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THE Scottish National Party and pro-union campaign Better Together ramped up their feud about economic prospects for an independent Scotland over the weekend.
Holyrood's finance committee convener, the SNP’s Kenneth Gibson, claimed yesterday that Scottish wealth per head was over £2,300 higher than in Britain as a whole.
Meanwhile, Better Together campaign chairman Alistair Darling argued that independence could cost Scotland’s economy £8 billion and jeopardise thousands of jobs.
Mr Gibson said that a new SNP analysis of statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) “underlines how wealthy a country Scotland is.”
OECD figures show that Scotland’s gross domestic product (GDP) per head, including a geographic share of British oil, is around £23,300.
According to the SNP this would make Scotland the 14th-richest country in the OECD — with GDP per head around £1,600 higher than France, £2,500 higher than Japan and around £3,200 higher than Italy.
“The opportunity that a Yes vote brings is the chance to use that wealth so that it benefits people across Scotland, instead of propping up Treasury balance sheets to waste on things like Trident,” said Mr Gibson.
But Mr Darling believes businesses in Scotland could suffer if they are cut off from Britain’s single market by a Yes vote.
“The access to the single market of 63 million people in the UK rather than just 5 million in Scotland is good for Scottish jobs,” he said.
Research on the so-called “border effect” shows that 247,000 Scottish jobs are dependent on cross-border trade with the rest of Britain, Mr Darling added.
A new poll published in the Sunday Times yesterday revealed that about one in six people would consider moving away from Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
The Panelbase survey found that 17 per cent of adults — or about 700,000 people — would think about leaving after independence.
In contrast, 5 per cent — about 200,000 voters — said they would consider emigrating after a No vote, with 73 per cent saying they plan to stay regardless of the outcome.
