UK 'provides economic certainty'

The economic certainty required by the financial sector in order to grow will come from remaining within the UK, the Scottish Secretary will tell the industry.

The Scottish Government is unable to provide guarantees on its preferred policy options under independence, because these would require detailed negotiations, Michael Moore will tell a conference in Edinburgh.

The politician's latest arguments on the independence debate will be put forward as he shares a platform with Finance Secretary John Swinney at the City UK event.

City UK is the body tasked with promoting the competitiveness of UK financial and professional services.

Mr Moore will tell the audience: "Scotland benefits from a highly integrated UK financial services marketplace. Let's take two examples: the mortgage and life insurance sectors.

"In the last financial year, 16% of mortgages provided by Scottish firms were for Scottish properties and 84% to properties in the rest of the UK, 78% of life insurance products sold to Scottish postcodes were from rest of the UK firms and 22% from Scottish firms, and only 10% of life insurance products sold by Scottish firms were to Scottish postcodes, 90% were to the rest of the UK.

"One of the main factors underpinning this integration is that we have a single regulatory environment covering the whole of the UK.

"Why would anyone wish to put a barrier in the middle of these transactions? Doing so could surely only harm competition and choice, and drive up costs for Scottish consumers.

"This is just one example of the shifting sands and enormous doubts created by supporters of independence."