Independence?

scotsbob

grumswifie wrote: »

Oil is not going to last forever folks....

Too true.
Then England is going to be really stuffed and they need £20,000,000,000 to replace Trident.

Good time to get rid of them, before they come round with the begging bowl.

jj_5

Big_Graeme wrote: »

I don't see the loss of jobs and a community dying as anything to laugh at, the SNP may be fine killing off Rosyth and the last yards on the Clyde, I'm sure those with their livelihoods on the line may think differently.

Are they unable to find new jobs? Is it morally acceptable for us to have a nuclear weapon on our land?

Should we stop encouraging people to stop smoking too because the tobacco industry employs X thousand people?

jj_5

grumswifie wrote: »

Oil is not going to last forever folks....

Renewable energy does, we have a 1/4 of Europes wind and tidal potential on our land.

jj_5

And how much will that put on the average electricity bill? If energy companies want to invest in the future then they should use the investment markets rather than expect consumers to foot the bill. Also there will be no proceeds to spend, renewables are subsided quite heavily, we are lining the pockets of SSE and the like.

I'm no expert in this area but has it not been UK government policy to allow energy companies to add these premiums to energy bills? In an independent Scotland we wouldn't need to do so.

jj_5

Money which has reduced taxes, built schools and hospitals and paid for plenty, if you think we'd be debt free after independence you are deluded.

We certainly wouldn't be £1.3 trillion in debt, a figure which seems to grow with every Westminster Government we get.

We'd be in debt, but with Scottish politicians in charge of removing that debt.

jj_5

The Scottish parliament has the powers and the money to reverse the impact of the bedroom tax, it failed to do anything about it apart from Sturgeon bumping her gums.

Yes Holyrood was given extra powers to mitigate the bedroom tax and I believe they used these powers.

However as this story explains: "Holyrood will not receive any extra resources from London and will have to fund any changes from it's own budget" http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/02/holyrood-power-end-bedroom-tax-scotland

So we paid for it anyway.

91% of Scottish MP's voted against the bedroom tax. but we got it anyway

doe808

jj_5 wrote: »

We certainly wouldn't be £1.3 trillion in debt, a figure which seems to grow with every Westminster Government we get.

We'd be in debt, but with Scottish politicians in charge of removing that debt.

Two questions, if I may?

How much debt do we get if we break away? and
What is the plan for servicing that debt?

jj_5

doe808 wrote: »

Two questions, if I may?

How much debt do we get if we break away? and
What is the plan for servicing that debt?

If it is split on a population basis, we will recieve 8.4% of the UK debt, which puts our debt to GDP ratio at 86%. The UK's current debt to GDP ratio is 90.6%, so from the get-go we would be in slightly less debt.

If we split the debt on a 'historic' basis, (Scottish Govts preferred option, for obvious reasons) the debt to GDP ratio falls further to 64%

Source for this was the National Institute of Social and Economic Research:

http://niesr.ac.uk/blog/scottish-independence-and-uks-debt-burden#.U3S9Q-29Kc0

On servicing it, That's up to the politicians we elect after the vote and what their views are on the best way to service it.

doe808

Thanks for this. Going to do some reading on this over the weekend.

Cheers. d

Big_Graeme

jj_5 wrote: »

I'm no expert in this area but has it not been UK government policy to allow energy companies to add these premiums to energy bills? In an independent Scotland we wouldn't need to do so.

Erm, you are obviously no expert. Scotland alone can't force the energy companies to raise the investment, its going to be hikes in bills or cut to investment. Or are we going to spend the oil money on this?