Former chancellor Alistair Darling has dismissed SNP claims that Scotland would have any control of monetary policy under the party’s plans for independence.
The SNP want to keep sterling if Scotland leaves the UK and insist Edinburgh could still have some influence over issues such as interest rates if a Scottish minister was given a seat on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee.
But Mr Darling, who is heading the pro-union Better Together campaign, said: “It’s not up to the Bank of England or Alex Salmond who gets on to the committee and it sounds as though he hasn’t even had any discussions with the present government or anyone else.
“I know for a fact that the Bank of England has not expressed any view. I know he’s talked to Mervyn King, but its not Mervyn King’s decision who is on the MPC. That will be decided by the people that own the Bank – and that Bank belongs to the UK government.”
A spokesman for Mr Salmond said a Fiscal Commission Working Group had been established set out Scotland’s “fiscal and macro-economic framework” after independence.