THE North-East has lost out in terms of funding compared to Scotland as a result of the outdated Barnett Formula which successive Governments have failed to address.

Now, under recent proposals, more taxpayers’ money will be channelled to Scotland if they stay in the union. That is appalling.

Nothing has been done at Westminster to redress the funding inequality between the North-East and Scotland. The Barnett Formula must be replaced with one which redresses this inequality as soon as possible.

Ian Jones (HAS, Sept 11) is right; whichever way the vote goes there will have to be changes in the governance of England.

There needs to be a public debate and decisions made about what is the role of and what powers central Government should retain, which powers should transfer to local government and transferring funding to local government at all levels to provide necessary services.

More taxpayers’ money which is raised in the North-East should stay in the North-East.

The debate should be widened to include Europe and returning powers from that body to Westminster as well as local government.

I detect there is no appetite to create another expensive, remote tier of government in the form of elected regional assemblies. I am against that.

Governance should be about serving the people as close to people as possible.

Let the debate begin.

Cllr Alan Macnab, Darlington.