If we include David Cameron’s remarks on Sunday, today marks the fourth day that talk of Scottish independence has once again dominated the news headlines.

Alex Salmond will be licking his lips at the free publicity and platform that David Cameron’s opening salvo in the latest bitter dispute over the terms, time and process of a referendum has provided him. And make no mistake about it; Salmond will have anticipated every step along the way.

The unsurprising news from Scotland secretary Michael Moore yesterday that any referendum held under the current settlement and initiated by Holyrood would be open to a legal challenge explains quite clearly last year’s criticisms of the way the Supreme Court was intervening in Scottish affairs by both Alex Salmond and his justice secretary, Kenny  MacAskill.

The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday were designed to enable the UK government to regain the initiative after a shambolic day on Monday.

The deal on offer, Moore declared, was that Holyrood could have the powers to provide for a legally binding referendum in return for a straightforward yes/no question, ensuring the Electoral Commission oversees the process and not including 16 and 17 year olds within the electorate, as previously called for by the SNP.

It was, Moore claimed, all part of efforts to ensure any referendum is “legal, fair and decisive.”

Yet no sooner had the Minister sat back in his seat in the Commons, than Alex Salmond once again trumped Westminster, with an announcement following a meeting of the Scottish cabinet that a referendum would be held in Autumn 2014, the first firm date announced by any politician on either side of the border.

Then comes the news in today’s Guardian that despite hostility in Westminster to the so called “devo-max” option being included on the ballot paper, a group is being formed to campaign for this very option.

Writing for the paper, Severin Carrell, its Scotland correspondent, reports:

“The Guardian can reveal that a group of civic leaders, including senior figures in the Scottish voluntary sector, trade union movement, churches and business, are in the final stages of launching a new movement to campaign for a so-called “devolution plus” or “devo max” option for Holyrood.

“Their initiative, due to be formally unveiled later this month, could greatly increase the chances of Salmond’s referendum including a second question on extending Holyrood’s powers short of full independence if he presses on with the poll. He plans to publish a final bill setting up the referendum in January 2013.”

In a joint statement last night, David Cameron and Nick Clegg expressed concerns that the Scottish government’s proposals for a referendum would be subject to a legal challenge.

You can’t help but think that all the talk of legal niceties from the UK government is a sign that they realise they have lost the political argument and got their strategy all wrong. It’s akin to the coalition parties having been caught in the headlights of Scottish politics and not quite knowing where to turn.

After a remarkable few days, characterised more by heat than light, it’s time now to knuckle down to the substance of the debate. As an editorial in today’s Herald concludes:

“The battle lines have become clearer. But a stand-off is in no-one’s interest. Now is the time for both sides to engage in mature debate, starting with agreement on the transfer of authority to hold a referendum that is, in Mr Moore’s words, legal, fair and decisive.

“When there are so many other challenges facing Britain and Scotland, meeting these criteria must not be all-consuming. Once met, it will be time for Scots to decide their destiny.”

To achieve this, compromise will be needed on both sides of the border.

See also:

• SNP: Cam’s “economic uncertainty” argument is nonsense; we’ll stick to our timetable – Humza Yousaf MSP, January 9th 2012

• SNP’s anti-sectarianism bill unites the opposition – Ed Jacobs, December 15th 2011

• The SNP one-ups Osborne on infrastructure investment – Ed Jacobs, December 5th 2011

• Scotland needs to get its transport infrastructure in order – Ken Macintosh MSP, October 27th 2011

• Salmond tells Westminster it’s time to end interference in Scotland – Ed Jacobs, October 24th 2011

Responsible Reform (pdf), better known as #SpartacusReport, has attracted more attention than any report on social security that I can remember. Servers crashed as social media were brilliantly used to spread the message the government’s case for cutting disability benefits had been comprehensively rebutted.

One thing that distinguishes Responsible Reform from the dozens of other policy reports that come out every week is that it was produced by disabled people themselves. That alone is a powerful counter to the image of ‘feckless scroungers’ the government has used so successfully in framing the welfare reform debate.

