| On September 18,2014, a referendum on whether Scotland should be an independent country took place in Scotland. Scotland rejected independence by 55% to 45%. The 300-year-old England-Scotland union will last after the challenge. Before the referendum, SNP Government announced a series of social welfare policies which arouse much concern. Will Scotland get a better country after independence? Will the future promised by politicians come true? To gain a better understanding of these questions, the writer intended to do a deeper research and this is the motivation for writing this paper.The body of this thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter describes the history of Scottish independence movement which includes the process from conflicts to combination between Scotland and England, the basic facts on the Devolution in Scotland, the Growth of SNP in the Scottish Parliament and the background of 2014 referendum.The second chapter briefly summarized and analyzed the social welfare policies brought forward by SNP before 2014 referendum. According to White Paper on Scotland Independence, social welfare policies proposed by the SNP can be divided into 4 parts:pension revolution policies, other social security policies, the NHS policies and child care and education revolution policies. The highlights table by Scottish Government are pension policies, the abolishment of ’bedroom tax1, ’Universal Credit’ revolution, minimum wage system revolution, new child care system. SNP’s pension revolution doesn’t have very big breakthrough compared to new pension policies put forward by Cameron’s government. Besides, SNP’s pension policies will face challenges from legal, regulation and funding aspects. The increase of the minimum wage standard can help to raise the level of low-income people’s life and the social status of females. The withdrawal of Universal Credit will aggravate the waste of social security fund. The new child care system lacks a detailed plan, which ignores huge investment in infrastructure construction and training cost and salary of teachers. Generally, some of the policies adopted the policies from the Westminster Parliament, while some of the policies overstated the real impact on Scotland, and some of the policies would increase the burden of future Scottish economy.The third chapter lists elements which would affect upcoming Scottish economy. The Scottish government forecasts, with the revenue of North Sea Oil, Scotland can remain at a high level of income. However, according to results by many experts and researchers, in the coming 50 years, personal welfare spend of Scottish people will also stay at a relatively high level. By the influence of population aging, Scotland’s GDP growth will be less than the UK. Under ’Barnett Formula’, personal public spending has been higher than other regions of the UK. Once Scotland become an independent country, Scotland can only cut public service spending from defense departments and education departments without the funds from London. Scotland’s future economic growth will be lower than the Scottish Government’s expectations, but the government’s public spending would increase. The instability of North Sea oil revenue will also impact on t balanced budget of Scotland.The fourth chapter of this thesis explores the long-term social risk of Scotland independence. Aged tendency of population and weak high-tech industry will directly affect sustainable development of economics. The Scottish Government will have yet to deal with defense spending problem and international relations challenges. Population aging in Scottish society can be seen as the biggest challenge. Scotland has the lowest-low fertility, while appeal as a destination for migrants is not so strong as England. In the future, the population of older people will highly increase causing a labor shortage and rise in labor costs. The main export industries of the UK are automobile industry, pharmaceutical industry, aerospace industry and so on. Most manufacturing and research bases are situated in England. The research abilities of universities in Scotland have large gaps to universities in England. All these facts will influence industrial distribution and structure of future Scotland. SNP’s denuclearization policy asks UK’s defense base moving out from Scotland, but the move will involve heavy expenditure and reduce jobs. Because Spain and Belgium have similar national independence problem, it’s very difficult for Scotland to become a member of European Union.In conclusion, based on the welfare policies in the white paper, once independent, it’s hard to remain in budget balance for the Scottish Government. SNP’s social welfare policies won’t benefit long term growth for Scotland. The independence of Scotland would harm the interests of both sides. However, many people in Scotland support national independence indicate common people can be easily deceived by politicians. Under the background of globalization, people’s national sovereignty and national security awareness is not strong. To strengthen people’s understanding of the modern sovereign state is expected to be very urgent. |
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