Scottish independence: Cost to Scots of UK split is £1 a year - Danny Alexander

Independence campaigners are calling for people to give up a pound to help Scotland “achieve its economic potential”.

The appeal was made one day after Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander said Scots would be £1 worse off each year under independence, using an analysis of oil revenues over the course of devolution.

His calculation was intended to expose the SNP claim that people would be £500 better off a year as a “myth” based on a single good year for the oil industry.

But Blair Jenkins, chief executive of Yes Scotland, said: “If the cost of creating a more equal and fairer Scotland was only £1, I’m certain most Scots would think that a price worth paying.”

He added: “It is remarkable that at this early stage in the campaign, the Treasury has conceded that people in Scotland would be financially no worse off under independence.”

Mr Jenkins said independence after the referendum next year would allow Scotland to choose a different path to Westminster.

“And just think how even better off we would be were an independent Scottish Government to, for example, stop spending £250 million a year on nuclear weapons,” he said.

Mr Alexander, Lib Dem MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, had said the benefit of oil to an independent Scotland was being overstated. Relying on a good year to show oil could make people £500 richer was misleading, he said.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon cited the £500 figure in her speech to the SNP conference in October, based on government figures for 2010-11.

Mr Alexander said: “Basing a case for Scotland to be independent forever on one good year of oil revenues is incredibly misleading and very foolish.

“In fact, taking an average of the Scottish Government’s own figures since devolution, Scots would be £1 worse off. This is yet another Scottish Government assertion exposed as a myth.”