But producing and publicising this report has come with a cost, which Kaliya Franklin of the blog Benefit Scrounging Scum explains and demonstrates in the video below:

Activism takes its toll on people who are already struggling. Both Kaliya and Sue Marsh of Diary of a Benefit Scrounger, the prime movers behind #SpartacusReport, have to take a step back from the intense activity of the last few days for medical reasons.

All those concerned with the issues around welfare reform now need to step up to the mark, bringing whatever they can contribute to the campaign for a decent benefits system for disabled people.

And the costs that Sue and Kaliya have been willing to accept in undertaking this work should be a lesson in humility for the government, which as the report demonstrates, rushed into reform of this key part of the welfare state without taking the time to understand it or listen to those affected.

Today, disabilities campaigners are asking people to call an MP or Peer to raise awareness of the Spartacus report. They’ve also launched a twibbon to show your support. The welfare bill begins its journey through the lords tomorrow, and the next few weeks of the fight will be crucial for tens of thousands of disabled people in Britain. They need your help.

See also:

• Disability minister ignorant on how legal aid cuts affecting disabled people – Alex Hern, January 10th 2012

• Time to step forward on the Spartacus report – Alex Hern, January 9th 2012

• Boris has slammed Coalition welfare reforms – from the left – Daniel Elton, January 6th 2012

• Five reasons to oppose the welfare bill – Daniel Elton, December 12th 2011

• Government plans to cut DLA could cause extreme hardship – Sue Marsh, January 24th 2011

The government today confirmed that its plans for phase one of HS2, the second high-speed line to be built in the UK, will go ahead.

The project has faced strong grassroots opposition from residents living on the route, which has led to many major revisions to the proposal.

The Campaign for High Speed Rail told Left Foot Forward:

During the debate, issues with the route were clearly identified. We welcome that the government has listened during the consultation and is going to make a package of alterations to the proposed route, specifically to deliver extra tunnelling at Northolt and Wendover.

• Changes to the line of the HS2 route following consultation mean that out of a total length of just under 140 miles, around 22.5 miles (not including the HS1 link) will be in tunnel or green tunnel. This is an increase of more than 50 per cent from the route consulted on.

• In addition, around 56.5 miles will be partially or totally hidden in cutting. Around 40 miles will be on viaduct or embankment – this is around 10 miles less than the consultation route.

This means that around 79 miles (more than half of the route) will be mitigated by tunnel or cutting.

One specific change has a very clear reason: the presence of Cheryl Gillan in the cabinet. The Welsh secretary threatened to resign over HS2, and appears to have received a £500 million tunnel through her constituency in return.

It is understandable that HS2 has received strong local opposition. Unlike many other transport infrastructure projects, the advantage of being on the route appears negligible. As they stand, the plans call for no stops between Old Oak Common in West London and Solihull outside Birmingham.

Instead, the benefit for those between the two termini comes for those who live on the stretch of the existing west coast main line, which will be able to run more, and less congested, stopping trains to towns along the way.

The less NIMBY objection to HS2 is it’s cost. At £16.3 billion, it is certainly expensive, and the cost for the full project is expected to hit £32 billion.

This is all because big projects have big costs. And the advantages are massive.

As we reported last month:

HS2 is a long-term infrastructure investment that could help lead to regional job creation. In a report (pdf) from Core Cities released in June, leading economists estimated the creation of one million jobs outside of the South East rests on the rail capacity that HS2 will provide.

Were the project to be cancelled, the UK would miss its chance to deal with a capacity crisis that would be irreversibly damaging for Britain’s railways. It would lead to increasingly disgruntled passengers and an inevitable political headache for the next Labour government. It would stand in the way of boosting economic productivity and job creation in the regions.

Our railways are critically underfunded. We cannot simply attempt to put plasters over the lack of investment. Instead, we need a major upgrade, to restore confidence in trains as public transport, and make the case for continued investment.

