THE Scottish Greens have robustly defended their position on full fiscal autonomy after Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton, was criticised for voting against the SNP amendment during a debate on the Scotland Bill.

Patrick Harvie, Scottish Green MSP for Glasgow, said it made no sense for Scotland to have control of fiscal policy without control of monetary policy.

“The Scottish Greens backed independence to give Scotland a chance to change economic direction, a position respected and supported by colleagues such as Caroline Lucas,” he said. “We still support that. But neither a currency union, which we opposed during the referendum, nor a headlong rush toward a poorly designed scheme labelled full fiscal autonomy will achieve that.

“Instead, without control of macroeconomic policy we would remain locked in to decisions made by the UK Government. Either proposal looks superficially like handing Scotland more power but in reality would mean tying our hands behind our backs.”

Harvie, who outlined his party’s position on full fiscal autonomy last Friday in his regular column for the National, continued: “Fiscal autonomy must come with the ability to run a radically different economy policy. We’d also need to be able to build up reserves, and determine borrowing without reference to the UK Government. We have yet to see such a scheme proposed. Even if it was, there would still be severe limits to fiscal policy if we have no control of monetary policy.”

On Monday night, Lucas voted against the amendment to the Scotland Bill that would have seen full fiscal autonomy delivered to Holyrood to “reflect the view” of her colleagues in Scotland. The amendment was defeated by 508 votes to 54.

Responding to Harvie’s comments a spokesperson for the SNP said: “Fifty-six of Scotland’s 59 MPs believe that Scotland should be moving towards full fiscal autonomy – so that the levers over the economy and welfare are in Scotland’s hands.”