Chamber and committees

As set out in Scotland’s Future, the apportionment of the UK national debt will be negotiated and agreed as part of the overall settlement on assets and liabilities.

The Scottish Government has no involvement in monetary policy which is formally reserved to the UK Government. The Bank of England sets monetary policy for the UK as a whole and is operationally independent from government.

Post-independence, the Bank of England would remain operationally independent and be accountable to both Scotland and the rest of the UK through a shareholder agreement under our proposals. Monetary policy would be set according to the economic conditions across the entire sterling area.

Under the current constitutional framework the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament only have limited control over fiscal policy. The Scottish budget is set by UK Government and key expenditures such as welfare, defence, and energy are controlled outside Scotland.

The Scottish Parliament is only responsible for around 8 per cent of taxes raised in Scotland when including a geographical share of North Sea revenues. With the new tax powers of the Scotland Act 2012 this figure will only increase to around 16 per cent.

With independence, Scotland will have full control over fiscal policy, with full powers on taxes, spending and borrowing, along with the other economic policy levers needed to grow the economy and create a fairer society.

Funding for research invested in Scotland’s higher education institutions is drawn from a range of sources in the public, private and charitable sectors.

In 2012-13 (most recent figures available), the Scottish Funding Council invested £330 million in research activity in Scotland. Research Councils UK invested a further £242 million in Scottish institutions in the same year.

Funding in 2012-13 from other UK public bodies, including those based in Scotland, amounted to £102 million. It is estimated that UK private funders and charities, including those based in Scotland, invested a further £168 million.

With the exception of the public funding awarded by the Scottish Funding Council and Research Councils UK, it is not possible to disaggregate exact amounts awarded to Scottish higher education institutions by bodies based in Scotland, from investment by those bodies based in the rest of the UK.

Scotland’s Future highlights that investment in research and development (R&D) activity is a key component of supporting innovation and economic performance. In an independent Scotland there will therefore be a strong focus on innovation and R&D for the benefit of the whole Scottish economy, including the science and engineering sectors.

The £450,000 budget for public information activity that I announced in Parliament on November 26 2013 is being used to ensure that people in Scotland can access the information they need to make an informed choice on 18 September 2014. Details of spend within this budget for 2013-14 will be published when expenditure for this financial year is finalised.

We are undertaking a range of activity to ensure that people in Scotland can access the information they need to make an informed choice on 18 September. Public demand for Scotland’s Future has been high and on 11 March 2014, I confirmed that over 100,000 copies had been ordered in digital format and in hard copy. The Scottish Government’s public information activity included press and billboard advertisements, a postcard drop to all households in Scotland and social media activity.

We want to make sure that the public are as well informed as possible about the content of Scotland’s Future and the huge opportunities offered by independence. To facilitate this, the Scottish Government has organised a full programme of public engagement events.

This programme is ongoing and I will update parliament on costs when expenditure for 2013-14 is finalised.

The Scottish Government is holding a programme of activity to inform the people of Scotland about Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland and to debate and discuss the issues in the referendum with the public. This programme includes meetings of the Scottish Cabinet, speeches and public meetings. At 1 April 2014 Scottish Ministers had attended 23 events across Scotland.

Scottish Ministers will continue to host public engagement events across Scotland in the coming months. These will be planned to cover a broad geographical spread to enable as many people as possible from all parts of the country to attend.

The Scottish Government’s white paper for independence, Scotland’s Future, sets out in detail how we would go about addressing the gender gap in Scotland if we had the powers available to us to do so. This includes:

Introducing a transformational change to our childcare system;

Progressing our work to ensure that women make up at least 40 per cent of the members of company and public boards, backed by legislation if necessary;

Consulting on views about whether quotas that ensure a minimum of 40 per cent of women’s representation should be introduced, and if so should they be extended to corporate boards and third sector organisations. The consultation will commence in April 2014;

The establishment of a fair work commission with a remit to ensure that the minimum wage rises at least in line with inflation; and a convention on employment and labour relations to examine issues such as how to extend the living wage;

Seeking to support and improve, not undermine our system of social security.

As well as these significant new interventions that would now be open to us, we would continue our existing policies of ensuring that public sector pay is fair and non-discriminatory and that all public bodies covered by this policy review their pay systems annually.

We would also continue our commitment to existing work to tackle occupational segregation, one of the causes of the pay gap, via our ministerial expert Strategic Group on Women and Work, and our funding of organisations such as the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, Close the Gap and the Scottish Women’s Convention.

The average saving in each council tax band as a result of the council tax freeze is set out in the following table. The average Band D household has cumulatively saved almost £680 between 2008-14 and will save around £1200 in the lifetime of this Parliament:

While all of Scotland’s council tax payers have benefited from the freeze, those in the lowest 10 per cent of income deciles benefit the most as a proportion of their net household income, as shown in the following table.