SNP calls for independent Scotland to have key Bank of England role

AN INDEPENDENT Scotland would need to have a representative on the Bank of England committee that sets interest rates, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The Deputy First Minister, who was speaking at a conference on Scotland’s constitutional future yesterday, insisted the Scottish Government should have a voice on the bank’s monetary policy committee.

The SNP has said that an independent Scotland would keep the pound well into the next decade.

However, critics have warned that this would mean interest rates being set by the national bank of a foreign country – the Bank of England in London.

Ms Sturgeon, the SNP’s deputy leader, insisted it would be “reasonable” for an independent Scotland to have a seat on the committee, which is currently made up of nine members.

She made the call after being challenged by former Scottish secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind during a round-table debate at the conference on “Scotland and the Union: What future?”

The Conservative MP said there would no “independence of currency matters” for Scotland if it retained sterling after a split with the rest of the UK.

Sir Malcolm said: “Under what you [the SNP] are proposing, you wouldn’t have any independence of currency, as the decisions would be taken by the Bank of England in a country with a parliament which Scotland is no longer represented in.”

Ms Sturgeon said that Sir Malcolm’s suggestion was “like saying France and Germany have no independence” because the two nations were signed up to and used the euro currency.

Her comments came after finance secretary John Swinney said the SNP government’s opposition to joining the euro had “hardened”, as he ruled out an independent Scotland joining the single currency until at least the middle of the 2020s.

Mr Swinney also insisted that Scotland sharing the pound with the rest of the UK after independence would make a “positive contribution” to sterling’s balance of payments.

Edinburgh MP and former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling has previously dismissed suggestions that an independent Scotland could retain the pound as an “absolutely ludicrous position”.

He said that Scotland would have no control over its own currency if, under independence, the country was allowed to retain sterling.

The Bank of England declined to comment on whether an independent Scotland would be represented on its monetary policy committee.