Talking-up Scotland

Over the last year or so, I’ve reported on a range of indicators that the Scottish economy is strengthening and often is doing so more than the UK was a whole. Unlike the GDP and GERS data which, for Scotland, are based on unreliable estimates, there are objective measures nearly all of which have been good news. See for example:

And another one: ‘Scotland Revealed as Top Place in UK to Launch New Business’

£226 million given in relief to small businesses in 2017-18 as part of most generous scheme in the UK

40% increase in number of new Scottish businesses mainly under SNP government

Scottish businesses continue to show signs of health with insolvencies down 23% as the Scottish economy holds strong

‘Fewer Scottish businesses failing in 2017’

Scottish businesses showing signs of greater health than those in the rest of the UK

Note in many of these reports, the role of the Scottish Government in supporting and promoting positive change in the Scottish economy.

Today, in Insider, we read of another sign of business strength and confidence:

‘Profits warnings from listed companies in Scotland fell to their lowest in six years in 2017, according to the latest profit warning report from EY. The final quarter of 2017 also saw the lowest Q4 total – three – for Scotland since 2011, when there was just one. There were 13 profit warnings in total from Scotland in 2017, down from 19 the previous year.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/profit-warnings-scotland-hit-six-11934170

Putting everything together:

• Low unemployment
• Low youth unemployment
• Increased demand for industrial and office space
• A trade balance surplus
• Increased new businesses
• Business confidence
• Oil prices surging
• Massive new oil and gas discoveries
• Renewables energy generation reaching new peaks
• Universities at the centre of innovation
• Massive tourism increases
• Government competence

and you have real evidence of an economy that is thriving and that has the resources and the potential to boom once the levers of control are located in Scotland.

(c) theplanner.co.uk

Headlined in the Scotsman yesterday:

Scotland ‘building more affordable homes than England’

we read:

‘In answer to a parliamentary question from Edinburgh North and Leith MSP Ben Macpherson, housing minister Kevin Stewart revealed that 70,861 affordable homes had been built from April 2007 to September 2017.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-building-more-affordable-homes-than-england-1-4676278

So, a good headline ‘despite’ the unnecessary ‘quotation marks’. They’re there, of course, because, that’s what the SNP say and we here at the Scotsman don’t know if it’s absolutely true. I know they’re getting short of staff, but a wee bit of research might have enabled them to be dropped.

7 231 new affordable homes were built in Scotland in 2016/2017, 3% up on 2015/2016. As always, statistics for England are not yet out. However, we can still compare the 2015/2016 figures.

In 2015/2016, the Scottish Government built 7 021 new affordable homes. That’s 1 for every 755 people.

https://news.gov.scot/news/3-increase-in-housing-supply

In the same year, in England, 32 110 new affordable homes were built in England. That’s one for every 1 650 people.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/569979/Affordable_Housing_Supply_2015-16.pdf

Comparing the Scots and English figures give a ratio of 2.18 so the Scottish Government was building at more than twice the rate in 2015/2016 and has increased building by 3% for this last year. No need for the quotation marks then?

And, the situation in England, especially in the South-East may be even worse than the above figures suggest. The UK Government definition of affordable is that affordable homes should cost no more than 80% of the average local market rent. The average rent in South-East England is currently £2344 per month. The average rent in Glasgow is £696 per month.

https://www.foxtons.co.uk/living-in/south-east-england/rentals/

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/12278/average-private-rents-up-in-most-areas-across-scotland/

I’ll spare you the ‘despite’ and the ‘but’ as the Scotsman reminds us that completions were below the target set. They concluded this bit of the report with a source and data-free:

‘The gap in completions for social rent is even wider, with an increase in the completion rate of 159 per cent needed to meet the target.’

I know, it’s ‘balance’.

With a wee bit of research, the headline could have been the same as mine in September 2017:

Scottish Government increases supply of affordable housing and builds at more, perhaps much more, than twice the rate as in England

 

Research carried out for the Electoral Commission has concluded:

‘This newly published research supports the assertion that if people vote early in life, they keep voting in later life.’ 

This evidence that early voting leads to greater engagement later and a consequent increase in the overall quality of a democracy is the main basis for the Commission’s recommendation that Westminster and Cardiff should follow the Scottish example.

The researchers used data from the Scottish independence referendum as their starting point:

‘A survey commissioned by the Electoral Commission following the Scottish Independence Referendum (in which 16 and 17-year-olds were entitled to vote) found that an impressive 75% had taken part.  The figure is doubly impressive given the fact this was the first time anyone within that group would have voted.  The survey also rubbished the lazy assumption that because voter turnout has been low among 18 to 24-year-olds then it will be similarly low among 16 and 17-year-olds. The claimed turnout among the former group was just 54% by comparison. The fact that 16 and 17-year-olds voted in large numbers in the Scottish Independence referendum shows that given the chance, those under 18 will exercise their democratic right.’  

