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Doubts expressed on currency union

Doubts expressed on currency union

An independent Scotland would be the junior partner in a currency union with the rest of the UK which would hold all the power, a north-east academic has claimed.

Professor Michael Keating, a politics expert at Aberdeen University, said he did not think Edinburgh ministers would have any control over the management of the pound and decisions would be taken solely by the Bank of England.

He told MSPs that entering into a currency union would reduce the idea of independence in a traditional sense because there would be a strong degree of dependence.

Prof Keating, director of the Economic and Social Research Council – Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change, gave evidence to a Holyrood committee examining the Scottish Government’s white paper on independence.

SNP ministers claim it would be in the interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK to have a currency union – a position backed by a group of leading businessmen which includes Dan MacDonald, chief executive of property developer Macdonald Estates, and the industrialist Jim McColl.

Holyrood finance convener Kenneth Gibson, an SNP MSP, said the business leaders’ intervention reflected a “commonsense position”, but Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne have said a pact would be “unlikely”.

Prof Keating said: “There is a difference between using the pound and sharing in the management of the currency.

“Using the pound is quite straightforward but you are entirely dependent on decisions made on monetary policy and interest rates in London.

“Even if the UK conceded that Scotland could use the pound sterling, I do not see them sharing the management in the sense of allowing Scottish representation on the court of the Bank of England or specific input in making monetary policy.”

Prof Keating said Scotland would be a junior partner in any pact to determine taxes and deficits.

“You have a very asymmetrical power relationship there and it does seem to me that Scotland will always be in the weaker position if it is trying to share a joint currency with the UK,” he added.

“There will be a disparity in power and influence.”