Who Has The Power?
Westminster is a currency-issuing monetary sovereign.
Westminster deliberately constrains Holyrood’s budget and has reserved powers that constrain its policy choices.
Currency Issuer v Currency User
A currency-issuing monetary sovereign as the UK and USA and many other governments around the world can create any amount of it’s own currency by either direct spending eg pensions, NHS, etc or through commercial bank lending to both businesses and consumers.
The only limitation is the resources available to carry out any activity or project. As a general maxim, if it can be done, it can be paid for without impacting inflation which is the primary limiting factor.
Holyrood is a currency user!
The Scottish government are currency users like you and me, and has fewer borrowing powers than one of its Local Councils!
The Scottish Government like us have a limited income, largely based on the Barnett Formula and additional UK government consequentials. They also have to balance their budget, again just like you and I!
Holyrood (the SNP who’ve been in power for the last 17 years) doesn’t seem to understand this and makes big promises as though they have the same powers as Westminster.
They Are Not! They Don’t!
They don’t have all the policy and fiscal levers of a real currency-issuing monetary sovereign government.
They can’t create economic growth or meet climate targets, or anything else because they don’t have the authority or means to achieve these goals.
The outcome is, as has been seen, neither optimal nor practicable.
Having responsibilities like these imposed would be bad enough, but self-imposed objectives without the ability to command the resources needed is setting yourself up for failure!