However, they add the results of research carried out in 2015 to make the important point that this experience seems likely to have had a lasting impact:

‘New research now supplemented this finding by providing evidence that not only will they vote, but that it is highly likely they will continue to vote and be more politically engaged as a result. Through a survey carried out in February 2015 (after the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014) it was found that 67% of 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland indicated they would likely vote if allowed to do so in the General Election, compared to just 39% south of the border.  Furthermore, while 57% of Scottish respondents said they had taken part in at least one form of non-electoral political engagement, only 40% of 16 and 17-year-olds from the rest of the UK reported the same.’ 

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/survey-results-add-weight-to-argument-for-votes-at-16/

This comes as no surprise to me, based on admittedly anecdotal, but quite numerous, reports from young voters I met in Ayr, in the years after the Referendum.

This is the latest report of many this year, in Energy Voice, pointing to dramatic rises in oil prices in the next year or so with several now suggesting a return to greater than £100 dollar per barrel. See this from only six days ago:

Is a third forecast that Scotland’s oil will hit $100 per barrel again, a sure sign?

Here’s what Energy Voice had to say today:

‘The enthusiasm in the oil markets is breaking records. Hedge funds reported record wagers on continued price increases for both U.S. and global oil benchmarks, along with gasoline and diesel. Meanwhile, producers are hedging production at record rates as oil experiences its best January since 2006.’

The enthusiasm is underpinned by earlier reports of massive increases in demand from Asia, OPEC discipline on pricing and emerging shortages of supply, leading to four predictions from industry chiefs and economic bodies of prices rising above £100 per barrel in the months to come. With the BP chief predicting costs to fall as low as $12 per barrel, the scope for revenue gathering by an independent Scotland could be immense, in the two or three decades before peak oil. See:

Is Peak Oil still 20 or 30 years in the future and so, would an independent Scotland be rich?

Returning to the investors, the Energy Voice piece reports:

‘Another significant sign the oil crash is behind us, is the clear shift in the futures curve. Both in New York and London, the closer the delivery, the higher the price all the way through 2022. That pattern, known as backwardation, is typical of times when demand is rising, and supplies are tightening, and it hadn’t been so marked since 2014.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/marketinfo/162117/oil-unstoppable-hedge-funds-take-bets-new-high/

I know oil revenue cannot be the central strand in the Indyref2 campaign but, equally, it cannot now be used by Unionists to weaken it.

Note also:

Sterling’s surge is being fueled by oil, not a Brexit bounce

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/01/27/sterlings-surge-fueled-oil-not-brexit-bounce/

 

UK Prison Population Changes from:

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04334

I’ve suggested before, to a mixed response from readers, that if you read an English, slightly left-of-centre newspaper, you might get more fair coverage, even positive coverage, of Scottish Government actions. On January 22^nd I reported the Guardian piece on the SNP plan for an independent Scottish Commission on Social Security which was entirely positive and enthusiastic with none of the ‘ah buts’ you’d get in the Scottish media. See:

How to get fair coverage of Scottish politics. Read a slightly left-of-centre English newspaper

Today, the Independent, wrote of the prison situation in England in these terms:

‘Life behind bars is a world of squalor and suicides, of desperation and drugs, of mentally-ill prisoners in dank cells, of fearful guards working amid violence. David Gauke, our sixth justice secretary in eight years, has been made to intervene over Nottingham prison after eight inmates killed themselves in two years, the chief inspector repeating charges that the prison was “fundamentally unsafe”. A prison officer claimed there were two suicide attempts each week amid an epidemic of self-harm. Then came a damning report into Liverpool prison exposing inhumane conditions with damp, dirty and blocked toilets, broken windows, freezing cells, cockroaches and rats in rubbish piles. Many inmates were locked in tiny cells for much of the day, the prison swamped with drugs, and a convicted killer managed to escape.’

The horrors outlined above are explained in the report as being, in the main, the result of politicians trying to satisfy ‘populist pressures’ by doubling the numbers incarcerated in the space of only two decades. Spending cuts and reduced staffing under Tory austerity policies have made the situation even worse. At first, the writer suggests looking to the Netherlands where incarceration rates have fallen from levels comparable to those in England but then remembers this idea:

‘Simply look over the border in Scotland, where a left-liberal alliance is stumbling (sic) its way towards a more progressive approach. This began eight years ago when the Scottish National Party government passed a presumption against prison for sentences under three months after two decades of rising jail populations. Such short terms are worse than useless, disrupting family and work ties with no chance of rehabilitation. So Scottish judges must justify in court why they wish to use a sentence under 12 weeks, especially if a suitable community scheme is available. There has been an eight per cent fall in prison numbers as crime and reconviction rates fell.’