See also:

• Rip-off Britain: Our train fares are triple those on the continent – Sophie Allain, January 3rd 2012

• Wheels still on despite HS2 delay - Lucy James, December 7th 2011

• Audit Commission to investigate anti-HS2 Tory councils - Shamik Das, September 9th 2011

• High Speed Rail: Deconstructing the right wing dogma - Professor David Begg, July 19th 2011

• Green challenges on transport policy - Rupert Read, November 15th 2010

Dr Graham Cookson is a lecturer at Kings College London

Today Lord Mcnally led the government back into the House of  Lords to debate the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. He and all peers had new evidence in front of them questioning the chance the Minsitry of Justice (MoJ) has of saving the £2 billion the department has committed to reduce the deficit.

The evidence now indicates that instead of making any savings the government’s cuts in legal aid will cost the taxpayer more and simply shift the costs onto other government departments.

Yesterday was the launch my of my long-awaited report (pdf) on the government’s legal aid reforms which found that for every £1 cut from the legal aid budget less than 42 pence will actually be saved from the public purse.

The MoJ will achieve its savings by largely cost-shifting to other cash-strapped departments. For example, for every £1 saved by removing clinical negligence from legal aid funding it will cost the NHS almost £3 (see FT report).

As part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill currently before Parliament, the government is planning to save £350 million per annum through reforms to the legal aid system. The vast majority of these savings - some £279 million - are based upon altering the scope of legal aid, i.e. what is covered.

The proposals would remove almost 600,000 cases each year from the scope including clinical negligence, (private) family law and social welfare law. As 80 per cent of those receiving legal aid are in the bottom income quartile those most in need will suffer.

A key justification for the reforms was the need to save £2 billion from the MoJ budget as part of their contribution to tackling the fiscal deficit. Many commentators and stakeholders, however, have expressed concern these proposals would generate unintended costs in other parts of the system.

The justice select committee even said (see Hansard):

“We are surprised that the government is proposing to make such changes without assessing their likely impact on spending from the public purse and we call on them to do so before taking a final decision on implementation.”

In response, The Law Society commissioned me to investigate the likely impact of these scopereforms on the government’s budget.

You can read my full report (pdf) and a short summary on the KCL website but the message is clear: these scope reforms will generate substantial knock-on costs (circa £139 million per annum) and the government is unlikely to save more than 42 per cent of its predicated savings.

Much of the predicted savings are actually cost-shifting to other areas of government, of more than £80 million per annum. The proposals appear to be a false economy.

My conclusion is also clear: the government should conduct a cross-departmental review of the knock-on costs of these proposals before they are enacted. Give Parliament the full facts on which to make a decision. Today the House of Lords is debating an amendment which calls for such a review; let’s hope it gets support.

See also:

• Disability minister ignorant on how legal aid cuts affecting disabled people – Alex Hern, January 10th 2012

• The missing millions in the legal aid cuts – Alex Hern, November 2nd 2011

• Exposed: The legal aid minister’s £97,000 conflict of interest – Alex Hern, October 11th 2011

• Tory MP: People opposed to legal aid cuts are “irresponsible and unhelpful” – Jonny Mulligan, October 5th 2011

• NHS report urges government to stop legal aid cuts – Jonny Mulligan, July 12th 2011

There is no more deserving subject for a spin doctor award than the mayor on electric vehicles – even if the award is from the PR barons of the motor industry. He has generated headline after headline on London as the electric vehicle capital of Europe, whilst actually delivering nothing much at all, writes Darren Johnson AM

In May 2009 he launched his electric vehicle delivery plan, in which he states:

“There are currently 1,700 EVs operating in London out of a total of 8,000 nationally.

“However, the mayor is committed to a step-change in the EVs, with 100,000 vehicles (or five per cent of London’s fleet) on the capital’s streets as soon as possible.”

