{"id":83622,"date":"2017-08-23T09:26:38","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T09:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=b3232dd06ebdf5764da29393c2f21220"},"modified":"2017-08-23T09:26:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-23T09:26:38","slug":"news-story-uk-government-reaction-to-gers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=83622","title":{"rendered":"News story: UK Government reaction to GERS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reacting to the Scottish Government\u2019s GERS figures<\/a>, published today,<\/p>\n

Scottish Secretary David Mundell said:<\/p>\n

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These figures from the Scottish Government are a cause for concern, and show clearly there is still much to be done to improve Scotland\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

They also highlight the value of pooling and sharing resources around the UK. Being part of a strong UK has protected our living standards, and that\u2019s one reason the people of Scotland clearly rejected Nicola Sturgeon\u2019s plan for a second independence referendum at the election.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s deficit is falling at a slower rate than the UK as a whole and economic growth is lagging behind. It is vital we grow the economy and we want to work with the Scottish Government to achieve that.<\/p>\n

We will continue to invest in Scotland, with new initiatives such as UK City Deals, which have already seen around \u00a31 billon of UK Government money committed to Scotland. I would also urge the Scottish Government to use their significant economic levers \u2013 including on tax, skills and getting people into work – to improve Scotland\u2019s economic future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Key facts<\/p>\n

At -8.3% of GDP (\u00a313.3 billion), Scotland\u2019s deficit is more than three times higher than that of the UK as a whole (-2.4%).<\/p>\n

Public spending per person in Scotland is more than \u00a313,000, compared with \u00a311,739 for the whole of the UK. Since 2012-13, public spending per person in Scotland has been significantly higher than the UK average.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s borrowing per person is \u00a32453, more than \u00a31700 higher than the rest of the UK (\u00a3704 per person).<\/p>\n

Scotland contributed 8% of UK tax and received 9.2% of UK spending in 2016-17.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s currently devolved tax revenues are up. This includes \u00a34.6 billion from the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT), and raised a total of \u00a310bn in 2016-17.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s geographical share of North Sea revenues increased from \u00a356m last year to \u00a3208m in 2016\/17. [NB: UK-wide revenues were \u00a384m in 2016\/17. The reason for this discrepancy is due to the allocation of tax relief on petroleum relief tax-paying fields, 40% of which are based in English waters).<\/p>\n

Non-North Sea revenue in Scotland grew by 6.1% in 2016-17, similar to that for the UK as a whole at 6.2%. This relatively strong growth is driven by increased national insurance contributions and corporation tax revenue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Figures published today show that Scotland’s deficit is more than three times higher than that of the UK as a whole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}