What does ‘National’ mean in National Health Service, and what will it mean in the future? Are we entering an era in which the nations of the UK compete for citizens by offering ever-more attractive citizenship packages?

The idiosyncrasies of the UK constitutional settlement post-Devolution are well-rehearsed. They offer little space either for UK-wide coordination of social policy, or for the constituent nations to define their own concept of citizenship, and there is no federal authority to ‘hold the ring’ as custodian of the definition of social citizenship. The scope to change key aspects of the devolved welfare state may create the potential for ‘spill over’ from the social to the political spheres.

This book seeks to synthesise two hitherto discrete areas of scholarship − citizenship rights and territorial politics. It argues that the two actually interact closely, not just on a theoretical level, but in practice, here and now, in the UK. The concept of social citizenship offers a useful window through which to examine the UK's territorial politics. The contributions are both theoretical and applied, unified by an exploration of T.H. Marshall's conceptualisation of social citizenship and its implications for territorial politics. The nuances of Marshall's approach are explored, and different chapters consider public opinion, policy divergence, inter-governmental relations, finance, service delivery and the European Union within this framework.

Marshall's conception was in part an attempt to reconcile inequality of wealth with equality of status. It spoke to a world where rich and poor queued together for their pension in the post office, sat in the same doctor's waiting room, and played in the same public parks. The examples now seem quaint, but the evidence of public opinion seems to suggest that people do still want fundamental equality of status. Devolution was not really about creating different forms of social citizenship; rather it was about reclaiming ownership of politics by getting rid of Secretaries of State for Wales who came from south east England, and Scotland not being the testing ground for unpopular (English) forms of taxation. The result, though, is perhaps a ‘spillover’ from the political to the social, and a series of ‘regional’ opportunities to redefine social rights (within the constraints of the UK nation). As Charlie Jeffery puts it at the end of his chapter on public attitudes: ‘the UK seems set, in consequence, to have not a single social citizenship, but a series of regional social citizenships’ (p. 95).

This is a fertile area, full of myth and paradox. Social Citizenship in practice meant very different things, even in the pre-devolution UK, with NHS provision, for example, as unequal in the early 1970s as it had been in the late 1940s. Daniel Wincott points out in his chapter that citizenship has always been as much a matter of meanings and symbols as it has been of rights embedded in public policy. Martin Powell argues that ‘territorial justice’ is not, and has never been, a guiding tenet of health policy, with inequity operating at many levels – and a failure even to agree what ‘equity’ means. However, he also points out that this does not necessarily undermine Marshall's thesis, which is unclear on what the unit of comparison (the ‘nation’) now means, and on how much inequality we will tolerate.

The consideration of social citizenship throws a spotlight on the fragility of the devolution settlement. Iain McLean and colleagues seek to answer the crucial question: Is the distribution of public expenditure in the UK equitable? In a fascinating exploration of the technical and conceptual issues (including a most useful and succinct explanation of the ubiquitous Barnett formula), they reveal not only just how difficult it is to find a convincing answer, but equally how easy it would be for inflammatory statistics to be marshalled by the various sectarian interests to support their different positions.

Devolution is a complex and unfolding process. Michael Keating describes ‘a twofold shift in power: from Westminster to Scotland and Wales; and within Scotland and Wales from existing policy networks into new ones and into the Parliament and Assembly. It also introduces an electoral dimension to policy choice, which had almost disappeared during the 1980s’ (pp. 100–1). It is too early to say whether this will result in distinct Scottish and Welsh models of social citizenship, ‘but the old British model, captured by Marshall at the moment of its completion, is becoming a thing of the past’ (p. 114).

This book is a very useful exploration of the inter-relationship between territorial politics and social policy in the UK, which illuminates both in the process. The Marshallian framework proves to be a useful unifying theme, making the book much more than just a collection of interesting essays (which it also is). Above all, perhaps, it points to the peculiarity of the UK at the start of the twenty-first century, and to the fumbling evolution of its various social policies. Scott Greer concludes: ‘if there is to be a “break-up of Britain”, it will not come because of some abstract macro-historical obsolescence. It will be because the UK centre failed to negotiate a stable social contract with its individual citizens, and waited too long to negotiate a political contract with its various peoples’ (p. 204).