DVLA registrations	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Electric vehicles registered with the DVLA in London	1725	1776	1798	2144	2313
Hybrid vehicles registered with the DVLA in London	8357	10951	13376	14588	22536

Of course, the mayor will claim that as more electric vehicles come onto the market, his clever marketing and improvements to the charging infrastructure will deliver a step change.

The more experienced London journalists have developed a naturally sceptical eye which they cast over untrustworthy mayoral press releases. For example, on the subject of electric charging point infrastructure, the media did a wonderful job of correction in response to a mayoral press release of 14th February 2011 announcing that there would be 1,300 electric charging points by the end of 2013.

This was actually the same 1,300 charging points from which the mayor achieved very positive coverage for when he announced the previous February that they would be built over the subsequent next twelve months – something which clearly didn’t happen.

The mayor also claimed on 25th Feb 2010, that he had ‘confirmation’ that the money would ‘significantly speed up our existing plans’, enabling a total of 7,500 charging points to be delivered by early 2013.

This ‘confirmed’ funding now appears to have evaporated. That earlier press release also stated that the mayor would be helping to make London the electric car capital of Europe by installing 25,000 charging points by 2015, a previously solid mayoral target which has quietly disappeared from his latest press statements.

Unfortunately, several good journalists have been taken in by Boris Johnson and his promotion of electric taxis. It is not their fault, I imagine that even Boris believes what he says at the time.

A £1 million fund has featured in numerous media reports in October 2009 and again in December 2010, when:

“The Mayor and TfL have also announced a £1 million fund to encourage taxi owners to upgrade to low emission vehicles such as electric black cabs.”

Not only is the £1 million the same money in 2009 and 2010, but it hasn’t actually been budgeted or spent yet.

Some of the failure to deliver is down to the mayor’s lack of attention to detail.

Having been previously involved in the discussions about a hybrid taxi as part of our green budget deal with Ken Livingstone, I know Boris Johnson was genuine in 2009 when he said

“TfL is also in the process of putting in place a low carbon taxi trial where taxis utilising low carbon technologies will be tested and assessed in ‘real world’ working conditions.”

However, the 2009 project was cancelled for “legal reasons” when the Mayor got into a tangle over European contract law.

Rather than explain clearly that we had moved onto Plan B, the Mayor continued the hype. He told the Guardian in December 2010 that

“We are also offering a juicy carrot, with the establishment of a fund to help speed up the introduction of electric black cabs”.

However, after I got him to admit that this fund still hadn’t been spent, he made clear that it wouldn’t be, until:

“Taxi manufacturers produce a new, suitably qualified vehicle and this taxi commences operating in London”.

As recently as November 2011, the Metro carried the headline “All cabs to run off electricity by end of decade.”

To be fair to Boris that is not what he said.

He stuck to the policy which is the hope that all new cabs will be electric by 2020, which means that all black cabs might be electric around 2030 or later.

However, his press office were less concerned with this important difference and when asked about the story, emailed journalists to say that:

“The air quality strategy contains a pledge that taxis from 2020 will be zero-emission.”

Having asked further questions it has now emerged that the £1 million green taxi fund will not be spent on electric cabs as promised, nor hydrogen cabs as promised, nor even on developing a taxi with 60 per cent less emissions by 2015 as promised.

The priority is now to help taxi drivers to replace the cabs which are over the 15 year age limit.

They will be buying the new Euro 4 taxi, which many of them tell me are more polluting than the cabs they are being forced to get rid of. I hope this isn’t true, but I am rapidly losing faith in anything coming out of the mayor’s office on this subject.

The decisive blow to the confidence of any journalist in the mayor’s office was when it emerged that the £1 million green taxi fund was subject to sponsorship and they didn’t actually have any.

Before I saw this answer in Oct 2011, I was oblivious to this fact and having checked with several London journalists, they shared my ignorance. Despite two years of questioning, numerous press statements and reports, the mayor’s office can’t point to a single instance when they stated this rather significant fact.

I do hope that all journalists will check with someone before reprinting mayoral press releases. As the chair of the statistics authority has pointed out, Boris Johnson:

“Does not always observe good practice in his use of statistics for media purposes.”

