This Budget does nothing to address the impact of Devolution and the Barnet Formula on the people of England. It is of course true that the measures Mr Osborne introduced apply equally to all the citizens of the UK, so to the extent that UK citizens benefit from those measures, the people of England benefit too.

However, both George Osborne and Ed Miliband in their speeches in the Commons showed not the slightest concern for the specific injustices and disadvantages imposed by Devolution and the Barnet Formula on the people of England. They even seemed to be unaware of it, which is regrettably typical of almost every single one of England’s MPs.

The Barnet Formula enables the peoples of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to enjoy as much as £2500 more in expenditure per annum upon each of their citizens from the UK Treasury than is spent on English people. To make matter so much worse, that disparity exists only because the UK Treasury imposes as much as an extra £281 in taxation upon each English taxpayer per annum to pay for it. English people don’t only receive less, the also pay more.

Devolution has also enabled the peoples of Scotland, Wales and NI through their parliaments/assemblies not to have to pay for prescriptions, hospital parking charges and personal care for the elderly. All have to be paid for by families and individuals in England. English university students have to pay anything from £3000 to £9000 per annum, while Scottish, Welsh and NI students pay nothing. All this is made possibly by reason of the huge block grants given to the Scottish, Welsh and NI parliaments by the UK Treasury, paid for by English tax payers.

Mr Osbourne’s Budget may well include benefits for UK citizens. However, whatever benefits in it there might be are in the case of the English people hugely outweighed and cancelled by the unjust and unfair way the UK Treasury treats England.