Scots economy performing at ‘same level’ as wider UK says watchdog

Scotland’s economy performs well compared with the wider UK, according to the Scottish Government’s economic watchdog.

Scotland has been lagging behind the wider UK’S GDP growth figures recent years.

But the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) said that Scotland holds its own against most regions of England, as well as Northern Ireland and Wales. The reason it trails behind the UK figure is the dominance of London – the financial powerhouse – and the south-east which inflates the wider national picture. 0 Commissioner David Wilson explained Scotland’s position

“If you look in terms of something like the overall UK structure of the economy, perhaps with the financial sector in London and the south-east and the innovation perform- ance in London and the southeast, that is a set of factors that is less in prominence in Scotland,” commissioner David Wilson told Holyrood’s economy yesterday.

“So differences in structure are perhaps the principal explanation for differences between Scotland and UK economic performance.”

He added: “Scotland is more in and around the same level as the UK as a whole.”

Mairi Spowage, deputy chief executive of the SFC said yesterday: “It is quite difficult to look at the UK in aggregate because London and the south-east are so diifferent from many other parts of the economy.”