See also:

• Northern line extension “built for one purpose only – private profit” - Alex Hern, November 29th 2011

• Ken v Boris: Six months out, Livingstone steps up the pressure on transport and crime - Shelly Asquith, November 8th 2011

• Boris fiddles as London prepares for transport chaos - Alex Hern, October 19th 2011

• A lesson from Delhi for Boris - Navin Shah AM, October 4th 2011

• Boris’s transport boasts are pure piffle - Rob Jenks, March 31st 2011

The Big Society is rejecting the coalition’s policy on the charitable sector, according to new survey of the charitable sector from Third Sector magazine.

The survey reveals that:

Only 8 per cent of respondents think the government’s general proposition is “coherent and promising”, and only 12 per cent think the coalition will be better for the sector than another Labour administration would have been.

On the other hand, half of respondents think the cuts affecting the sector would have been made by a Labour government as well, and nearly a third think the big society agenda offers opportunities for the sector.

The magazine also asked charities about specific government polices on the third sector, and found that only two of fifteen named policies had significant support: Allowing gift aid claims of up to £5,000 without declarations and giving inheritance tax concessions for making ten per cent legacies.

This souring of the coalition by charities is not surprising, given the fact that, as we reported yesterday, they are suffering most at the hands of the coalitions cuts:

“The number of people employed in the voluntary sector fell by almost 9 per cent from the third quarter of 2010 and the same period in 2011, equating to a loss of 70,000 jobs, according to figures released today.

“The number of people employed in the public sector fell by 4.3 per cent during the same period, while the figure for the private sector increased by 1.5 per cent”

The full survey results can be found at Third Sector, but the conclusion is clear: Whether or not Cameron believes at all in the big society anymore, it has given up on him.

See also:

• It’s the Big Society that’s being hit by the government’s economics -  Daniel Elton, January 9th 2012

• How Cameron’s coalition is choking the big society - Daniel Elton, November 2nd 2011

• Citizens UK: “The Big Society is flawed if people have to work two jobs” - Peter Carrol, October 21st 2011

• Cameronism uncovered: Taxpayer-funded big business - Daniel Elton, September 12th 2011

• Fears government reforms could create a “big divide” not a ‘Big Society’ - Kamaljeet Gill, July 29th 2011

It has been a gloomy start to 2012 so far for the government. Not two weeks into the New Year and worse than expected manufacturing figures for the last quarter of 2011 – the worst since 2009.

We have also seen the Bank of England’s ‘credit trends’ report making grim reading for manufacturing companies, especially small and medium sized businesses – the very companies who were supposed to be leading the way out of recession and helping create work for the thousands of public sector workers who are losing their jobs.

The Bank’s report shows that credit for companies is now becoming scarce and expensive. According to the quarterly credit trends report for the fourth quarter of 2011, banks are raising rates on loans they make to business and plan to toughen the covenants on new loans. This tougher lending environment will damage the UK’s manufacturing sector.

The report also undermines the government’s long promised policy of re-balancing of the economy. The reality is that it has not got off the ground. Cameron has said recently:

“In places there is a re-balancing taking place but it’s not going as far and as fast as I would like it to and we need to do better on that front.”

Do better? The problem is that the government just doesn’t get it.

In order for manufacturing to grow businesses need access to loans and credit and one way to do this is through a strategic investment bank to help UK manufacturing companies to access finance and support.

The UK’s small and medium sized companies, which make up 80 per cent of manufacturing in the UK, are desperate for access for finance. How much worse does it have to get before the government acts?

This report also follows poor figures for manufacturing output at the end of 2011. The Markit Purchasing Managers Index survey, which asked manufacturers about their output and order books, showed a reading of 49.6 last month (December 2011). This is a tiny improvement on the 47.7 recorded in November 2011, but still below the 50 mark which signals the sector is expanding.

