“The UK’s public spending works fairly for Scotland and allows the whole country to pool and share its resources.”

—UK Government’s Delivering for Scotland

Really?

According to UK Government figures, Scotland runs a 9% deficit of £19.1 billion. This is based on their figures of £87.5 billion in tax revenue, £106.6bn in outlays.

On the other hand, according to The London Economic, Scotland’s annual tax contributions to the UK Treasury have increased by £14.2 billion over the last decade, with income tax, capital gains tax and taxes on productions driving this increase. Scottish public sector generated an annual revenue of £73.3 billion during the last financial year. This is a 24%increase versus a decade ago, equating to an increased contribution of £14.2 billion to the UK economy. The figure is lower than the UK government figure above because it does not include revenue from North Sea oil and gas.

Also, the UK government figure for outlays includes several items of questionable value to the people of Scotland. These include Scotland’s 8.5% share of the £21bn development of Trident and almost all its £3bn annual running costs—a total of £4.8bn, which docks a quarter off Scotland’s supposed “deficit” for starters. Kick in the £4.5bn squandered on cost-of-living handouts and the Scottish deficit drops to 4.8%, rather less then the 5.2% deficit the UK is currently running.

“Every time we present a progressive budget, Douglas Ross (Scottish Tory leader) stands up and predicts some kind of mass exodus from Scotland.”

—Humza Yousaf, FM, Budget Debate, 21^st December 2023

The bottom line is Scotland now accounts for 8%of total UK contributions, far more per head than the 3.5% from Wales and the 2.1% from Northern Ireland. 

Both income tax (+71%) and capital gains tax (+70%) have seen the largest increase of all taxes on income and wealth over the last decade, with corporation tax (excluding North Sea Oil) also up 17%. This also does not include Scotland’s 90% share of the £2.6bn in windfall tax that the UK government received in fiscal 2022/23. Only public corporation contributions have seen any decline (-30%). 

Taxes on productions have also climbed by 35%, with taxes on environmental levies driving this increase, up 368% in the last decade. This last is particularly odious because the levies favour generation close to the many English conurbations and penalise those generated in the many sparsely populated stretches of Scotland.

Taxes on land and building transactions have increased by 197%, with taxes from EU Emissions Trading Scheme auction receipts seeing the third largest increase at 190%.

“Scotland’s economic contribution to the UK stretches far beyond North Sea Oil and, in fact, there has been significant increases across many areas of the Scottish economy in the last decade.”

—Bradley Post, MD of RIFT

No wonder any mention of Scottish independence triggers desperate chills among unionists: the above gives over fourteen billion reasons why they’re so keen to cling to Scotland as part of the UK.

#1105—501 words