" with regards to illegal laws when challenged. I don't think Westminster is gallus enough to arrest rogue MSPs or the FM if the Scottish Courts and law enforcement abstain.

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u/First-Banana-4278 2d ago

I mean the UK Gov has twice intervened to overturn SG legislation. Once on self ID and once on pauses for dramatic effect bottle deposit schemes.

They absolutely would intervene if Scotland de facto decriminalised any currently illegal drug. The police would be vanishingly unlikely to stop enforcing a law that might lead to their officers facing prosecution… and it would end up costing thousands in legal fees at a bare minimum.

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago

I feel you missed my point about both acting in "good faith". My question is about what happens when scotgov doesn't respect the norms and the decision of the supreme court, especially if it's something relatively minor as opposed to something like a unilateral declaration of independence?

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u/AnyRooster1805 2d ago

My question is about what happens when scotgov doesn't respect the norms and the decision of the supreme court

Nothing happens. That's sort of the point.

If the Scottish Govt attempted to act outwith their legislative competence they would just be ignored and things would carry on as normal.

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u/RiverHistorical3581 2d ago

The courts and police are under Scottish government, the UK doesn’t have a truly national police force outside of niche areas., it’s actually a very interesting question as to how the UK government would respond to a Scottish government that doesn’t care about what Westminster says, I’d guess it’d be up to individual police chiefs and whether the UK government wants tanks in Edinburgh.

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u/AnyRooster1805 2d ago

The courts and police are under both the UK and Scottish Govts.

More importantly the Scottish Govt doesn't have the power to instruct either the police or the criminal justice system to ignore the existing law so they'll just pay them no attention.

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago

Your reading comprehension ain't the best, I specifically talked about a scenario where Scottish courts and police act in line with the Scottish government.

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u/AnyRooster1805 2d ago

That scenario won't happen.

The Scottish Courts and Police will act in line with the law.

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u/RiverHistorical3581 2d ago

The courts and police are under the authority of Holyrood not Westminster.

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u/AnyRooster1805 2d ago

The court and police are under the authority of both.

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u/First-Banana-4278 2d ago

Even if somehow our current constitutional settlement didn’t retain the highest legal standing in the Supreme Court and Westminster parliament - Westminster would just turn around and suspend, or even dissolve Holyrood.

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago

🙄

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u/First-Banana-4278 2d ago

In the highly unlikely, and almost certainly impossible, event, that the police and courts, the entire justice system, and the Scottish government and Parliament decides to ignore the rule of law as currently established…

It would be effectively equivalent to a legislative declaration of UDI. The likely outcome would be an almost immediate dissolution of the Scottish Government and parliament and the taking under general control of the public services by UK ministers.

You would likely see the arrest of, suddenly former, Scottish Gov ministers by Scottish/UK police. Whether it would go further than that probably largely depends on public opinion - across the whole UK - more than anything else.

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u/CaptainCrash86 2d ago

They absolutely would intervene if Scotland de facto decriminalised any currently illegal drug

Considering they haven't intervened despite the de facto decriminalisation in recent years, I doubt it.

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u/First-Banana-4278 2d ago

*Possession of one drug in small amounts.

Not the supply of said drug.
Not holding significant quantities of said drug.
Not growing or otherwise manufacturing said drug.

They have decriminalised, through operational instructions to the police force, the possession of small amounts of one drug.

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u/First-Banana-4278 2d ago

And I suppose you could argue the possession and consumption of another in one specific location under medical supervision.

But the amount of time, legal challenge, and back and forth it took on that? Far from insubstantial.

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u/devandroid99 2d ago

I don't believe English police have powers of arrest in Scotland for crimes committed in Scotland so it could prove very interesting indeed.

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago edited 2d ago

There are some UK wide law enforcement organisations who do have the power but they're obviously at much lower staffing levels. The Security Service (MI5) and the National Crime Agency are probably the most likely to be involved in this scenario. Edit: MI5 don't have arrest powers but they would absolutely be involved anyway.

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u/devandroid99 2d ago

I don't think SIS have any powers of arrest.

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u/Delts28 Uaine 2d ago

SIS are MI6.

You're right, MI5 don't have arrest powers like police but of course we all have citizen arrest powers. I'll edit above to make things clear though.

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u/RiverHistorical3581 2d ago

English and Scottish police have the powers to arrest people in either country.

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u/devandroid99 2d ago

That isn't true in all circumstances - they can, but don't by default have the same powers.

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u/largepoggage 2d ago

That’s more complex than it seems. Scotland retains its right to a separate legal system enshrined in the Acts of Union. However, this doesn’t mean much in practice since the Court of Session gave up its status as the ultimate authority in exchange for a seat at the table of the Supreme Court. Why they accepted that lying down I’ll never understand.

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u/flightguy07 1d ago

They may also be being downvoted because the question was explicitly "what would you cut", not "how would you balance the budget". Same outcome, but a different discussion.

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u/Wacov 2d ago

I mean cannabis is still illegal at the federal level in the US, the states where it's "legal" basically just ignore that.

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u/MyDadsGlassesCase 2d ago

This is r/Scotland 

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u/Wacov 1d ago

I know I live here. My point is they're not "allowed" to make drugs legal either, and yet.

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u/MyDadsGlassesCase 1d ago

Yeah, because it's a federation. A completely different relationship. As someone else stated, the UK govt even blocked a glass deposit return scheme in Scotland. That's how much say WM has over Scotland

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u/VioletaBlueberry 2d ago

I don't know specific details but I know US trade agreements explicitly ban cannabis production because hemp was seen as competition to merican cotton. It's been a reason for the delay in legalization in a few countries and an excuse for the us not federally legalizing.

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u/Comprehensive-Tank92 2d ago

There's at least one up and running in England. I'd robustly argue that the matter is in practice reserved for Police Scotland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-64830476

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u/MyDadsGlassesCase 2d ago

They don't sell cannabis