The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Think tank puts new view of report
The SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission report actually strengthens the economic case for Scotland remaining in the UK, a new study claims.
The analysis by pro-UK think tank These Islands said the SNP report illustrates many of the downsides of independence while “highlighting (albeit reluctantly) the economic benefits of our inevitably flawed but enduring 300 year-old union”.
It also said that the “growth potential” claims made in the SNP report are unrealistic and based on misleading analysis, and that claims that the economic model proposed is “antiausterity” do not stand up to scrutiny.
The SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission report, published in May, claimed living standards in Scotland could “equal the best small countries in the world” within a generation of independence.
Key recommendations include cutting the country’s deficit from an “anticipated starting point” of 5.9% at the time of leaving the UK to below 3%.
The These Islands Response to the Sustainable Growth Commission report, published today, claimed that by failing to compare independence with any other scenarios, the SNP report fails to make a case for independence.
These Islands chairman Kevin Hague said: “Our paper shows that the SNP’s Growth Commission report is objectively more optimistic than the 2014 White Paper, not more realistic as has been widely claimed.
“In fact the Growth Commission’s report contains highly misleading analysis, fails to address the key economic questions and – we presume unintentionally – actually strengthens the economic case for Scotland remaining in the UK.”
The study found that claims that the economic model proposed in the SNP report is “anti-austerity” do not stand up to scrutiny.
The paper says that had Scotland been independent and following the Growth Commission recommendations, public spending would have been £58 billion – £66bn less than actually occurred over the last decade, and in 2016-17 Scottish spending would have been £8.4bn (11.8%) lower.