Are English people treated worse than the rest of the UK?

But you need people to fund all this and that’s skewed to SE and London.

We can’t all expect what lower income get elsewhere. The demographics are different and that’s not helped by their politics either.

The whole "Scotland is subsidised" by England via the Barnett formula debate is so murky that it's unlikely anyone could ever really find out whether this is true or not.

Successive UK governments of all colours continually oppose Scottish independence though, so that may be the most telling observation...

HS2 being a perfect case in point. An 'England and Wales' project that will benefit Wales by precisely 0%. Roll on the Senedd elections next year...

Welcome to democracy 😄 People get what they vote for by and large.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that 1/3 of Scotland's population attended university in Scotland in 2023/24?

I think you may have confused the total number of university students in Scotland with the number of Scottish students funded to study in Scotland. According to a detailed article in The Herald Scotland in 2022/23 enrolments of Scottish students at Scottish Universities stood at 173,745. So, as a very rough estimate, it might be reasonable to assume that there might be approximately 700,000 (4 x 175k) Scottish Government funded students attending Scottish universities during the 2023/24 period. That is less than half the number you suggested. Also, you have failed to take into account the benefits to Scotland of paying for students to study at home - less brain drain, keeps academic and related jobs in Scotland etc. The Scots have been quite clever with this, because the vast majority of fees at Scottish universities are paid for by overseas students, with students of the other home nations coming in behind that.

And as a Scot I would be delighted if Trident was parked off the south coast of England.

As PPs have said it's to do with a combination of things i.e. devolved government, population size (it would cost more to run the administration of free prescription eligibility for the part of the population that pays than to do blanket free prescriptions as in Wales), population make up (e.g. Wales' population is older and more unwell on average etc).

However, you need to understand it cuts both ways, and is not always to the advantage of the residents of the smaller nations. An example of this is the cut off point for income eligibility for higher earners, where residents of England can put salary over £100k into pension and still be eligible for free childcare hours, whereas this is not allowed in Wales - earn a penny over £100k gross and you lose free childcare entitlement. The amount you need to earn over this to cover tax and the childcare is a heck of a lot of money. I think that this is one of the reasons why so many GPs and NHS consultants with young children work part-time. Which in turn means that our waiting lists are so long, and since unlike residents of England we do not have Right to Choose it's a case of like it or lump it! In my case that means I am on a 6 to 8 year waiting list for a particular condition. So, swings and roundabouts.

P.S. The public transport in my area is so poor that in some cases you would need to wait overnight for a return trip from a local town, so even if I were eligible for a bus pass it would be of no use.

Exactly, health and education services are not as good as in England.

As an english person i would be more than delighted if the other countries in the UK got their independence and went off to do thier own thing without any financial assistance from england.

I would think because the whole time England had a conservative government, Wales and Scotland had more left leaning parties in power who made different spending decisions.
Welsh labour definitely have their faults but on this kind of stuff they have been better than the Tory government in England

I live in England but think plenty people here don't really have a clue what Scotland is like. Population density for the vast majority of the country is incomparable to England. When you have to send children to school by boat or very long bus journeys, that costs money. Maintaining long roads between tiny hamlets costs money. Scotland doesn't benefit from the economies of scale that England does so I think it's understandable that the Barnett formula at least leans in Scotlands favour.

Scots pay higher taxes and have longer waiting lists for the NHS. Scottish children do an entire year less at school. Scottish children don't benefit from the all the same free hours funding for nurseries that English children do. It's easy to look at one or two things but the bigger picture overall is different. Plenty of families would save money overall by paying less tax in England and paying tuition fees, for example.

The English love the Tories though so that would explain it.

This is... nonsense.

Population size, economic size, rural poverty, cost of service delivery and morale.

If ~95% of people get free prescriptions in England, that's 2M people paying, in Scotland that would be 200k. At that point there is a significant chance that the admin cost of tracking who gets free prescriptions vs paying is more than the prescription charge would raise.

On bus passes, buses are a literal lifeline in rural areas and the service is incredibly poor. There are already problems in rural areas where people who should not drive do because otherwise they cannot access food, services and the community. If they're encouraged to use the bus before their health declines in old age, then they are less likely to risk driving and costing more as a result of collisions. This may become more of a financial issue with an aging population, but in the devolved nations this will still be delayed due to population size.

Scotland does have higher tax too, and even with the higher £ per capita give, cost of providing services is much higher due to lower population density.

Overall though, Scotland does a lot more for it's population than England, as people say, more left leaning. However, that wouldn't be the same if it had similar population density to England. This is why devolved power is so important. Westminster holds too much power over England and more should be devolved into regional governments.

Agree. It's not the same NHS.

We're in Wales and I'd rather pay for prescriptions and have a better funded NHS.

Our local hospital a&e is horrendous, 12 hours waiting times, people sat in chairs waiting for beds for days.

Waiting lists double and treble the length of the same in England.

Life expectancy is lower in Scotland than in England, with recent data from 2021-2023 showing it to be 76.8 years for males and 80.8 years for females in Scotland, compared to 79.1 years for males and 83.0 years for females in England

You die younger in Scotland. Despite paying more tax.

I also pay a 4 figure sum of money in tax per year for the privilege of living in Scotland and the only thing I benefit from is free prescriptions and eye tests. Can't get an NHS dentist, use private medical cover for hospital appointments, can't get on a bus at peak times cos someone also gave all the under 22's free bus travel and now they go 2 stops to school instead of walking!

But then the North is being subsidised by the South East so swings and roundabouts.

You can buy a yearly prescriptions pass.

it’s I think about 104 for a year and then you don’t pay for each prescription.

in addition there are a lot of exemptions - under 18, some specific diseases (eg thyroid), etc.

It’s not true that there is always a clear correlation between higher population and higher crime rates. Numbers maybe but rates are a different thing. There was a time when Glasgow had a huge issue with knife crime for example.

I think this is what’s missed. It’s not England being treated worse that makes Scotland prioritise different things.

Excellent point.

No.

Because if we do anything about it, Scotland will vote for independence.

Have you been to Scotland OP? You can drive for miles and miles without seeing a house, person or car. Miles.

Health is devolved (along with some other areas of government) so yes, the NHS is 'different'. They have different commissioning and delivery structures and are funded by the money their own governments have to spend. So if waiting lists are long in Wales, that's the responsibility of the Welsh Labour government, not the UK government.

Of course, when the UK government is of different stripes (Tory), the Welsh Labour government would blame all their problems on the UK. Interesting to see how that changes with two Labour governments (for now).