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Q: Who produces GERS?
A: GERS is produced by Scottish Government statisticians. It is designated as a National Statistics product, which means that it is produced independently of Scottish Ministers and has been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority as being produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. This means the statistics have been found to meet user needs, to be methodologically sound, explained well and produced free of political interference.
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The Scots produce GERS. If they disagreed with the methodology, what have they said that would increase revenues by 20%.
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Asking if the Scottish Government is able to borrow money and, if so, which institutions can be borrowed from and the interest rate paid currently.
I can confirm that the Scotland Act 2012 gave borrowing powers to the Scottish Government, and which were extended by the Scotland Act 2016. Under the Scotland Act 2016 the following limits have been agreed:
- the total, aggregate capital borrowing cap will increase to £3 billion (from £2.2 billion); and
- the annual limit will be increased to 15% of the overall capital borrowing cap (£450 million).
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If they were allowed to borrow, would they be able to? The "interest rates" charged would be huge, especially as the likelihood of them paying back is less than zero. They would have to default in a matter of a few years.
If the SNP are happy to spend less, why don't they? As I have to keep pointing out, if their defence spending was zero, there would still be a large deficit remaining.