Gers report: Record is not one the SNP likes hearing

The annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) report is like an old vinyl record you listen to at the same time every year. Each time there’s a slightly different noise and crackle, but still the same song.

Scotland gets a very good fiscal deal by sharing resources with the rest of Britain but we’ve all got so used to hearing the numbers that it’s easy to forget how big they are.

Almost £2,000 per head more in public spending than elsewhere in Britain, combined with lower tax revenues, means Scotland has a very big deficit. Tucked away at the back of the report is a remarkable fact: in the five years to 2021 18 per cent of the UK’s borrowing was for the benefit