With the UK ‘s influence in Europe marginalised, Cameron has had to admit that he did not achieve a “safeguard for the UK”. Stagnation and a double dip recession are looming and the government has no idea how to guide us through it.

See also:

• Cameron sells out UK manufacturing for his loony backbenchers – Tony Burke, December 12th 2011

• A new strategy to help save UK manufacturing – Tony Burke, December 5th 2011

• Gideon’s grotesque attempt to blame workers’ rights for unemployment – Richard Exell, October 3rd 2011

• CBI survey shows glimmer of hope in UK manufacturing – Tony Dolphin, August 24th 2011

• Hopes of an export and manufacturing-led recovery recede – Tony Dolphin, August 9th 2011

In an interview yesterday with BBC Radio Five, the disability minister Maria Miller urged campaigner Sue Marsh to use her “extensive right of appeal through tribunals” if she was unhappy about the DWP’s decision to reduce her award for the disability living allowance (DLA).

Miller wasn’t wrong about this: disabled people who believe the decision about their DLA award is inaccurate can and do challenge the DWP at tribunals. And in 38 per cent of appeals relating to the Disability Living Allowance, the tribunals find in favour of the claimant (pdf).

But what Miller doesn’t seem to realise is that Ken Clarke’s proposals in the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders (LASPO) Bill, which is being debated in the Lords today, will severely limit access to justice through tribunals for thousands of DLA recipients, closing this option to them.

This cut – which will save just £25 million from the total legal aid budget of £2 billion (pdf) – will remove legal aid for all welfare benefits cases. It will leave disabled people who’ve fallen foul of administrative error or an inaccurate benefits decision alone in the face of a complex and confusing appeals system that requires nearly 9000 pages of official guidance.

While Miller may not know about it, disability campaigners have for some time, and are vehemently opposed to the proposed cut.  For instance, the charity Scope and campaign group 38 degrees have both been running campaigns to harness public outrage over these proposals, and encourage Peers to support a Lib Dem amendment that would prevent this from happening.

Opponents of the LASPO bill highlight the somewhat suspicious timing of introducing legal aid cuts for welfare cases during a period of massive upheaval in the welfare system. While millions of people are having their benefits reassessed, their ability to challenge an inaccurate outcome through appeal is also being significantly curbed.

New analysis from Sound Off For Justice released yesterday further reinforced these suspicions by highlighting the serious gaps in the government’s argument that the legal aid reforms are intended to save any money to the public purse.

These findings were just the latest confirmation that the reforms will prove to be a false economy, creating greater knock-on costs to the NHS and the public purse further down the line.

The report also undermined a further claim of the government that the costs of legal aid have spiralled out of control. The data reveal that for welfare benefits cases the opposite is true.

Whilst the amount of money spent on legal aid to help challenge incorrect decisions has, roughly, stayed at the same level over the recent years, the volume of cases that receive funding through the legal aid system has risen much more steeply.

This suggests that more people are getting help with the same budget, adding weight to arguments that advice for this type of cases is cost-efficient.

Even Tory grandee Lord Newton has called the cumulative impact of the government’s legal aid and welfare reforms a “pincer movement” on disabled people.

Miller’s comment on Radio Five exposed that the left hand of government doesn’t know what the right is doing. Worse, it highlighted that despite being the minister for disabled people, she is blissfully unaware of the impact of government policy on disabled people.

Today, disabilities campaigners are asking people to call an MP or Peer to raise awareness of the Spartacus report. They’ve also launched a twibbon to show your support. The welfare bill begins its journey through the lords tomorrow, and the next few weeks of the fight will be crucial for tens of thousands of disabled people in Britain. They need your help.

See also:

• Time to step forward on the Spartacus report – Alex Hern, January 9th 2012

• Boris has slammed Coalition welfare reforms – from the left – Daniel Elton, January 6th 2012

• Five reasons to oppose the welfare bill – Daniel Elton, December 12th 2011

• Society and the media are failing the sick and disabled – Sue Marsh, May 13th 2011

• Government plans to cut DLA could cause extreme hardship – Sue Marsh, January 24th 2011

The hapless Lib Dem Scottish Secretary Michael Moore will today address MPs to outline the government’s views on a referendum on Scottish independence.

