Yes Scotland Welcome Positive Findings of Scottish Social Attitudes Survey

The Chief Executive of Yes Scotland, Blair Jenkins, has welcomed key findings in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, saying that it needed to catch up further with the significant changes in the debate on an independent Scotland that had taken place already this year. 

'Importantly, since the poll was conducted from July to November last year, we have had the Westminster welfare changes, making one million Scots families worse off, and the UK Government threatening to take us out of Europe, our largest trading market,' Mr Jenkins said.

'And we have also had the Westminster coalition's admission that, as a worst-case scenario, independence would make every man, woman and child in Scotland only £1 a year worse off.

'Much of the field work for this survey was carried out prior to the Edinburgh Agreement and at a time when it was still a possibility that devo-max was an option for inclusion on the referendum ballot paper.

'That said, a significant finding at this stage is that support for the Scottish Parliament making all decisions is 35%, the most popular option in this poll. "Strong majorities" also want Holyrood to have control over decisions on tax - 56% - and welfare benefit - 64% - and 63% want the Scottish Government to have more influence in how Scotland's run. That, as I've said, was before the savage cuts were announced.

'A Yes vote is the way for the Scottish people to get the control over the future that they want.

'But we in no way minimise the hard work that we must do to take our independence campaign successfully across the referendum finishing line next year. We have to persuade those who believed that devo-max was their preferred choice, not to mention the one in four undecided voters still out there.

'This debate has a long way to go and we at the Yes Campaign are confident that we will deliver a positive result in Autumn 2014.'

Notes 

• Social Attitudes Survey is available from ScotCen Social Research www.scotcen.org.uk  

• Yes Scotland's Chief Executive Blair Jenkins OBE is a former Director of Broadcasting at Scottish Television and former Head of News and Current Affairs at both STV and BBC Scotland. In 2008, he chaired the independent Scottish Broadcasting Commission whose recommendations on the future of the industry were supported by all parties in the Scottish Parliament. He is a Fellow of the Carnegie UK Trust. His report for the Trust on the future of news media, Better Journalism in the Digital Age, was published in February of this year. 

• The other members of the Advisory Board are: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, Elaine C Smith, Pat Kane, Sarah-Jane Walls, Dan Macdonald, Colin Fox, Nicola Sturgeon and Andrew Fairlie. A nominee from the Scottish Green Party has been invited to join the Board and a 16 or 17-year-old will also join the Board next year.