Jackie Baillie MSP The official website of Scottish Labour Deputy Leader, Jackie Baillie MSP.
When the oil sums don’t add up the SNP just make them up, Scottish Labour said today.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Kezia Dugdale said the SNP’s economic credibility is in tatters after experts ripped apart their key General Election demands.
Scottish Labour today published a new paper exposing the truth about the SNP’s plans for full fiscal autonomy within the UK, which would see the scrapping of the block grant to be replaced by over-reliance on volatile and plummeting oil revenues.
The paper showed:
– The SNP Government published an economic analysis which claims to show how full fiscal autonomy within the UK would work -; but failed to account for the money Scotland would lose by scrapping the block grant, which is determined by the Barnett formula;
– The impartial experts at the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) have said the Scottish Government’s analysis of full fiscal autonomy -; which means what we spend in Scotland we raise in Scotland -; doesn’t appear to take into account that the economy would start from a different point. So either the SNP Government has included Barnett or failed to explain what spending cuts, tax rises or extra borrowing would be needed;
– Professor Brian Ashcroft of the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde described the SNP Government’s analysis as “partial at best and dishonest at worst.”
Last week the First Minister admitted that she had got her oil figures wrong and would publish an updated Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin. However, in a letter to Kezia Dugdale the First Minister failed to commit to publishing this before the General Election.
Scottish Labour’s Deputy Leader Kezia Dugdale said:
“The SNP Government’s analysis told Scots that although their General Election policy for full fiscal autonomy within the UK means what we spend in Scotland we raise in Scotland, we can still benefit from the higher public spending that comes from the block grant. That’s just not true.
“The SNP’s economic credibility is in tatters. We have an economic paper torn to shreds by the experts, a General Election plan based on fiddled figures and oil numbers Nicola Sturgeon is hiding from the Scottish people.
“It’s clear that when the numbers don’t add up, the First Minister just makes them up anyway.”