BEN THOMSON, chief executive of Edinburgh-based investment bank Noble Group, has weighed into the debate on independence, saying it could create “a more attractive environment for business”.
Thomson, 43, said: “I’m not at all afraid either of fiscal autonomy or independence.
“I would welcome it if it were used as a platform to help business in ways such as the SNP’s proposal for lower corporate taxes in Scotland.”
He said he recently met the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, and supported what he was trying to do, although he has not contributed to the SNP’s election war chest.
Thomson’s comments follow those of other senior business figures who have been calling for a greater debate on the issue. Crawford Beveridge, the Sun Microsystems vice-president and former Scottish Enterprise chief executive, said in last week’s Sunday Times that he believed the Scottish Parliament should have greater financial independence.
And Kwik-Fit founder Sir Tom Farmer recently donated £100,000 to the SNP and said he believes independence is likely.
It is also understood that some board members of the industry body Scottish Financial Enterprise would like to see its members — which include all senior Scottish financial companies — discuss the issue more fully.
Thomson’s views could potentially come as an embarrassment to first minister Jack McConnell, chairman of the Financial Services Advisory Board, on whose board Thomson also sits — in light of the first minister’s attempts to close down the debate on further powers for the Scottish parliament.
Thomson said he does not share some people’s fears that fiscal autonomy or independence would be a recipe for mismanagement and high taxation. He believes Scotland’s total tax take would, in fact, increase. “Look at the wealth the City of London generates for England,” he said.
“If we could create something that would make it more attractive for more financial firms to be based in Scotland, then it would bring a huge amount of wealth, which would improve our overall tax take because earnings in Scotland would rise.”
He said he was not concerned that regulation of financial services would be disjointed were Scotland to become independent.
“If there was to be any divergence in regulation north and south of the border it would be slow and gradual, just as the UK continued to look after Ireland’s lighthouses for a long time after the UK split from Eire,” he said. “And there are aspects of regulation that Scotland has been doing differently for a long period of time, and nobody has any worries about that at all.”
Noble is a boutique investment bank, formerly known as a merchant bank, which specialises in providing corporate finance and advisory services to fast-growth small and mid-cap companies and investment vehicles. Founded by Sir Iain Noble and his brother Tim Noble in 1980, it has 120 employees in Edinburgh and London.
This article was published in The Sunday Times on 5 November 2006