Balance required in balance sheet debate
Both sides must foster a climate of respect in the annual constitutional clash over Scotland’s finances
This week will see the timehonoured annual tradition in which both sides of Scottish constitutional trench warfare seek to enlist to their cause newly released Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) statistics.
The figures are released each August by the Scottish Government and set out estimates of tax revenue raised compared with expenditure on the people of Scotland.
Over the past decade they have shown the country running a large deficit. Last year, it stood at more than 22 per cent of GDP, or £36 billion. Government spending per person stood at more than £18,000, with revenues generated per person at around £11,500.
Opponents of independence cite the GERS statistics as reason not to leave the UK, arguing that they illustrate the value of pooling and sharing resources with neighbours.
Some on the wilder fringes of the Nationalist movement have in the past cast doubt of the figures themselves, or even dismissed them as a sophisticated form of propaganda.
What both sides can agree on is that Scotland’s fiscal deficit is notional. It is an estimate of what the economic starting point would be for a newly fledged independent nation.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her supporters could argue that the extent to which Scotland receives more in spending than it generates in taxation is evidence of a system that is broken beyond repair and from which we would be well shot after a vote for independence.
Her opponents concede the estimated deficit is hypothetical and that an independent Scotland in full control of its own finances could well become a thriving, prosperous sovereign state.
The key point of contention, surely, is whether the economic upheaval of breaking away from the rest of the UK would be worth the risk. Nationalists argue that it would be, while their opponents remain unconvinced. Both views are equally valid. Both sides should feel free to make their arguments in a climate of mutual respect.
It can only be hoped that this will be the case this week. Sadly, if the evidence from previous years – and from the scenes outside Tory leadership hustings in Perth last week – is anything to go by, that hope may be in vain.