INDEPENDENCE would increase job insecurity in Scotland and reduce access to employment, Alistair Carmichael, the new Scottish Secretary, has told MPs.
Speaking to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, he said: "Bluntly put, being part of the United Kingdom means that you have an access to jobs and you have job security and that is greater than it would be than if you were not part of the United Kingdom and you have to just put it as starkly as that. And then the question for people is - why would you want to give that up?"
Commenting on Whitehall's analysis paper on the macroeconomics of independence, Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said there would be a "considerable loss" to Scotland if it left the UK and became an independent member of the European single market.
"It would be false economically to argue somehow within the EU, you can regain benefits you have lost from breaking up an independent sovereign state. They are totally different things.
"In the EU, you have a single market that's negotiated between different countries. The EU single market in financial services is nowhere near as complete as the single, integrated market we have in the UK," he said.
"The analysis we did in this paper on the so-called border effect suggests that if Scotland were an independent country as part of the EU, there would still be significant costs in terms of trade and integration lost with the rest of the UK."
On the SNP Government's plan for an independent Scotland to join a currency union, Mr Alexander again argued it was "unlikely" such a system would be in the interests of either an independent Scotland or the continuing UK.
Pointing out how, if there were a currency union, an independent Scotland would sacrifice "a large chunk of the fiscal levers" on taxing, spending and borrowing, he referred to suggestions the SNP was considering using sterling in the absence of one. But the Chief Secretary said so-called sterlingisation carried "severe economic risks", including not having a lender of last resort.
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