Election 2019 (with Prediction Poll)

Not really sure that the Whisky industry will provide enough tax. Have you any figures to back this up?
The SNP/Scottish Government seem to have a ‘strange’ ethical position in respect of Fossil Fuels! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48489434
Personally think it is good that Scotland has lots of green energy, but as I understand it they have not reached a stage whereby they can generate enough power to meet Scotlands energy needs.

 

Let's just put the scale of the whisky industry in context. It exports about £5bill of the golden liquid around the world. And while that isn't to be sniffed at (ha ha haa!), the total size of Scotland's economy (GDP) is a little over £150bill. There are far bigger exporters from Scotland in financial services, insurance, banking, gas & oil etc than the whisky sector.

The other way to look at it is from a Govt's perspective. A modern, western social democracy such as we see in most of northern europe providing the kind of services its electorate expects (education, health services, welfare provision, defence, transport infrastructure etc etc) needs to have a total tax take of around 40% of its GDP to pay for these services. In Scotland's case, if you do the simple sums, that would mean a tax take from all sources of around £60bill. Even if the total tax take was the entirety of the whisky exports (and it isn't since it does have some costs to meet!), that's still a huge difference to make up from the rest of Scotland's economy.

Focusing simply on Scotland's whicky industry reflects a very outlook on Scotland's future.

 

It's a debatable point. Applying international standards, Scotland normally runs a budget deficit and would have to take on debt to pay for the deficit. But probably not the scale proportionately as the UK.

But Scotland's deficit masks two issues. Firstly the UK Govt gives Scotland a significant mount every year to pay for some services and help it balance its budget. Secondly and more importantly, the tax take from the North Sea oil and gas fields goes to the UK treasury and not Scotland's. Depending how the line in the North Sea is drawn, most if not all of the oil & gas fields should be in Scotland's jurisdiction, not England's. Alex Salmond banged on about this for years but got nowhere with it other than for the UK agreeing to pay an amount to Scotland for it to balance its budget (see issue 1!).

If Scotland is to have a future standing on its own two legs and probably attempt to stay in the single market or the customs union or even fully in the EU, it won't be the whisky sector sector which is the determining factor. It wouldn't even be the how the oil & gas fields are split up. Imo it will be getting those foreign-owned financial institutions currently in London to move to Edinburgh, say, rather than Frankfurt, Dublin or Amsterdam. And that would be a whole different debate.