Sturgeon unable to answer query
SNP leader struggles with figures for setting up a separatist nation in television interview on first day of party conference
Nicola Sturgeon admitted yesterday that she could not say how much it would cost to set up an independent Scotland when asked repeatedly for the figure quoted in the SNP’S key economic document.
On the opening day of the SNP conference, the First Minister was also unable to produce the cost of creating a Scottish social security agency.
In an interview for Channel 4 News, the SNP leader was asked on several occasions how much the SNP’S Growth Commission had said it would cost to establish the new ministries required to run an independent country.
The SNP’S new independence blueprint, drawn up by former Nationalist MSP Andrew Wilson, forecast that £450 million would need to be spent over five years to create the apparatus for a new Scottish state.
Opposition parties reacted to the First Minister’s failure to come up with the figure during her television appearance as “embarrassing” and a “car crash interview”.
The rare media slip-up by Ms Sturgeon threatened to overshadow the first day of her party’s conference in Aberdeen.
After attempting to dodge the question, Ms Sturgeon finally admitted after the fifth time of asking that she couldn’t “recall the exact figure in the report”.
Interviewer Ciaran Jenkins then asked her twice how much it would cost to set up a Scottish social security agency. Ms Sturgeon admitted: “I don’t have all these figures right at the tip of my fingers right now.”
Despite not knowing the costs, Ms Sturgeon insisted they were realistic when challenged by Mr Jenkins.
It was pointed out to her that it would cost £200 million to set up a Scottish social security agency. While the computer system to make payments to Scottish farmers cost £178m. Mr Jenkins said the figures together were “almost your entire budget for setting up a new country”.
Ms Sturgeon said she had not come up with the figures produced by the Growth Commission. She added: “They are figures that a respected academic has come up with. Therefore I think they deserve to be treated seriously. But as I started to say at the outset of this line of questioning. we will go through a proper process as a party of analysing and interogating and coming to our own conclusions about these things.”
In its 354-page report, published at the end of May, the Sustainable Growth Commission said that for an independent Scotland the total setup costs to establish government departments and agencies would be “around £450m over five years”, citing analysis by Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics.
Ms Sturgeon’s television appearance was attacked by opposition parties with a Scottish Conservative spokesman saying: “This car crash interview was an embarrassment.”
The spokesman said: “This is where the SNPS broken case for independence lies: with Nicola Sturgeon unable to remember fantasy figures for set up costs from a report she still insists is credible.
“No wonder pro-independence supporters as well as prounion backers are running a mile from her independence blueprint. Everyone can see it doesn’t add up.”
Scottish Labour Deputy Leader, Lesley Laird, said the SNP leader was unable to answer the simplest questions on the report.
Ms Laird said: “Nicola Sturgeon’sinterviewdemonstrates the lack of confidence the SNP has in their own growth commission.
“The only thing that is clear is that the report paints a picture which looks bleak, and as Richard Leonard said, it’s a Cuts Commission which will deliver another decade of punishing austerity.
“Nicola Sturgeon is unable to answer even the simplest of questions on her report.
“This is a re-run of the White Paper of 2014. No detail, no substance and obviously no answers to the hard questions that the people of Scotland need. Independence at any price.”
Mr Wilson was commissioned by Ms Sturgeon come up with an economic plan to make the case for independence ahead of a second independence referendum.
The document said it would take Scotland 25 years to match the economic performance of other small, advanced countries.
It has come under fire from left-wing independence supporters.ataconferencefringe meeting yesterday, a leading SNP figure said the plan would leave Scotland “at the mercy of the banks” and put the poor at risk.
newsdeskts_@scotsman.com