THE big business trumpeters of the rival Yes and No camps both claimed their constitutional settlement would leave Scots better off yesterday.

Westminster Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander said government research showed that an economic payoff equivalent to £1,400 a person would greet Scottish voters if they opted to stay in the union rather than vote to leave.

“Because as a United Kingdom we can pool resources and share risks, it means a UK dividend of £1,400 a year for every man, woman and child in Scotland,” he said.

The majority of that comes from higher public spending in Scotland and lower onshore tax revenues.

But Professor Patrick Dunleavy, whose work underpinned the Treasury’s estimates of how much it would cost to set up new government institutions, said Whitehall figures “badly misrepresents” his research in their statements and that the actual cost would be much lower.

Meanwhile Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond promised that his compatriots would be £5 billion a year better off by 2029 as an “independence bonus.”

That would be £1,000 per head without raising taxes, due to projected higher productivity, higher employment and an increase in the working-age population, said the SNP leader.