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/grandson-holocaust-survivors-i-feel-horrors-auschwitz-73-years/

Needless to say, our media have been more excited with Ruth Davidson’s call for life to mean life for the tiny handful of murderers in the system while ignoring her failure to engage with the wider issues.

(c) themover.co.uk

A meme is like a cultural gene and I’ve been using the idea it tells us something about Scotland and, in particular, that it is different enough from Tory England in terms of dominant values to justify wanting to run our own show according to those values. Here are some earlier examples where I use the 8%:

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

Scotland takes nearly 26% of Syrian refugees settled in UK with only 8% of the UK population

Here are some others where I’m making the same point without mentioning the 8% specifically:

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

Scottish Government to fight alongside UN to defend disabled against Tory cuts.

Yesterday, in Insider, under the headline:

Here’s how Scotland is leading the way with employee ownership

We read:

‘Selling a business to employees used to be a rare event. Now every month we hear of another company or companies becoming employee-owned. But why this surge in interest amongst Scottish businesses?’

It’s estimated that there are around 300 employee-owned businesses in the UK and that almost one-third are in Scotland. Insider offers two reasons for Scotland having more of them:

1. The Nuttall Review identified two key obstacles to the wider adoption of employee ownership: lack of awareness and lack of practical support.
2. Co-operative Development Scotland has undertaken some sterling work with advisers, evidenced by the amount of interest shown at its January 2018 seminar. The expert help provided by Co-operative Development Scotland goes a long way to support businesses, and importantly the employees, through the process.

Bottom of Form

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

https://www.insider.co.uk/special-reports/graeme-nuttall-on-employee-ownership-11917414

I don’t doubt that this is part of the story, but it seems to me to be too much of a coincidence that Scotland also has more living wage employers and a more caring approach to the disabled and to refugees. Further, the Scottish Governments several anti-austerity and pro-human-rights policies suggest these values are stronger at government-level in Scotland too. See, for example:

Scottish Government continues to fight brutal Westminster austerity politics

Scottish Government fights to protect against the effects of Tory austerity cuts.

In a year of terrible events, we can still feel that this wee country is getting better as it drifts away from the callous, post-imperial, values of Tory Britain

 

Back in June 2017, I wrote on a similar report and headlined it:

East Renfrewshire Council forgets to credit Scottish Government funding for affordable housing

only to be reminded by a reader that this was an SNP/Labour council, so I probably can’t blame the council as a whole for the amnesia this time. Nevertheless, it’s happened again in a Scottish Housing News report on 120 homes to be built for social rent over the next five years. Perhaps it was the interviewed Housing Convener, Danny Devlin (Independent), who forgot to remind the reporter of this important factor?

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19527/east-renfrewshire-council-double-house-building-commitment/

Readers will be interested to see that the Scottish government funding allocated for this purpose in 2017/2022 was expected to be £25 million.

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=19103&p=0

120 houses, a £25 million subsidy, means more than £300 000 per house so the subsidy will presumably cover the full cost of the social-rent homes and subsidise other house-building by the council?

(c) http://hopemanhistory.org

The Conservative/Independent council in Moray tried to block plans to build 22 affordable homes on the south side of the small town of Hopeman. The town has seen no affordable house building in 40 years and desperately needs these 22 homes.

According to the report in Scottish Housing News:

‘The size and scale of the proposal did not reflect the settlement pattern, failed to integrate into the surrounding area and would be detrimental to the existing open character and identity of Forsyth Street and Hopeman.’

However, the Scottish government has overturned the decision and the homes will be built perhaps preventing the re-location of poorer families to other towns as, perhaps, the local council had hoped.

The Scottish Government reporter did not agree that the houses would be detrimental to the existing character of the area, insisted all the homes should be affordable and said:

‘The unique circumstances of this case include the contribution that the proposal would make towards addressing an urgent unmet need for affordable housing across the Elgin housing market area.’

If these houses prevent people having to relocate because of the high cost of living in their hometown, then this clearly a good outcome.

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19529/unanimous-refusal-moray-affordable-homes-overturned-scottish-government/

This decision by the Scottish Government reporter would seem to reflect the strong commitment we see in Scotland to dealing with the shortage of affordable homes across the country. See:

£756 million of support for building affordable homes in SNP budget

Scottish Government increases supply of affordable housing and builds at more, perhaps much more, than twice the rate as in England

 

As Brent crude hit $71 per barrel, after a whole year of prices well above production costs, Shell have reported a 47% increase in profits to $3.9 billion.

