AS I speculated in this column last week, it now looks likely the SNP will publish the results of its long-awaited Growth Commission this Friday, just in time both for the party’s spring conference and the gathering of non-party Yes groups in Stirling on Sunday.

The key issue in judging the outcome of the commission’s two-year, marathon deliberations will be whether it urges the SNP to adopt a separate Scottish currency after independence – a move most activists already support, including myself.

However, the commission – chaired by former RBS economist Andrew Wilson – was tasked at looking well beyond the mechanics of a separate currency. Rather, it has been drawing up a blueprint for boosting Scottish productivity, growth and prosperity using all the levers made possible by cutting Scotland free from the suffocating domination of the City of London. If we are to convince a working majority of Scots to opt for independence, we need hard evidence we can run a better show on our own. With the UK economy trailing the rest of the G7 industrial nations, that shouldn’t be difficult for the commission.

That said, I’d like to suggest that we need a wider framework for assessing what we want from the economy of an independent Scotland. Simply pushing the button marked “economic growth” is not enough. It would be easy to bump up domestic growth to 3% or 4% if we strip mine the Highlands, get into bed metaphorically with Ineos, scrap all planning restrictions, and make Scotland a haven for dodgy foreign investment banks. Malta has followed such a neo-liberal path and is expected to hit 5.6% GDP growth this year. Sadly, that island is infested with the (real) Mafia and international money launderers, and anyone objecting (particularly journalists) gets assassinated.

Scotland definitely needs higher productivity growth to underpin the welfare state, pensions and housing we desire. But I caution the independence movement: before discussing the technical details of economic growth we need first to define the broader goals of economic policy. Otherwise we risk falling into the trap of “GDP growth at any price”.

When the Growth Commission was first mooted, I submitted (at the request of one of the commissioners) a short paper outlining the key economic pillars on which we could build a new Scotland. My notion was to define the broader political and social goals that must govern economic policy making in an independent state. I remain anxious that we do not turn Scotland into a global tax haven or sub-contract our economic management to Charlotte Square fund managers.

In the preamble of the submitted paper, I argued that our approach to economic management should follow the lead of Adam Smith, the Scots father of economics, by combining social justice with the quest for economic efficiency. I went on to elaborate on some of the key pillars on which the economic policy, architecture and management of an independent Scotland should be built.

I listed 10 key benchmarks: 1. Maintain an equal commitment to social justice and to economic efficiency. In other words, the economy serves human needs, not the other way around. Otherwise we end up – like the current Tory Westminster Government – paying lip service to social justice while letting Grenfell Tower burn. An obvious corollary of this approach is to maintain equity of outcomes between the generations and between the sexes.

2. Maintain full employment and maximise human wellbeing. This is not the same as maximising GDP growth. The latter metric is, in any case, increasingly flawed as you can increase growth just by stimulating consumer debt and spending – which is clearly unsustainable. Note: unlike the Bank of England, the central bank in an independent Scotland must have full employment as its mandated goal.

3. Promote a mixed economy including public and co-operative forms of ownership. We need only mention Carillion, Virgin East Coast, RBS and the entire Western banking system to cure ourselves of the absurd notion that the market knows best.

4. Construct a progressive taxation system which ensures a proportionate scale of real remuneration between lowest and highest paid, and which delivers a living wage for everyone. Capitalism drives down real wages unless there is a political counterweight, be it strong trades unions or the state. High wages don’t undermine productivity, they actually stimulate it.

5. Recognise that enhancing productivity – doing things better – is the primary way of ensuring greater national wealth. There are two obvious corollaries. First, there must be a policy bias towards decision-making for the long-term. Five-year plans, anyone? Second, we should encourage investment over consumption. There’s a danger in the latter course that we deny folk fun in their lives. Solution: agree the share of national income we set aside for investment. At present, the UK invests about 16% of GDP per annum, while in more productive Germany it is a quarter more.

6. Have a policy bias towards investing in human capital. But let’s not turn our schools, colleges and universities into exam factories driven by the supposed needs of the labour market. Stimulating human inventiveness and creativity means giving folk the chance to learn stuff that is not prescribed by human resource departments.

7. Recognise that a small, open economy must prioritise exporting. This is not a platitude. As we see in the economic wreck of Venezuela, it is imperative that small economies stay part of the global division of labour, otherwise you forfeit external stimulus and with it technological advance. Scotland needs to make and sell the high-tech and cultural goods the world wants. The trick is to maximise domestic control over economic policy levers, rather than sell out to foreign investors. That’s how China transformed its economy in the 1990s. Example: don’t import foreign aircraft for the Scottish armed forces; instead, buy them on the basis the constructor opens a production line in Scotland. (That’s legal under EU rules.)

8. Recognise that natural resources are a wasting asset always to be used sustainably. Do I really need to spell this one out?

9. Maintain a state monopoly of the right to issue the national currency. This is a biggy. All the foregoing rules are a waste of time unless the public authorities control the banking system. The key to that is a separate Scottish currency issued by a Scottish central bank. That does not give the Scottish Government the right to use the printing presses to fund itself recklessly. There should be a commitment to maintaining a sound currency and defeating inflation, otherwise we destroy folks’ savings. The Scottish Government should also keep a balanced revenue budget except in conditions of acute crisis
and borrow only for capital investment.

10. Finally, economic decision-making must be transparent and subject to rigorous democratic oversight that includes independent statistical scrutiny.
We’ll see on Friday if the Growth Commission takes any of these benchmarks into consideration. Over to you, Andrew.