We aren’t lagging

In response to Colin Hamilton (Letters, 10 April), like the GERS notional deficit, Scotland’s economic growth is no advert for Scotland within the UK as Westminster still controls the vast majority of tax powers and fiscal levers over the Scottish economy.

Current performance is no indicator of how an independent Scotland would fare as it will have distinctive priorities and policies. For example, a Scottish government might clamp down on tax avoidance by many North Sea oil producers who pay much more in tax per barrel to the Norwegian government.

Scotland is currently in sixth place out of the 12 UK regions in terms of growth and once the recent massive Hurricane oil find comes ashore in 2019 this alone could contribute $50 billion to the Scottish economy, based on current oil prices.

Thanks to Westminster’s London-centric priorities, the UK is now 35 per cent less productive than Germany and a study from a couple of years ago showed that 25 out of 37 sub-regions in the UK are below the average per capita GDP of the European Union.

The fact is that Scotland isn’t lagging behind the UK. The UK is lagging behind London and the south-east and everywhere in the UK suffers from London and the surrounding economy monopolising the UK economy.

FRASER GRANT

Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh