Subsidies: Scotland depends upon subsidies from the UK to run our economy. A recent study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) think tank, based on official tax and spending figures, concludes that Scotlands North Sea oil and gas revenues, with other taxes, means it gets no net subsidy from the rest of the UK. And this is based upon shonky Westminster figures, which allocate a notional share of UK national expenditure to Scotland even though the money is actually spent in the South East of England. So were paying for just under 10% of the bloody Olympics. But if, like me, your eyes glaze over when you hear talk of balance sheets, budgets and the Barnett Formula, just consider that Westminster could very easily make it clear exactly how much Scotland puts into the Union, and exactly how much we get back in return. After all, its Westminster which collects all the money and allocates where it goes. We can assume they know who pays what and who gets what. If Scotland was indeed hopelessly dependent on UK handouts, Westminster would publish all the figures in glorious technicolour and upload videos to YouTube, and there would be a 10 part BBC documentary all about them. This would pretty much kill the independence debate stone dead, as Scots would be able to quantify those so-called Union benefits in precise detail. But instead finding out how much Scotland pays into the Union and how much we get back takes a crack squad of industrial strength accountants on amphetamines. So its a safe bet that were not dependent on subsidies from Westminster after all.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:59:01 +0000
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