The Scottish economy grew significantly during the second haft of the 20th century, with services, including banking, retailing, public administration, and tourism, emerging as leading economic sectors.  Then came North Sea oil which dominated industrial growth and production the past 30 years though successive Westminster governments refused to include the enormous yields to the public purse as part of Scotland's economic contribution.  On the down side, the same period saw the demise of shipbuilding, car manufacturing and steel production (the latter by political decision).  Two other vital industries that were politically destroyed were coal mining (by the Thatcher government), and fishing (mainly the demersal fleet).  The fishing industry had been sold out to Europe on conditions Edward Heath accepted for Britain's entry to the then Common Market.   

Since 1970 the UK Government has sought to perpetuate the idea that Scotland is subsidized by the rest of the UK and that it could not be a viable state on its own.  Recent revelations from released documents of that period indicate that the parliamentarians and officials concerned knew very well the falsehood of their public statements, some of their own senior advisors informing them to the contrary.  The basis of the Unionist propaganda case was the Annual Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland analysis, known as GERS for short.  The latest GERS report claimed that Scotland requires £ 11.2 billion annually from the exchequer to balance the books - what the unionists termed “an 11.2 billion black hole”.  The false conclusion of GERS (which its instigators fully intended) was that “the present level of spending (in Scotland) could not be supported by the current level of revenue raised from the Scottish population and businesses alone”.

Though trumpeted by the unionist politicians, the GERS analysis was regarded with suspicion or disbelief by most observers.  Even some of its authors admitted that it should not be used to imply that Scotland could not stand on its own feet.  Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, wrote a powerful critique of GERS in December 2006, in which he made three salient points :

1. That GERs was conceived as a political, not a statistical exercise, by the then Secretary of State Ian Lang who wanted it to “undermine the other parties”.
2. That it completely ignores Scotland’s enormous oil production and kept the oil revenues totally out of the picture.  This was like excluding the financial sector in London from England’s economic performance.
3. That it took no account of UK borrowing required to keep the UK economy afloat. 

The SNP had calculated that Scotland had a cumulative surplus of £ 27.6 billion between 1978 – 79 and 1994 – 95 when the UK had a deficit of more than £ 330 billion.  In actual fact, these estimates greatly under-valued the real situation.

A more thorough and detailed analysis of GERS was conducted in early 2007 by Niall Aslen, an experienced accountant, who used the Government’s own published figures to expose the flaws and demolish the arguments of the GERS analysis.  The conclusion of Aslen’s thorough appraisal of all aspects of the Scottish economy was as follows :

That, far from having a “black hole”, Scotland was a net contributor to the UK economy to the sum of £ 9.632 billion in net revenue. 

In Aslen’s analysis, the oil revenues of over £ 4.9 billion were included as part of Scottish economic production.  Corporation tax revenues were increased since the GERS figures barely covered the revenue from the Royal Bank of Scotland alone.  The GERS corporation tax estimate was out by a massive £ 2.189 billion !  The investigation found that GERS had charged the total cost of the Trident nuclear missile system to Scotland rather than allocating a share of it as part of total UK defence costs. Our share of defence costs had been inflated by £ 1.477 billion !   GERS had inflated Scottish housing and communities amenities by £ 386 million.  The recreation and culture costs figure was in excess by £ 204 million, education and training costs by £ 217 million, and general public services by £ 530 million.

Far from being subsidy-dependent, the Scottish economy is buoyant and currently contributes a massive amount to the UK treasury.

A slightly abbreviated version of the Aslen report is provided on this web site under Financial Analyses.