Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Speech
Perhaps my gratitude tonight should be reserved for those of you who have forked out £1000 a table –
On my calculations that works out at around £1 a word. So if you wonder why I talk rather quickly – it is only because I value your money.
Ladies and gentlemen, Scotland is also picking up the pace. Our biggest economic problem in the last half century – unemployment and jobs – is no longer a problem.
More Scots are in work today than ever before.
Scotland is second top in the European employment league.
And a century of Scottish population decline is now being reversed.
Today investment in research and development is growing more strongly in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.
And even that traditional Scottish drag anchor – overall growth – is now accelerating.
Forget the last 30 years – in the last decade Scotland has outperformed its long-run average growth rate for 8 of those 10 years. And that means internationally Scotland has been catching up.
Growth in Scottish standards of living has outpaced both the average for all OECD countries and the average for EU15 countries.
All evidence I would argue, of Scotland picking up the pace.
And it is a track record delivered by choice not chance, built upon the strength and stability of the whole UK economy.
Of course Scotland can, and should, do even better
But be under no illusions in the current political debate we must recognise that there is a lot to lose.
The onus tonight is on those who want to trade –
- certainty for risk,
- stability for instability,
building up Scotland for breaking up Britain
The downsides are all too clear and the promised upside is a bet on declining oil revenues and a corporation tax cut that Europe could block.
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Scotland has a choice in May – a choice between maintaining its new momentum, putting its foot on the accelerator or putting its foot on the brake.
And while no true nationalist really cares if independence is a brake on the economy – for the rest of us the price of “freedom” really matters. Because it is a price which we the people and businesses of Scotland will ultimately pay –
So
- How do you - Scotland’s wealth creators feel?
When Newsnight polled Scotland’s top 25 companies, not one, was willing to support the concept of independence –
That’s the stark reality – regardless of the occasional SNP sympathiser quoted in the media
- What about Scotland’s balance sheet? The overwhelming official, expert and academic consensus is that an independent Scotland would inherit, on day one, a non oil fiscal gap of £11b – a gap which oil would not have filled in any of the last 15 years.
Not only is independence a risky business – it’s an expensive one too.
Yet the SNP refuse to put a price on any additional capital or running costs.
Think about that – no cost at all from the loss of economies of scale of the UK – that is what the people of Scotland are being asked to believe.
And finally to Scotland’s star economic sector, the one more responsible for our improving fortunes than any other, - financial services.
Financial services have two defining characteristics. It conducts 90% of its business in the rest of the UK. And it is instantly mobile and highly sensitive to risk.
These are the facts:
: Not only are our leading companies opposed to independence, but we would inherit a significant fiscal gap.
Simultaneously we are asked to believe independence would cost nothing and have no effect on our key economic sector which is highly risk sensitive.
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Faced with these uncomfortable realities the SNP typically offer “argument by analogy”.
“Look at Ireland, Norway Iceland”. They say.
But consider the logic of this argument. Think of your own company.
Simply reeling off the names of your successful competitors does not make your own company successful. And similarly reeling off a list of other nations does not make Scotland successful.
Scotland needs its own strategy for success.
The keys to Scotland’s future are not fish processing (Iceland), oil (Norway – it has more than 3 times our receipts) catching up, a third population growth and EU aid and EU sanctioned tax breaks (Ireland).
Scotland’s future success depends upon greater openness, improved competition and more flexibility.
And all of these are under threat with the SNP.
Greater openness, would be jeopardised by
Cutting your domestic market to a tenth of its current size,
- By using a different currency to your main market,
And by enforcing two regulators where currently there is only one
Improved competition would be jeopardised by cancelling new public private partnerships, opposing planning reform, opposing EARL, opposing Edinburgh’s trams, and advocating a local income tax – with 32 new local income tax rates.
More flexibility would be jeopardised by a raft of spendthrift promises to every pensioner, student, council taxpayer and first time buyer – sprayed like confetti –
And we would pick up the tab for those promises. Championed week in, week out by the SNP in the Scottish Parliament chamber.
Promises need to be paid for ladies and gentlemen.
So next time you come across a Nationalist “bearing gifts” and telling Scots they can have both a low Irish tax burden and a high cost Scandinavian public services – ask to see the fine print.
No amount of rhetoric can remove the risks associated with breaking up Britain.
Ending the world’s oldest single market, setting up a new state, changing the currency arrangements and cutting your home market - would result in all of us taking our eye off the global ball. Therein lies the risk.
Scotland’s top economic priority should be learning and skills, -
Turning us once again into the best-educated nation and continuing to build a school a week.
Investing in the missing infrastructure that daily holds us back
Reducing the regulatory burden rather than replicating and increasing it by creating 2 estates.
Investing in our star sectors like financial services, life sciences and energy all deeply integrated into the UK market.
And finally investing in our star city – Edinburgh, whose success is built upon its relationship with the City of London, itself the world’s most successful international financial centre.
These are the keys to future Scottish success
Yes it is time to move further - faster.
Ours is the generation to build up Scotland, not to break up Britain.
