Meeting of the Parliament 18 June 2014
If the member had listened to what I said, he would know that those are the views of independent experts. We know how good SNP members are at plucking a figure out of the air, doubling it and pretending that nobody else has to do the sums. Their sums do not add up.
If Scotland was to vote yes, the Government would not be able to deliver even what we have now. Instead of improving in an independent Scotland, public services would be worse if we cut our ties with the United Kingdom.
Let us consider the figures that have been supplied by the IFS, the think tank that Alex Salmond often quotes when it suits his argument. The IFS estimates that, in 2016, if there was a yes vote, an independent Scotland would face an additional deficit of £4.7 billion. Our deficit would be twice the rate of the UK’s deficit, and it would leave an incoming Scottish Government facing three options.
First, the Scottish Government could borrow even more money to run that inflated deficit but, given the fact that borrowing costs for a newly independent Scotland would be much higher, that option would not plug the fiscal gap. Also, if we were in a currency union, we would have to get a foreign chancellor’s permission first.
Alternatively, the Scottish Government could do something that Alex Salmond has never considered before—it could ask business or the rich to pay more tax. However, given the fact that his key policies for an independent Scotland are to keep the higher tax rate at 45p and to slash corporation tax for big business, there seems little chance of that.
It is more likely that it will fall to hard-working Scots to pay for Alex Salmond’s referendum promises. If Scotland’s 2.5 million workers were asked to shoulder the additional burden equally through tax increases, it would mean an additional £1,700 tax bill for each of them. It also seems inevitable that we would face public service cuts—cuts to schools and hospitals.