Whitehall chief slams Scottish currency plan
The most senior civil servant in the Treasury, permanent secretary Sir Nick Macpherson, yesterday in an unprecedented move hit out against a currency union with Scotland in a public letter to chancellor George Osborne.
Macpherson described a currency union with Scotland, should its citizens chose independence, as being impossible to support and “fraught with difficulty”.
Issues with a currency union raised in his letter range from the asymmetrical size difference between the UK and Scottish economies, to the risk of fiscal policies between the UK and Scotland becoming increasingly misaligned in the future.
Macpherson dismissed the argument that Scotland should not bear its burden of UK debt if a currency union is not entered. He said the risks of a currency union for the UK outweigh the risk of being left to fund its debt alone, adding: “I do not believe this is a credible threat”.
In conclusion Macpherson said: “There is no evidence that adequate proposals or policy changes to enable the formation of a currency union could be devised, agreed and implemented by both governments in the foreseeable future.”