By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 20 November 2013
Scottish ministers have hit back at this week’s bleak Institute for Fiscal Studies scenario for independence, claiming that Scotland's control over its own economic destiny could create more than 100,000 jobs in the next two decades.
A week before publication of its long-awaited white paper on independence, the Scottish Government issued a report, Economic policy choices in an independent Scotland, which set out how ministers believe that rebalancing economic policy to suit Scottish circumstances and preferences could make Scotland one of Europe’s wealthiest nations.
Key elements would include a cut in corporation tax to attract corporate headquarters to Scotland, a drive to bring more women into the workforce, and measures to promote brand recognition of distinctively Scottish exports. It contrasts starkly with the IFS scenario of an independent Scotland in which taxes would have to rise or public services face ever greater cuts.
‘The one-size-fits-all economic policies of successive Westminster governments have failed and are continuing to fail the people of Scotland,’ said First Minister Alex Salmond.
‘A simple glance at many other European countries of similar size to Scotland, some without the natural advantages Scotland has, shows that we have lagged behind their growth rates for decades.
‘Independence will give us with the chance to build an economy that takes advantage of Scotland’s unique strengths and size to deliver a more outward-focused, fairer and resilient economy, boosting revenues and creating many thousands of more jobs.’
Opportunities identified include: corporation tax cuts to offset London’s economic pull, worth some 27,000 jobs; policies to boost manufacturing productivity and innovation, projected to generate 21,000 jobs; measures, like improved childcare, to increase opportunity for women and young people providing up to 30,000 jobs; and an ‘internationalisation’ strategy, including reform of Air Passenger Duty and promotion of Scottish business through foreign policy, which the paper says could be worth 100,000 jobs in the longer term.
‘Increasing the level of participation in our economy by securing new and long-term job opportunities and boosting productivity by improving the business environment will help ensure that the benefits of economic growth are felt by all parts of our country,’ Salmond said.
‘That will make Scotland a fairer country, in contrast to the economic policies of Westminster which have resulted in the UK becoming one of the most unequal societies in the developed world – a trend that is only likely to get worse under Westminster rule.’
He pointed to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development figures which, he said, showed that if Scotland became independent next week with full control over its geographic share of North Sea revenues its GDP-per-head would rank it the eighth-wealthiest country in the world, against the UK’s ranking at sixteenth place.
But the claims were dismissed by the Scottish National party’s opponents. Former chancellor Alistair Darling, who chairs the anti-independence Better Together campaign, called the paper ‘a wish list, but not a price list’. Scottish Tory finance spokesman Gavin Brown said: ‘The careful analysis of the IFS has been ignored – presumably the SNP hopes it will simply go away.’
