It doesn’t add up

Looking at numbers supplied by the SNP Government. makes interesting reading.

The Budget deficit (what the government spends against what it collects) is £15 billion or 9.5 per cent of GDP (the total amount Scotland generates in a year). This is almost three times the rate for the rest of the UK and is the worst in Europe.

The maximum deficit allowed to join the EU is 3 per cent of GDP. Scotland’s is more than three times that, which makes it unlikely that an independent Scotland could gain entry to the EU.

Spending by Holyrood is approximately 50 per cent of GDP, with the deficit heading towards 10 per cent of GDP. To square the books, Government spending would have to reduce by 10 per cent of GDP. This equates to cuts in Scottish government spending of 20 per cent.

An option is to increase taxation to a basic rate of, say, 40 per cent and upper rate of approximately 65 per cent.

There are around 2.5 million people in paid employment in Scotland. The current deficit equates to £6,000 for every worker.

The SNP have published that an independent Scotland would take on £120 billion of UK debt, repaying it over 20 years just like a mortgage. This means a further £6bn a year, leading to an overall deficit of £21bn, with interest to add of £4bn gives us a deficit of £25bn – or £10,000 for every worker in Scotland.