Meeting of the Parliament 26 March 2014
Mr Swinney knows the answer to that question. The projections that were made in 2010 were made long before the euro crisis—a crisis that engulfed an entire continent with which we do the bulk of our trade—and we saw six quarters of uninterrupted contraction. The suggestion that, somehow, if we had been independent in 2010, we would not have suffered as a consequence of the euro crisis is utterly ridiculous. Every economy on the planet was affected by that, particularly every one in Europe.
Let us move on to the figures for 2016-17, for which the Scottish Government has actually agreed to put pen to paper. Those figures are highly questionable. The Scottish Government says that our net fiscal balance deficit for 2016-17 will be 3.2 per cent at the very worst. It says that it could be a 1.6 per cent deficit but, at the very worst, it will be a 3.2 per cent deficit. This week, the Centre for Public Policy for Regions suggested that it would be 5.5 per cent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested that the deficit would be 5.2 per cent. The Treasury—admittedly, not as independent as the other two—said that it would be 5.3 per cent and Citigroup said that it would be 5.4 per cent. The estimates among analysts and the Treasury for the deficit in 2016-17 range from 5.2 per cent to 5.5 per cent, but the Scottish Government alone says that it will be 3.2 per cent at the very worst and potentially only 1.6 per cent.