It is believed that Moore, who had been expected to make the statement at a later date, will outline plans to provide Holyrood with the powers needed to hold a legally binding referendum in order to ensure clarity.

However, on the question of timing which so dominated the headlines yesterday, following the spin from Number 10 which indicated that such powers would only be available to the SNP government for 18 months: Moore is not expected to place a time-limit on when the new powers to hold a binding referendum would need to be used.

Moore’s statement comes after David Cameron opened the latest can of worms on the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday when he quite clearly called for an early vote. It was followed yesterday by 24 hours of absurd politicking, the result of which is that Alex Salmond and the SNP will have been both emboldened and strengthened.

On top of the u-turn that the UK government today looks set to make on the 18 month time frame, onlookers were treated to the sight of the Scottish Secretary being side-lined at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting at the Olympic Park, with the London born George Osborne having led the debate and strategy outlined to fellow Ministers.

One wonders how Michael Moore must have felt, the Secretary of State for Scotland relegated to a bit part in the spat between Westminster and Edinburgh.

Then came the sight, and sound, of Lord Forsyth, Scottish Secretary under John Major, and someone dubbed by one Labour source in the Guardian as “a hate figure in Scotland”.

You really have to wonder what was going through Conservative Party heads when they considered it right to give him such free reign to stand up for the union.

If, as the SNP argue, Cameron’s clumsy and misjudged efforts to provide for an early vote serve only to increase support for greater autonomy for Scotland at the very least, it has to be wondered how many extra votes Salmond and co. can rely on every time The Lord Forsyth of Drumlean makes his case for Scotland to stick with the UK.

And to top things off, writing in the Guardian, Nick Watt has reported that Labour were not consulted by David Cameron over any of what was briefed and leaked yesterday. This despite Labour being by far the largest pro-union party north of the border, and being the party that will ultimately need to be in the driving seat of the campaign to take on the SNP’s plans.

If it wasn’t so serious you’d have to laugh at what was yesterday unravelling as something akin to a Monty Python sketch.

As Cameron’s arch political strategist, George Osborne was meant to regain the initiative in the increasingly bitter dispute with Edinburgh. What this failed to recognise is that in Scotland, Salmond remains the strategist par-excellence; far more than a match for Cameron and Osborne.

Cameron handled things badly yesterday and Alex Salmond will have slept much more comfortably last night as a result.

However, as the anger and heat over process and timing reached fever pitch yesterday, the people of Scotland, as alluded to by Scottish Labour Leader Johann Lamont on Left Foot Forward yesterday, remain like the proverbial piggy, caught in the middle of the Salm-Cam spat.

As an editorial in the Daily Record has said of Cameron’s strategy:

This is risky game-playing with Scotland. Going for the nuclear option of staging a Westminster referendum invites an inevitable backlash against Tory interference. But Salmond faces risks, too.

The longer he toys with a date and a question, the more he looks like he’s taking the nation for granted and turns people off with his “wheneverendum”.

Meanwhile, the big decisions in Scotland – like education, the economy, the nation’s health – are parked in a political railway siding.

The SNP will do nothing to upset any one group in order to maximise support for the day we decide on separation. That means instead of shaping the future, Salmond is in danger of putting Scotland’s future on hold for even longer than it already is.

Stop the games, the two of you, and give us a vote.

