The SNP’s plan to scrap the Barnett formula and replace it with oil revenues would impose austerity-max on Scotland. 

New figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) alongside the Budget confirm that oil revenue fell by 44% in the last year. The OBR predicts that revenue will fall further to £600m by 2016-17.

These figures also confirm that the SNP’s predictions for oil and gas revenue are significantly higher than those from the OBR.

Scottish Labour said the figures expose the “devastating consequences” for Scotland of the SNP’s General Election plan for full fiscal autonomy -; which would see the scrapping of the Barnett formula, estimated to be worth more than £6.5 billion annually in the coming years, and a reliance on volatile and declining oil revenues.

Analysis by the experts at the Scottish Parliament last week confirmed that cutting public spending in Scotland by £6.5 billion would cost 138,000 jobs and slash the NHS budget by over £2 billion.

Post Budget Round-Up

• George Osborne spent an hour telling people they are better off and have never had it so good. But working people are £1,600 a year worse off after five years of the Tories. 
• The OBR says these Budget plans will mean “a much sharper squeeze on real spending in 2016/17 and 2017/18 than anything seen over the past five years” and “a sharp acceleration in the pace of implied real cuts to day-to-day spending on public services”.
• So the election remains a choice between a Tory plan which is failing working families and Labour’s better plan which will put working families first and save our NHS. 
• The Tories give with one hand, but they have taken away much more with the other hand. 
• The IFS says tax and benefit changes since 2010 -; like the big Tory VAT rise -; have left families on average over £1,100 a year worse off. 
• So overall working people are much worse off because of what this Chancellor has done, while millionaires have been given a huge tax cut.

George Osborne has shuffled around the numbers, but he is still planning extreme spending cuts after the election which go way beyond balancing the book