Is Scottish independence a 'good or bad' thing?

Scotland will still have far more economic powers with independence than within the Union.

Exploding the Scotland will not be fully independent myth!

It is an often quoted ‘No’ claim that keeping the pound and allowing The Bank of England to set interest rates, means that Scotland won’t have control of its own economic policy after independence, or that it would not be truly independent.

Leaving aside the fact that this argument implies that France, Germany, Belgium and all the other eurozone countries are not fully independent, I thought the claim was worthy of fuller investigation.

Let's look at how Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are doing shall we?

Background: Interestingly the Bank of England operates independently of Government and does not control economic or fiscal policy in the UK at the moment. It has a key role of maintaining inflation at a low level, using interest rates. It does this independently from the Westminster Government but the inflation target is set by the Chancellor.

But backed by the UK Taxpayer. Nationalist Myth Number 1 debunked.

Economic policy as a whole includes things such as employment policy, social security policies, income tax rates, council tax rates, fuel duties, alcohol duties etc, all the revenues you can generate and the ability to control spending on areas such as defence and foreign affairs etc, so that you can balance the books and afford the economic policies that a government has an electoral mandate to implement.

Here is a list of the key revenue generating powers, and who currently controls them. Also, find below the key spending areas we don’t have control over but would have in an independent Scotland.

Currently Westminster controlled – 26 economic levers:


With the key lever being education. Education always get's overlooked as the key aspect for increasing labour productivity which promotes investment. Education is one of many levers that are devolved that the SNP have chosen not to use effectively

Income tax: Westminster controlled but with the ability to increase or decrease by 2p. Never used by Hollyrood. Much easier to keep people suffering and blame the English


VAT
National Insurance Contributions Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
North Sea oil and gas revenue (geographical share)Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Corporation tax Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Fuel duties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Capital gains tax Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Inheritance tax Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Tobacco duties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Interest and dividends Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Alcohol duties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Other taxes and royalties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Vehicle excise duty Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Rent and other current transfers Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Export Duties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Other taxes on income and wealth Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Insurance premium tax Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Air passenger duty Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Betting and gaming duties Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Climate change levy Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Aggregates levy Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
The Crown Estate including shoreline and 11 miles out to sea (affecting wave and tidal power revenues) Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Quantitive easing (printing new money) (Currently outsourced to the independent Bank of England MPC) Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Issuing government bonds (Currently outsourced to the independent Bank of England MPC) Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Setting interest rates to control inflation (Currently outsourced to the independent Bank of England MPC) Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
The ability to regulate banks and lenders. (currently under review at a UK/ EU / Global level) Goes into a big pot and is equally redistributed throughout the UK
Currently or about to be devolved to Scottish Government – five minor economic levers:

Council tax: devolved hence Scottish Governments council tax freeze.

Resulting in a real term cut in funding for councils. Benefits the rich and penalizes the poor who are more likely to need council services such as social services

Prior to the freeze council tax increased 60% under the first two Scottish Parliament sessions (Labour) and if that were repeated it would equate to a £700 per household tax increase.
Non-domestic rates devolved resulting in rent relief for small business from the Scottish Government.
Stamp duties (limited): currently Westminster controlled but devolved via 2012 Scotland Act, should take effect in 2015.
Landfill tax: currently Westminster controlled but devolved via 2012 Scotland Act, should take effect in 2015.
Borrowing (currently Westminster only). Borrowing powers worth £5bn to be devolved as part of 2012. I'd be scared of more borrowing as the SNPs economic policy seems to be spend now and worry about it in the future.
Scotland Act. You can borrow but you can’t control your revenues. Great care is required here!
Note: Scottish specific tax rates will be collected by the Scottish tax office Revenue Scotland. So we will already have a tax collection system in place / under development, ready for independence.

Is this the tax collection system that Swinney announced that is massively expensive to set up?

Spending not devolved

There are also major areas of spending that are retained by Westminster and thus impact significantly on economic policy, such as:

Defence. No control over who we go to war with, and the Scottish defence force estimated to cost £1.5bn a year less than we currently pay just from Scotland.


Not quite true there is it. We'll always have that situation as we buy equipment in. You've failed to take into account the money we make from arms exports

International development
Financial and economic matters
Trade and industry
Social security (currently being cut)
Employment policy (will change significantly if UK votes to leave the EU)
Control of Government Borrowing, currently interest payments on the UK debt costs Scotland £4.1bn a year.
All independent countries in common markets or currency zones, have to agree to integrate some of the policies and market conditions that they operate under in order to make the market/zone work as an optimum solution. It does not mean they give up sovereignty as they can always decide to change their minds unlike Scotland today where we have given up 100% sovereignty to Westminster on these issues.

Not quite though, as we have a say in Westminster. You may have forgotten that we've supplied two of the last 3 PMs and Chancellors, so we have as much say as everybody else.

It could even be described as xenophobic to suggest that countries that enter into integrated common markets and or shared currency agreements are not truly independent.
No it's not. It's just a nationalist trying to spread poison.

Scotland by voting ‘Yes’ and staying within the EU (No guarantee on that )would be gaining at least twenty eight new financial and economic levers, and have control over some of our major expenditures, while trading the ability to set an interest rate in order to maintain a free common market and currency zone with the rest of the UK.