Readers will remember that Shell paid no tax in the UK in 2016 but, rather, were subsidised by the Westminster Government. In the same year, they paid tax in every almost every other country they operated in. They paid Norway more than $4 billion dollars when Brent prices were as low as $27.26 per barrel! See this graph:

Though presented uncritically by the UK media as being a consequence of low prices and increasing costs, analysis of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas suggested that the combination of tax giveaways by the government, and aggressive avoidance by multinationals, meant that the UK might actually have been subsidising the extraction of its natural resources. A report published by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) set out a series of shocking statistics on the UK’s failure to obtain an appropriate share of its own resource wealth. Among them, these stood out:

• In 2014, UK consumers paid 6 times more tax on petrol, excluding VAT, than the North Sea oil and gas industry paid on all taxes related to production.
• Chevron’s effective tax rate in 2014 on earnings from North Sea production was 5.4%; statutory tax rates (of various types) on oil and gas should have totalled 61-82%.
• In 2014, 3 (Shell, BP & Total) of the top 4 North Sea producers produced more than £4.3 billion worth of oil and gas and received over £300 million in net tax refunds.

The ITF argued that while the oil sector had successfully lobbied for and won huge tax breaks from the UK government, the companies involved continued to pursue aggressive tax avoidance as standard practice. The report on Chevron provided a detailed case study of tax dodging tactics which were replicated by others, particularly Nexen – on which the Times had a frontpage splash, using ITF analysis to show that the Chinese government-backed company received tax credits of £2 billion.

http://www.taxjustice.net/2016/08/25/uks-north-sea-oil-revenues-giving-away/

Reported in Energy Voice yesterday:

‘Fund management experts at Hargreaves Lansdown recently praised Shell’s tactics since the oil price rout in 2014, including an aggressive cost-cutting drive and a 30 billion US dollar (£21 billion) divestment initiative. They said: “This has left the group much more strongly cash-generative and reinforced Shell’s dividend-paying capabilities. Historically, Shell has an unparalleled track record for paying its dividend through thick and thin, having maintained or increased it every year since the end of the Second World War.”’

Note the confidence in paying out to shareholders but no mention of tax revenues. Note also, that Shell were able to pay dividends ‘through thick and thin’ including presumably 2016, when UK taxpayer subsidies of $123 million were available for that purpose.

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/162027/shell-announce-profit-boost-thanks-soaring-crude-prices/

Surely, we tax them now?

(c) Police Scotland

According to the Guardian yesterday, in England and Wales, knife crime has increased by 21% to September 2017. This a dramatic figure large enough to suggest an emerging and extremely worrying trend.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/25/knife-and-gun-rises-sharply-in-england-and-wales

In Scotland, knife crime increased in 2017 by 4.4% after years of falling dramatically. This is a small enough figure to be a statistical ‘blip’ and cannot be used to indicate a trend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39780647

The contrast has already been made in the report of 35 murders of children and teenagers by knife in England and Wales 2017 and the fact that there no such deaths in Scotland in the same year.

‘Knife crime has killed 35 children and teenagers in England and Wales so far this year, meaning that 2017 is likely to be the worst year for such deaths in nearly a decade. Official figures exclusively obtained by the Guardian show that this year will be the worst since 2008 when 42 young people aged 19 and under lost their lives as a result of an attack with a knife.’

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/nov/28/child-knife-deaths-in-england-and-wales-set-for-nine-year-peak

For more detail, see:

Of 35 children and teenagers killed with knives in Britain in 2017, not one was in Scotland, yet in 2005, the UN called Scotland the most violent country in the developed world.

While there will be multiple and complex reasons behind this trend, policed numbers will be one factor. Again, from the Guardian:

‘Meanwhile, official figures show that the number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by 930 in the past 12 months, to 121 929, the lowest level since comparable records began in 1996. Police officer numbers are now 22 424 below their peak in 2009, when there were 144 353 officers.’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/25/knife-and-gun-rises-sharply-in-england-and-wales

In Scotland, contrary to some reporting, police numbers have increased. See this:

‘As at 30 June 2017, there were 17 249 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland.  This is an increase of 1 015 police officers from the position at 31 March 2007 (+6.3 per cent). Police officer numbers have decreased by 7 FTE officers in the last quarter, since 31 March 2017, and increased by 7 FTE officers in the last year since 30 June 2016.’

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/TrendPolice

So, what do these figures mean in terms of the ratio of police officers to members of the public? See this:

Population England and Wales in 56 million

Number of police officers in 2017 was 121 929

Population Scotland is 5.3 million

Number of police officers in 2017 was 17 249

Ratio of population to officers England and Wales: 459/1

Ratio of population to officers Scotland: 307/1

So, as with teachers, nurses, and GPs, Scotland has a much better ratio of police officers to members of the public and thus presumably presence on the streets enabling stop and search tactics to be effective.