ACCORDING to the latest figures in the Government Expenditure and Revenues Scotland (GERS), Scotland’s notional deficit in 2017/18 was £12.6 billion.

It also revealed that the UK’s deficit as a whole has now fallen to £23.5 billion. That’s led to claims that Scotland is dragging the UK down.

But how can 8.2% of the population be responsible for 54% of the UK’s deficit?

Well, it’s obviously nonsense.

Figures produced by the Office for National Statistics earlier this year, revealed that London, the south-east and the east of England all had net fiscal surpluses in the most recent financial year. Everywhere else in the UK had a net fiscal deficit.

So London raised £34bn more than it spent on public services. In the south-east of England the surplus was £20bn and in the east of England it was £5.9bn.

Conversely, the north-west of England had an eye-watering deficit of £20.8bn, Wales was on £13.7bn and Northern Ireland £9.2bn.

Mairi Spowage, deputy director of the Fraser of Allander Institute research unit told The National: “The UK deficit is the balance of all of these pluses and minuses.

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“Therefore, it only makes sense to say that Scotland accounts for over 50% of the UK deficit if you also say that London is responsible for around minus 80% of it.”

The UK’s deficit as a whole has decreased substantially in recent years. In 2014/15, it was just under £90bn

But the Tory obsession with balancing the books and brutal levels of austerity have seen it fall year on year.

This year’s estimated fiscal deficit of £23.5bn was £18.3bn less than the previous year and the lowest for 17 years.

However, it’s worth noting that the UK’s deficit is 1.1% as a percentage of GDP, while Scotland’s is around 7%.