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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now full fiscal autonomy was one of the cornerstones of the SNP’s election manifesto, it saw the Nationalists sweep the board last month as Chuka Umunna was referring to, winning all but three seats north of the border.  Well now the party is expected to set out plans for more powers to be added to the Scotland Bill, that is coming back to the House of Commons tomorrow and the SNP’s Deputy Leader, Stewart Hosie, joins me now from Broughty Ferry near Dundee and a very good morning to you, Mr Hosie.  So you want full fiscal autonomy, just explain to people how far that goes.  

STEWART HOSIE: Well it goes beyond the legislation which we currently have tabled which doesn’t even go as far as the Smith Commission. We have laid out also priority powers we want to see over minimum wage, business taxes, national insurance but this goes beyond that, it basically gives the Scottish government control of all its tax raising, all of the spending in Scotland and the Scottish government would then pay a subvention for shared services like defence and foreign affairs, so it basically gives the Scottish government all of the tools and levers it needs in order to grow the economy, increase the tax yield and make society fairer.  

DM: And as part of that then, shouldn’t you see the withdrawal of the Barnett Formula which as we famously know leads to about £1600 a head more public spending in Scotland than it does in England?  

STEWART HOSIE: Well it doesn’t.  What it does is that it allocates the increases depending on the increases, only the decreases to UK spending departments.  The reason there’s higher spending in Scotland on certain things is a political choice.  The Scottish government determined they are going to have free prescriptions rather than something else but of course in terms of the Barnett Formula generally, as even the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury has said, it will wither over a period of time anyway, even with the limited devolution we are currently getting.  Now clearly it stays in place until we have got all the mechanisms in place to transfer all the powers but over a period of time the Barnett Formula simply reduces in value.  

DM: But do you know, you’ll be very aware of the study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that said if Scotland does get full fiscal autonomy either through what you propose or indeed through independence, there would be an estimated black hole of £7.6 billion in 2015/16 spending.  

STEWART HOSIE: Well of course that’s the figure for this financial year and we are not going to have fiscal autonomy this financial year and yes, it’s true, we run a deficit but then so does the UK, their black hole is around 75 billion this year so some years our deficit is better than the UK, sometimes it’s worse, sometimes we’ve got a current account in surplus, sometimes we do not.  These are the normal things which every other economy in the world has to deal with.  None of these numbers, whether they’re for this year, next year, whether they’re backward looking, none of these numbers are arguments against giving the Scottish government the tools and levers it needs to grow the economy, increase tax yield and actually begin to see the deficit come down in a proper way that doesn’t damage the overall economy in the way George Osborne did over the last five years.  

DM: Okay, you’ve said there a couple of times now, increase the tax yield, is that by putting up taxes?

STEWART HOSIE: Well it’s by growth primarily.  I mean we’ve seen growth rates anaemic, particularly in the first three years in the last parliament, precisely because the Tory/Liberal coalition took so much spending out of the economy.  When I see George Osborne threaten to have something in the order of 146 billion accumulative cuts over this parliament, twice the level of cuts we saw in the last parliament, that can only damage growth and damage recovery so what we need to do is to make sure that whatever happens in Scotland or indeed in the UK actually engenders and supports growth so that we get the tax yield up that way.  

DM: But surely you’d put up the higher rate of income tax if you could?

STEWART HOSIE: Well certainly at the General Election we said on a UK level we’d like to see the reinstatement of the 50p rate of tax but decisions on specific taxes when we have the powers, specific spending when we have the powers, can only be taken in light of the prevailing economic conditions and the forecasts which apply at that time.  Now we haven’t even had the debate in the House of Commons on full fiscal autonomy and we know the UK government and many in the Labour party are opposed to giving Scotland these sensible powers so let’s wait and see what powers we actually end up getting devolved and we’ll take a view on precisely how they’re used, precisely how they’re used based on the prevailing economic circumstances when the powers are transferred.  

DM: Okay, last question about some of the cyber bullying and other things that have gone on as a result of the independence referendum and beyond. There is this travel website, no doubt you’re aware, today saying that from the rest of the UK they have seen a 22% fall in bookings from other UK airports to Scottish ones and in terms of hotel bookings, an 81% decline in Glasgow.  Do you think that is in any way related to some other members of the United Kingdom countries not feeling welcome there anymore?  

STEWART HOSIE: No, I don’t.  People, particularly tourists, are always welcome to Scotland.  I suspect if there has been a fall off it is probably because the Commonwealth Games were last year and not this year but certainly when we hear about this kind of cyber bullying, it’s to be deprecated no matter where it comes from and trust me, that cuts across both sides.  There are some terrible things said, online and elsewhere, and I would simply say that should stop, full stop.  

DM: Okay, Stewart Hosie, good to talk to you, thank you very much indeed, SNP Deputy Leader there.