Mizter T wrote:

I never quite worked out why the responsibility for these schemes had
to be devolved. It makes no sense to me.
No, nor to me.

Eh?! It's what devolution is *all about* - devolving the decisions for
a wide range of activities to the national bodies in Scotland and
Wales. It makes for better government.

One of the things devolutionists have never easily addressed is what happens
to service provision in border areas - whereas the Scottish border is
relatively unpopulated, there's a lot of people along the Welsh border for
whom Welsh only/all provision within Wales is not the best situation. I have
often wondered what kind of mess the London Mayor & Assembly can get up to
if they get many more powers - originally coming from Epsom in the strip
between the GLA boundary and the M25 it's particularly worrying when London
politicians start proposing congestion charging within the entire M25 (and
even just within the boundary would be messy, especially around Chessington
where decades of road planning have worked on the basis that there'll be no
barrier to crossing it). I cannot imagine how healthcare would be easily
devolved.