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Scotland’s Place in the UK

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. On day one of independence, were Scots to vote for it, the rest of the United Kingdom would remain within the European Union but Scotland would not, so it clearly would not benefit from the EU single market, to the great detriment of Scottish business and Scotland overall.

Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Welcome, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is great to see a Scot in the Chair this afternoon. [Interruption.] And a woman, my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) reminds me.

In addition to the shared opportunities, the pooling of resources across the UK allows risk as well as reward to be spread, as seen most notably in the bail-out of the Scottish-based banks during the financial crisis, when the UK, led by a Scot, injected an amount of capital into the banks well in excess of the Scottish Government’s total budget. The pooling of resources also allows for distribution on the basis of social need across the welfare state. Were Scotland outwith the UK, that would place a major question mark over its ability to continue to fund benefits at current levels and to meet state and public sector pension commitments.

Of course, Scotland has its own devolved Parliament, with significantly more powers to come as a result of the Calman commission and the Scotland Act 2012. It can therefore be argued that Scotland has the best of both worlds: local decision making, but under the financial umbrella of the UK Barnett formula, giving Scots more funding per capita than anywhere else in the UK.