Oral Answers to Questions

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Moore]

I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that these are structural problems that have persisted for a very long time, including when his party’s Government were in power. I share his desire to ensure that low-wage economies, particularly in rural areas, get the support they need. The very heart of our economic policy is to rebalance the country as a whole and move from the rescue to recovery phase. As we do that, the measures we are taking to support the economy as a whole by keeping interest rates and corporation tax down and investing in infrastructure will help rural and urban Scotland alike.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

3. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues and Ministers of the Scottish Government on the continued use of sterling in a separate Scotland.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Michael Moore)]

Earlier this year, as part of the Scotland analysis programme, we published a paper on currency issues that makes the strong case for Scotland staying in the United Kingdom. There have been no discussions with the Scottish Government about the use of sterling by an independent Scotland.

[Anas Sarwar]

Does the Secretary of State recognise the democratic deficit that is on offer whereby under nationalist plans Scotland would keep the pound but the rest of the UK would still set our interest rates, our borrowing limits and our spending limits, while at the same time we would lose our influence and our representation? Does he agree that that is not more or less independence, but worse independence?

[Michael Moore]

The hon. Gentleman puts the points very neatly. People do not need to rely on his words or mine; they can listen to experts such as the Cuthberts, who said this week that they would like an independent Scotland to have its own currency and that to stay part of a currency union is no independence. Similarly, Brian Quinn, the highly respected former deputy governor of the Bank of England, observed in his recent report that the idea of a currency union is to replicate all the problems of the eurozone. The nationalists fail to answer all the points from both sides of the argument.