Meeting of the Parliament 18 June 2014
I apologise to the cabinet secretary. I guarantee that I will be happy to give way to Mr Swinney in my closing speech, when he can ask any questions that he likes on the figures.
The Government says that we will be better off and richer, but the only way in which it has managed to make us look wealthier than the UK is by giving a high oil projection for every single year. That is not good enough. We call on the Government to republish its projections with a central scenario that is cautious about oil instead of a scenario that is only optimistic about oil.
I move amendment S4M-10353.2, to insert at end:
“; notes that the recent Scottish Government paper, Outlook for Scotland’s Public Finances and the Opportunities of Independence, assumes for all forecasts that Scenario 4 from the May 2014 Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin occurs; calls on the Scottish Government to republish its forecasts for the public finances with both a central scenario and a cautious scenario for oil revenues, and further calls on it to publish the estimated set-up costs for an independent Scotland, along with the estimated costs of the policy commitments made in the white paper on independence and the policy commitments made after publication of the white paper”.
15:10Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.