You've forgotten about us having to adopt the Euro if we get in and the ECB setting monetary policy on our behalf.
Conclusion

So Scotland as an independent country would have control over its economic and fiscal policy in the same way that other independent countries such as Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands etc enjoy, but would crucially maintain the correct-levels of interconnectedness and open trading with the rest of the home nations.

Germany controls Europes economic policy for their benefit through teh European Central Bank. You're claiming that 5 million out of 65 million can't be heard and you're argueing that 5 million in 350 million will somehow be better off?. Again. You seem to have forgotten about the PIIGS nations off your list. However let's see what the SNP say in private shall we as it differs somewhat to their public stance.

http://b.3cdn.net/better/c1d14076ee08022eec_u9m6vd74f.pdf



Of course I could have saved myself some research time and just summarised the responses I received from my friends from eurozone countries when I asked them if their countries were not truly independent – they basically all said, ‘don’t be bloody stupid!’.

I think you're telling porkie pies there. Support for the EU is at an all time low.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/394854/Support-for-the-EU-plunges-to-all-time-low-across-Europe

Apparently it’s not as complicated an issue as I thought. “Not really independent” the absurdity is in the proposition.

http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/economic-policy-in-an-independent-scotland/

Conservatives got 1/3rd of the votes in the whole of the UK, in Scotland they got about a 1/6th. So if you're left leaning it's pretty obvious why the politics of an independent Scotland would better suit you. There are plenty of things some of which you've touched on that'd I'd like to see improved.

You do realise that you don't have to adopt the Euro:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_and_the_euro

You can basically say you're committing to it to be part of the EU, and never actually introduce it - and given the current state of it, it'd might not even be an option after the two year minimum wait / other conditions.

I'm rather enjoying this Lamont/Salmond bash over GARL. For one, calling John McGlynn a 'respected' businessman is extremely amusing. I have no love for the Labour Party or SNP, and I thought GARL wasn't worth building, so aside from the waste of public money, there's not a lot for me to argue over.

Anyway, to the substance. When the land was acquired in by SPT, it was acting as an effectively as an agent - an authorised undertaker of the project - for Transport Scotland.

The Scottish Government spin is that, under treasury rules, they had to sell the land immediately when the project was abandoned. There is some degree of truth in that, but it is misdirection in the extreme. The Scottish Government could have, and should have, mothballed GARL with a review period in the distant future. No selling of land, and no cost to the taxpayer, and the option to resurrect the project in better economic times is there.

However, strategically, I suspect the SNP didn't want that. In fact, the last thing it would want is a Labour administration sweeping into power, building GARL after the SNP failed to do so, and reaping the rewards. It was essentially sabotaged for no good reason.

Would have been a more worthwhile project than the Edinburgh Trams fiasco.

This is true. I mean, one thing about GARL is that the railway runs right down the side of the bloody airport! I'm not sure how it manages to cost so much to implement.

That said, I still don't think there's a huge market for it when you can pay £10 and get a taxi into central Glasgow or get the bus link either to Paisley Gilmour St or into the city.



Well, I'm not sure what this has to do with much. John McGlynn is far from a landowner. He's a small businessman with an airport park and ride company.

Call me a banging-on-about-it old liberal, but I'm inclined to ask what the state is doing owning just over 10% of the land in Scotland. And I suspect that's a considerable underestimate given the number of arms-length public bodies and so forth. What possible justification is there for that?

To actually answer your question, huge swathes of land in Scotland are effectively useless. It's little wonder that it is owned in fairly large chunks. I'm presuming you want to see an element of land reform - well, perhaps there's some case for it, but I don't think we'll ever get away from large pieces being owned by relatively few people.

You have to admit buying land from someone for £840,000 and then selling it back to them for £50,000 does look a little dodgy? It elucidates a common problem with allowing individuals and companies the ability to own more land than they can possibly ever need solely for the purpose of speculation. The best way to eradicate this problem would be to tax rent seekers of all kinds heavily. We should reward productive behavior but punish its rent seeking ulterior.

Salmond has said that the Royal Mail sell off should be delayed until after the referendum as a national asset of the Scottish people should not be sold off without their approval. He said 8% and more of the Royal Mail belongs to the Scottish people.

Does he have a point?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-24100362

You could say that about everything the UK government does between now and the referendum. Whether or not selling Royal Mail is the right thing to do, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the UK government to sit on their hands until the referendum is over with.

Could an independent Scotland renationalise it if they want to? I don't know exactly how it works.

The best way to eradicate this problem would be to tax rent seekers of all kinds heavily.

Salmond has said that the Royal Mail sell off should be delayed until after the referendum as a national asset of the Scottish people should not be sold off without their approval. He said 8% and more of the Royal Mail belongs to the Scottish people.

Does he have a point?

Eh? The first effect of this would be to drive up rents paid by private tenants of all kinds, including the low-paid and students. Can you afford that?

The privitisation of the Royal Mail was rejected by Scottish MPs in the Scottish parliament.

True, although people in the Highlands and Islands will suffer far more from this privatisation

A respected national newspaper would be preferable to a nutcase with a blog, yeah. I think that's fairly obvious.

The man who authors Wings Over Scotland is a basement-dwelling bigot