No financial security by staying in the UK due to Tory-made crisis, says Swinney

S t ay i n g w i t h i n t h e U n i t e d Kingdom will not guarantee S cots financial securit y, the deputy first minister has said.

John Swinney said the “full blow economic and financial crisis” created by the Chancellor’s ‘ mini-budget’ meant no unionist politician could suggest independence would erode financial security.

Labelling the abolition of the top rate of tax, later scrapped, and the other major tax cuts as “an act of fiscal recklessness” which “shredded” the fiscal credibility of the UK, the interim finance secretar y warned of a “new age of austerity”.

T h i s , h e t o l d d e l e g a t e s i n Aberdeen, would “cripple public services and create misery for those on fixed incomes”.

M r S w i n n e y s a i d t h e demands of the Scottish Tories to follow the UK’S tax cuts prior to the u-turn was “urging me to pour petrol on the flames”.

H e l a b e l l e d t h e p a r t y “a bunch of reckless hypocrites”.

The Deput y First Minister said: “By their actions in the mini-budget the Tories threw away a ny c l a i m t h e y c o u l d h ave t o b e a p a r t y o f f i s c a l responsibility.

"In contrast, this par t y has balanced the books in each and every one of our years in Gov↑ Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay: Plea on fossil fuel

ernment. We should make no apology for believing in – and delivering – fiscal responsibility and we should take no lessons on the subject from the Tories.”

He also said the economic chaos had weakened the case for the union in any future referendum.

Mr Swinney said: “If I think b a c k t o c o nve r s a t i o n s I h a d with people who did not sup - p or t us during the 2014 Referendum, many felt they had financial securit y within the U n i t e d K i n g d o m . A f t e r t h e events of the last few weeks how can that any longer be the case?

"How can any politician look a pensioner, or a mortgage-holder or a person living in poverty straight in the eye after the wreckage of the last few weeks, and say there is financial securit y any longer in the United Kingdom.”

He added that devolution was “not enough” to mitigate the

austerit y forced on S cotland due to the decisions of the UK Government, stating the SNP would “do what’s right for Scotland’s people”.

Mr Swinney said the powers of devolution had been used “to the maximum they possibly could”, but “we cannot be at the mercy of Westminster decisions any longer”.

The interim finance secre - tary also said the Scottish Gove r n ment wou l d c o n t i n u e to o p p o s e n e w n u c l e a r p owe r plants despite plans from the U K G ove r n m e n t t o e x p a n d nuclear across the country.

He said: “We need no lectures from Liz Truss about security of energ y supply. It is the UK that has failed to achieve energy security, with the National Grid warning of possible power cuts this winter.

"Let me make this clear, Scotland is not going to put up with a new round of nuclear power stations to make up for the failure of energy policy in the United Kingdom.”

S p e a k i n g t o t h e B B C l a s t m o n t h , P r i m e M i n i s t e r L i z Truss said she wanted to work with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the energy crisis.

“I’m keen to use more of the resources in the North Sea and also see more nuclear power stations built across the country, including in Scotland,” she said.

“I’m very keen to talk to Nicola Sturgeon about that because I think that will help us make sure we have long-term energy securit y that, alongside wind power in Scotland, we also have nuclear power in Scotland.”

Within minutes of Ms Truss’s comments, Mr Swinney had rejected the idea, saying “we won’t sign up to that and we’ve made that very clear”.

T h e No r t h S e a Tr a n s i t i o n Authority (NSTA) will begin the 33rd round of offshore licences with the UK Government arguing increasing production will boost the economy and energy security.

"Our development is not going to affect our usage," Climate Minister Graham Stuart said last week, "I know it sounds contradictory – but it's actually good for the environment."

But Green Par t y co -leader Adrian Ramsay said: "We can only hope to hold global warming to under 1.5C degrees if we leave fossil fuels in the ground.

"The Government's claim that burning ever more fossil fuels from the North Sea will help the UK meet its international obligations to become net-zero by 2050 has no connection to reality – we truly have stepped through the looking glass."

The Green Party also said any new production, even if fasttracked, would not be available for years and so would not help to address the current crisis.

Ms Sturgeon said there has to be a transition away from oil and gas and accused the UK Government of "haphazard planning" over energy.

Speaking on Friday, she said: "I worr y right now that what we're hearing from the UK Government is just a continuation of their haphazard planning about energy.

"In the long term, what they're doing is undermining energy security, rather than strengthening it, because energy security, it's difficult, it's challengi n g , b u t t h e r o u te to e n e rg y security is to secure that transition away from fossil fuels to renewable."

Ms Sturgeon will address delegates this afternoon to close the conference following three days of events in Aberdeen.

A paper on the economics of independence will also be published this week. ↑ First Minister Nicola Sturgeon alongside Deputy First Minister

Awareness campaign needed to reach netzero goals, says think tank

A public awareness campaign to reduce the gap between rhetoric and reality in tackling climate change is needed by the Scottish Government, a think tank has said.

Reform Scotland has made a raft of policy recommendations aimed at helping ministers reduce Scotland's energy demands.

The Powering Ahead: Decarbonising Scotland's Energy paper argues that while Scotland excels in its use of renewables for electricity, the Government does not go far enough to reverse the trends of oil and gas with usage increasing for heating and transport.

The report, written by Stuart Paton, chair at H2green, and Reform Scotland's research director Alison Payne, argues the lines are blurred on the boundaries between energy and electric

Rebecca Mccurdy