Following on from presenting evidence to the Lords Committee on the Barnett Formula last month, an essay on the topic by Cymru Yfory’s Cynog Dafis and Peter Price appears in today’s Western Mail.

If the Barnett Formula had ears, they would surely be burning at the moment as its has surely never had so many people talking about it. In Scotland, it is one of the issues being considered by the Commission on Scottish Devolution chaired by Sir Kenneth Calman, while WAG has set up its own review into how Welsh devolution is financed in the form of Gerald Holtham’s Independent Commission on Funding and Finance for Wales.

Not to be left behind, the House of Lords is also conducting a review through the specially convened House of Lords Barnett Formula Select Committee, which is chaired by Lord Richard of Ammanford, who is the man of course who chaired and gave his name to the Richard Commission whose report remains a key reference point in the devolution debate.

Today, the House of Lords Commitee meets in Cardiff to take evidence from Welsh-based academics and civil society organisations. Among those giving evidence will be Tomorrow’s Wales, represented by Peter Price and Cynog Dafis. You can read the paper submitted by Tomorrow’s Wales to the Committee here. Its main points include:

• * the Barnett formula is not fit for purpose;
• * Wales suffers significant disadvantage as a result of the way in which the formula works;
• * the formula fails to reflect changing circumstances;
• * the formula does not reflect needs;
• * at the moment, London receives 65% more than it would if public expenditure were allocated on the basis of GVA per head, with Scotland receiving 11% more, and Wales receiving 14% less;
• * if based on GDP, the devolved spending per head should be 27% higher in Wales and Northern Ireland and 6% higher in Scotland than in England;
• * the way allocations are made are opaque and based on spending levels in English departments;
• * a new system for allocating resources should be based on need;
• * the new formula must preserve devolved governments’ autonomy in making decisions on public spending;
• * transparency should be a key principle of the new system;
• * we strongly support the proposal made by a number of experts that a new Territorial Grants Commission, on the lines of the Commonwealth Grants Commission of Australia, be set up;
• * final decisions on funding allocations would have to be unanimous, with GDP per head the proxy indicator of need.

Read Tomorrow’s Wales’ paper in full here.