Scottish Independence
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What are the headline topics introduced at the start of the More or Less episode?
Thanks for downloading the More or Less podcast from BBC Radio 4. Here's Tim Harford.
Hello and welcome to More or Less, the programme that examines the numbers in the news and in life. Later, we'll examine claims that mobile phones cause cancer.
They're not in the Cigarettes League. I mean, they just can't be all we know.
That much might seem obvious, but it's not stopped some pretty scary headlines recently. And we'll tell you why those headlines are wrong. We'll also ask whether this man is statistically the greatest sportsman around.
Tendulkar, 35 not out, so the stage really is set for him to score this elusive 100, which would be his 100th international century.
But first, back in May, the Scottish National Party won a dramatic victory at the polls in the Scottish elections and promised to hold a referendum on independence in the next five years. Listeners have already been in touch with us for help in getting their facts straight. Are the English subsidising the Scots? Just how big a deal would North Sea Oil be in any break-up of the Union? And would an independent Scotland have gone bust bailing out the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS? Let's start with the question of whether Scotland is subsidised by the rest of the UK. Neil McClure dropped us a line, hello Neil, to say he suspects the per head statistic usually trotted out to back up this claim is misleading because London skews the figures for the rest of the UK.
He says that's because the capital city naturally generates more wealth, pays more taxes and hosts big events such as the Olympics enjoyed by the rest of the country. And he wonders whether leaving London out from this calculation might give a fairer picture. Well, Neil, I'm not entirely sure that's right. After all, if the Scots do decide to leave, I don't think they get to take London with them. But we can certainly try to answer the question, and there is a way of comparing spending across the UK, and including London, which does compare like with like. The Treasury's total identifiable expenditure on services figures give us an idea of where public money is spent, broken down by region. It's not the entire government budget, but it's most of it, about 80%, and it does allow us to compare how much is spent per head in Scotland with the rest of the UK.
Average identifiable spending was £8,770 per person in the UK in 2009-2010. Scotland received over £1,000 more than the UK average, with £9,940 per person. England got £8,530 per head. That's about £250 less than the UK average. And without London, England's average would have been more like £500 less. London gets £10,200 per head. And that's because it does very well in terms of spending on transport, such as crossrail and public order. One justification for higher spending per head in Scotland is that there are higher costs of providing public services in rural areas, and Scotland has quite a few of those. So that brings higher transport, health and education costs, amongst other things. Other people can argue about whether this is fair.
The point is, if Scotland goes alone, it'll have to find the money to fund this spending or make cutbacks. And that brings us to the other side of the equation. Revenue. How much revenue is raised from the Scots rather than the rest of the UK? More or less is Phil Kemp has been looking into this. Yes, 8.4% of the UK population lives in Scotland, so we can use that as our benchmark. The Scottish Government publishes data on revenue and calculates that last year the Scots underpaid on income tax, just 7.4% of the UK total. but overpaid on corporation tax, VAT and other revenue sources. Add it all up and you get 8.3% of UK revenue from 8.4% of the UK population. A subsidy to the Scots, but a small one.
When you say add it all up, are you including the oil money? I was going to come to that. No. Now, Scottish advocates claim that Scotland pays more than its fair share through oil and gas revenues from the North Sea. Is that true? Before we begin, all the figures you're about to hear are based on the official Scottish government view of how much oil revenue Scotland is due.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What are the headline topics introduced at the start of the More or Less episode?
0:00–4:55
2
How much more public spending per head does Scotland receive compared with the UK average?
4:55–5:12
3
Does London skew UK per‑head comparisons when asking if England subsidises Scotland?
5:12–15:50
4
How much revenue does Scotland raise and how does North Sea oil affect the fiscal balance?
15:50–27:58