Labour peer Joel Barnett, creator of the Barnett formula, has died

Labour peer Joel Barnett, who was MP for Heywood and Royton for 19 years, has died at the age of 91. Barnett is perhaps most famous for devising the scheme for apportioning money to public services in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that became known as “the Barnett formula”.

Barnett was Heywood and Royton’s MP from 1964 until 1983, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1974 to 1979. Following the abolition of the constituency he represented in 1983, he was ennobled and became Baron Barnett of Heywood and Royton. He also served as treasurer of the Manchester Fabian Society.

He came up with the Barnett formula as a temporary measure in 1978, when he was in the Cabinet, and it is still in use today – despite making his own reservations about the system well known. He publicly raised concerns that money is split according to population, rather than need. When the topic became a big issue during the Scottish independence referendum, Barnett told the Telegraph:

“It is unfair and should be stopped, it is a mistake. This way is terrible and can never be sustainable, it is a national embarrassment and personally embarrassing to me as well.

“If we want to give them some money after devo-max OK, but do it honestly and openly. Not by doing so under the table like this.”

He spoke often about revisions that could be made to the formula to make it fairer, and would joke about it having “an excellent name”. In 2001, he told the House of Lord:

“It would have been nice—over many years I have grown rather fond of the name of that formula—if I could have concluded that it was so good that there was no need to make substantial changes.

But I have previously suggested that instead of scrapping such an excellent name, any changes that result should perhaps be described as the Barnett Formula Mark II.”