THE publication of the 2019-20 GERS figures has brought forth the usual dismissal of them from independence supporters. That they are compiled by Scottish Government statisticians to the highest standards is, apparently, of no account. This is because the GERS shows Scotland to be in deficit, to the tune of £15.1 billion, an increase over 2018-19’s £13.1 billion. These figures take in only a couple of weeks of the Covid crisis. Finance Secretary Kate Forbes explains them in the standard SNP manner: Scotland does not possess "key powers over the economy" while a separate Scotland "would have the power to make different choices".
It is strange that SNP politicians do not explain what these choices would be – apart from dispensing with Trident, which costs Scots £0.2 billion a year, a sum that scarcely dents the deficit. Fortunately, HM Treasury has bailed Scotland out in this Covid crisis, so, while the 2020-21 figures will be excruciating, Scotland will survive, thanks to taxpayers in the southeast of England. Would anyone who can count support leaving the UK under these circumstances?
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh EH13.
THE publication of the latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue for Scotland) figures has triggered a now-traditional feeding frenzy.
A black hole in Scotland’s finances is heralded by unionist politicians as validating the continuation of their beloved Union.
The killer phrase for me from the GERS report is: “The report is designed to allow users to understand and analyse Scotland’s fiscal position under different scenarios within the current constitutional framework.”
GERS is therefore a measure of the public finances, under the current Union, hardly the greatest endorsement for how the economy has been managed on the UK’s watch.
Major economic levers required to stimulate economic growth are still currently reserved to Westminster.
It is indeed a bizarre scenario when politicians from unionist parties, who should be ashamed at the situation, actively gloat and support a Union that has mismanaged the economy so appallingly.
GERS is a set of figures, based on a measure of guesswork that indicate very little, except highlighting the negatives of the current Union. It has little bearing on the finances of an independent Scotland.
The point of independence is not to do everything in the same way as it has been done within the current constitutional framework, but to move away from this one-size-fits-all fiscal straitjacket to a tailored approach that prioritises stimulating economic growth.
Alex Orr, Edinburgh EH9.
TODAY the annual GERS numbers have been revealed and no doubt there will be the usual bunfight about their relevance to the constitutional debate. If I might take a different tack: the SNP administration is to be congratulated on its determination to publish these figures annually. Not every political party would persist in publishing economic data which has the potential to destroy its raison d'etre.
In a sea of misinformation and spin, GERS stands out as a beacon of truth and accuracy. When we are told that Scotland is doing so much better than the rest of the country on Covid-19 deaths, but the statistics show different, we still have GERS to restore our faith in objective facts. When the first serious outbreak of Covid-19 in the country is in Edinburgh but the First Minister forgets to tell us about it, we have GERS to remind us that some uncomfortable truths can still make in into the public domain. When we are told that ministers have no say in infectious patients being discharged into care homes but official letters show different, when the Education Secretary endorses an equation that seriously disadvantages working class pupils, and when the same Education Secretary does a u-turn on his equation and claims that makes it all right, when Cabinet Secretaries deny that fiscal transfers happen while demanding the continuation of the UK furlough scheme, when the First Minister says we have extra Covid testing capacity but people from Glasgow are told to go to Belfast for a test, GERS is an important truth that we can hold to, a shining light in a murky forest of obfuscation and incompetence. And when we have a succession of Finance Secretaries whose economic qualifications seem to be the possession of the requisite numbers of fingers and toes, it's nice to know that some competent people are actually keeping the score.
So, when we are told that independence transcends everything and that all routes through independence would lead to a prosperous sunny upland, the SNP's own GERS publication is there to remind us, and it if it has the wit and honesty to admit it, that such a view is the acme of economic illiteracy and, in the wise words of a prominent nationalist politician, stupidity on stilts.
Alex Gallagher, Labour Councillor, North Ayrshire Council, Largs.
THANK you, Iain Macwhirter, now we have an article on independence that is relatively neutral in tone ("Neil is right: the independence case will have to be rewritten", The Herald. I have argued for some years that Scotland should join EFTA and trade through the EEA, rather than join the EU directly. Of course independence will reset the border with England, but it works both ways: England does huge commercial trade with Scotland (much larger than with Ireland); receives a large tranche of its electricity and gas from us, so would be daft to restrict trade on political grounds. A new trading arrangement should be “the easiest in history” to reach.
Sharing a currency with a country whose economy (and philosophy) is diverging from your own cannot work. All new countries, like the Czech Republic and Slovakia, adopt new currencies almost immediately, and that is what Scotland should aim for. It is ridiculous (and disgraceful) that we have no clear break-down of Scotland’s economy, revenues, GDP, expenditure, perhaps only months away from independence, because the UK government will not direct the civil service to provide this information. No serious economist would trust GERS to provide other than the vaguest guestimate of our fiscal position post-Union. A lot will depend on the nature of the dissolution and the subsequent allocation of assets. Funnily enough, that is something unionist politicians/commentators don’t ever like to talk about. If independence is a serious proposition, then it behoves the media to start asking questions of both sides.
GR Weir, Ochiltree.
ALAN Fitzpatrick (Letters, August 26) clings desperately to the "once in a generation" anthem and wonders if statements in the Scotland's People publication "could be construed as amounting to a verbal contract with the electorate". Mr Fitzpatrick's memory appears to be selective as he makes no mention of the infamous "Vow" to which all three unionist party leaders signed up and promptly forgot about; and as for Mr Fitzpatrick's comment regarding the old saying that "an Englishman's word is his bond", the word was that Scotland's position in the EU could only be guaranteed by voting No to independence, and the bond was broken at the EU referendum; so much for that "verbal contract".
I would remind Mr Fitzpatrick that the SNP's 2016 manifesto stated that there would not be a second independence referendum, unless there was "a significant and material change of circumstances, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will". As the voters returned the SNP to power on that manifesto, that could be viewed as a written contract with the electorate.
Ruth Marr, Stirling.
Read more: GERS Report: What is it and what does it mean for independence?
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