See also:

• Scottish Labour leader: “I want the referendum to be held as quickly as possible” – Johann Lamont MSP, January 9th 2012

• It’s time to get real over threat to the union – Ed Jacobs, January 9th 2012

• Now the hard work for Lamont begins – Scottish Labour needs a full redesign – Ed Jacobs, December 19th 2011

• Scots support “devo-max” as new Tory leader distances herself from Cameron – Ed Jacobs, November 7th 2011

• Scottish Labour needs to wake up to the threat of independence – Ed Jacobs, October 17th 2011

Vera Baird QC was the Solicitor General from 2007-2010, and the Labour MP for Redcar from 2001-2010; she is the co-director of Astraea: Gender Justice (Research and Education)

The Labour Commission on Women’s Safety began gathering evidence just before Christmas. My colleagues, MPs Kate Green, Stella Creasy and I, met in London with twelve leading national women’s organisations to scope out what our inquiry needs to cover.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has asked us to produce a provisional report by International Women’s Day in March about whether, and if so how, coalition decisions, policies and legislation are impacting on women’s safety.

At our first meeting, we asked each group to talk for up to five minutes on their major issues. I was, personally, taken aback by the passion and anger with which these experienced professionals set out the current reality on the ground, not only for women who are trying to escape from violence, but for their supporters and volunteers in the community.

More than one contributor highlighted what they referred to as a crisis in accommodation for women fleeing violence.

Because of a combination of disproportionate budget cuts and chaos in local commissioning services, these organisations whose very purpose is to find housing for such women and to take them onward from their experience are repeatedly contacting their usual sources and being rebuffed.

This would have happened occasionally in the past but now, we were told, occurs several times each week. Vulnerable women, who have mustered the courage to leave their violent homes find that they cannot get accommodation even from those whose purpose is to help them and who desperately want to do so.

It seems inevitable that without anywhere else to stay, some women will have no option but to return to their violent partner and face the risk of escalating harm. We have spent many years trying to persuade women that they can safely leave these relationships and that services are in place for them.

More than one organisation has been forced to advise such women how they can best minimise the risk of harm to themselves if they are forced to sleep on the streets. Advisers tell them to go to any busy place with people around, such as accident and emergency units or even to the Occupy protest camps.

They do not always hear back from these women and are left with a legacy of serious concern.

Some of our contributors run refuge accommodation themselves, for women and often, their children. Women are often housed, for their own safety, in refuges far from their violent partner and as a consequence have had the entire framework of their lives disrupted.

Consequently, a refuge is not merely a roof over the head.

It involves support workers to assist with issues such as trauma counselling, onward accommodation, emergency benefits applications and getting children into school. It needs to have facilities for childcare and the properties incur higher than normal wear and tear and need expensive security provision.

Provision has always been a struggle, with a postcode lottery of funding. Refuges are not luxuries or add-ons and cannot be run as profitable business ventures. They are core to the practical resolution of hundreds of domestic violence situations.

The government is now proposing to cut the service charge element from housing benefit. This is the sum that pays for the support services that are needed and, we were told, its removal would be “another nail in their coffin.”

We were told that in London, at least, both established providers of refuges and the newer lowest-unit cost models are both giving up on refuge provision as the combination of commissioning, cuts and reduced benefits make them financially unworkable.

These are just two of the concerns we heard about. We have asked for more information on a dozen more and are now setting off to the regions to gather evidence from grassroots organisations far and wide.

All of our work will be done with a full understanding that we are in a serious economic downturn and there is a dearth of public funding for services. We are looking into concerns that women have already brought to us and our scrutiny will be resolutely forensic.

For instance, we will go one of the three areas where the government has directly funded new rape crisis provision, so that we can see services in as many differently resourced situations as possible.

However, I have cited only two of a number of concerns aired at our first meeting and if a fraction of the concerns set out for us there is repeated nationwide, we will come back with a worrying picture.

See also:

• Boris is turning back the clock for women in London - Shelly Asquith, November 14th 2011

• Two weeks after ‘fixing’ it, Cameron creates a new “women problem” - Alex Hern, October 17th 2011

• Tory MP: People opposed to legal aid cuts are “irresponsible and unhelpful” - Jonny Mulligan, October 5th 2011

• Huhne attacks “Tea Party Tories” – who on Earth does he mean?! - Alex Hern, September 20th 2011

• Two women a week die from domestic violence; legal aid cuts will see more - Jonny Mulligan, June 16th 2011