The Economic Implications for the United Kingdom of Scottish Independence

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I would also like to thank our chairman, Lord MacGregor, for shepherding the committee so successfully through this review. As we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, some committee members held strong and well known positions on the merits of Scottish independence. Others were neutral or undecided. All of us shared the desire to make sure that the Scottish electorate are as well informed as possible on the key economic issues before they vote.

The main question for many voters is whether or not the Scottish economy will perform better as an independent nation, rather than as part of the United Kingdom: a simple question with no certain answer. The committee’s report identifies and sets out a number of crucial long-term issues, such as the choice of currency, the regulatory framework and the fiscal position and a range of transitional challenges. However, in the absence of detailed negotiations between the Governments in London and Scotland or a clear statement on red lines by both Governments, the outcome on all these matters remains, sadly, uncertain, which is far from ideal.

As the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, said, the Scottish Chamber of Commerce called yesterday, on the basis of a poll of 800 companies, for detailed discussion to fill in these information gaps. Its members complained that they do not know enough to take a view on the implications of independence for their businesses. Both Governments need to heed the demand for more and more detailed information if the referendum is to be more than a noisy beauty parade. A position paper setting out the UK Government’s approach to the division of assets and liabilities, the division of the tax base and of long-term oil decommissioning costs and pension liabilities is essential to any meaningful analysis of an independent Scotland’s fiscal position.

The position papers published to date have been most helpful. Can the Minister give the House details of the further position papers to be published by the UK Government before the referendum? For their part, the Scottish Government must set out their views on these issues in their promised White Paper and respond to the clear message from the Treasury that the Bank of England would have no power to act in or for an independent Scotland. The problems that we have seen in the European Union, where you have a monetary union without a fiscal union, are evidence of the need to have a union around both issues. The Scottish Government also need to respond to the president of the European Commission’s view that an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership of the EU, an issue which they have tried to skirt round. Clarity and candour on these issues is essential if the referendum is to be more than voting for a leap in the dark.

The IFS and other witnesses were in general agreement that, assuming that the split of assets and liabilities was in line with its share of the population and that 90% of oil and gas revenues accrued to Scotland, an independent Scotland would, at the outset, take its place alongside countries of a similar size, such as Denmark and Finland, as a prosperous, stand-alone country. To reach that position, however, some very difficult challenges must be addressed both during the transition and in the longer term. Based on 2012 figures, Scotland would assume a public sector debt of £93 billion, rising to £185 billion when pension liabilities, PFI liabilities and other liabilities are included. This is equivalent to 123% of GDP. Transferring the debt to Scotland in today’s challenging sovereign debt markets would be complex and fraught with enormous difficulty. There is also the continuing need to finance the annual fiscal deficit of some £18 billion. The Scottish Government must set out their detailed plans to manage this transition and to fund this level of debt in these markets.

Upon independence, Scotland would be swapping the known and, by reference to population size, somewhat generous transfer under the Barnett formula for general tax receipts, which have not yet been separately quantified, and the significant and important receipts from oil and gas production. Professor John Kay pointed out that, by their nature, oil revenues are unstable whereas transfers under the Barnett formula are relatively secured. Professor Kemp pointed out that oil and gas tax receipts were vulnerable not only to prices and depletion but to the gearing effect of price and investment levels on production, so that a sustained rise in prices will lead to increased production of oil, whereas the reverse is true if prices decline.

This uncertainty of income stands in contrast to the certainty of expenditure. Scotland, with free care and free tuition, already bestows a generous level of expenditure on its citizens—a generosity which will be compounded by having a faster rise than the rest of the UK in the share of over-65 year-olds relative to the workforce. The interplay of these factors leads to a higher risk of serious fiscal imbalance. What upsides does an independent Scottish economy have to offer to compete with these downside risks? Will the Scottish economy perform better if there is a greater degree of autonomy? First Minister Salmond and Mr Swinney believe so. Scotland, they say, would not have followed the Chancellor’s policy of cutting back on public investment and infrastructure and would have had the flexibility, subject to convincing the bond markets of course, to increase investment allowances to promote private sector investment and achieve a rebalancing of the economy.

These are of course policies which many in this House have consistently advocated over the past two and a half years. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, has written persuasively about the benefits of handing responsibility for growth, investment, skills and business formation from Whitehall to the regions. He cited many examples of successful local and regional growth initiatives in and within other countries, but Scotland has many of these powers already and has chosen not to use some of them. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, all the nations and regions of the UK are likely to have more powers devolved to them.

The Scottish Government need to address the concerns of Scottish business. Uncertainty is no friend of business or inward investors. The refusal of many Scottish businesses to give evidence was indeed disappointing. Those companies we met were, as noble Lords have said, insistent that Scotland remains part of the EU. Ironically, the UK Prime Minister’s in-out referendum might have handed a buttress to the SNP campaign for independence. RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton was clear about the importance of the single market to Scotland’s important financial services sector. An ebullient Rupert Soames, CEO of Aggreko, who has been referred to, pointed out that although his HQ was in Scotland less than 10% of its business was there, and that if Aggreko is to continue to thrive it needs a single market and the benefit of an EU trade agreement. Mr Soames went on to say that the beneficial impact of independence on his business would be small, tenuous and unlikely to arise, whereas the disadvantages could be large, serious and very likely to arise.

An independent Scotland’s decision to expel the Trident nuclear fleet from Faslane within days of independence would place a large question mark over the future of some 10,000 jobs, many of them highly skilled. When he gave evidence, Mr Swinney was vague to the point of complacency about the plans to replace those jobs and redeploy the skills. Other witnesses suggested that job losses among service, civilian and defence manufacturing personnel could amount to an additional 30,000. We had the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord West, to help us on this. The surprising reluctance of the MoD to give evidence deprived us of the opportunity to hear its assessment of the estimated job losses among military and civilian personnel if the policies of the Scottish Government were implemented. Can the Minister tell the House the UK Government’s estimate of the likely level of job losses in the defence and related sectors?

There is no easy answer to the question, “Will an independent Scotland be more prosperous?”. Will it, at one extreme, be a huge hedge fund, heavily exposed to the volatile oil and financial sectors while burdened with a growing public sector deficit and unfunded pension and decommissioning liabilities? Or will it, at the other, become a munificent tiger economy like some of its Nordic neighbours? Unless and until the Scottish and UK Governments set out their positions clearly and address the questions set out in the report, the Scottish electorate can only guess at the answer.