{"id":44008,"date":"2014-06-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=b1ab239720cde6d9eeafa9a68068bba9"},"modified":"2014-06-22T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T08:00:00","slug":"news-story-costs-of-setting-up-a-new-scottish-state-article-by-danny-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=44008","title":{"rendered":"News story: Costs of setting up a new Scottish state: article by Danny Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This week it was revealed that Alex Salmond has asked his officials to cobble together a report on the costs of setting up a new Scottish state.<\/p>\n

It comes after almost three weeks of confusion and misinformation from the Scottish government. At one point the First Minister seemed to pull out a number out of thin air, claiming that the cost of setting up a new state was around \u00a3200 million.<\/p>\n

Another time we had to listen to Salmond\u2019s finance minister John Swinney fail to answer a direct question on set up costs 13 times during a live radio interview. <\/p>\n

That is when they really descended into farce, making up a hotchpotch of excuses: saying that their analysis on this issue was \u201congoing\u201d, that they were not doing any more work on it, or that the costs would not be known until after the referendum.<\/p>\n

It is totally implausible that the Scottish government have done no work on the cost of setting up a new state \u2013 particularly after John Swinney told his cabinet colleagues, in his secret memo two years ago, that the work was \u201ccurrently underway in Finance and OCEA to build a comprehensive overview of the institutions, costs and staff numbers which I will draw together\u201d. <\/p>\n

I suspect any rushed last-minute exercise is mainly an attempt to distract journalistic attention from seeking the paperwork the Scottish government are desperate to keep secret until after polling day.<\/p>\n

Alex Salmond has belatedly recognised his responsibility to provide some real facts in this important debate. This is just what we in the UK government have been doing for the past 18 months, to help inform voters in Scotland ahead of the referendum.<\/p>\n

While they are finally doing the work they promised would be done two years ago, it is disappointing that they\u2019re only doing it because they\u2019ve been found out to be completely clueless on the matter. I believe there are two reasons why we should take any of their work on this issue with a big pinch of salt.<\/p>\n

First, because we all know that previous Scottish government analysis has often been short in real facts, and rather muddied the waters rather than helped make the situation clearer, we will need to scrutinise any new findings. In particular:<\/p>\n