Terrorist and criminal threats may not diminish in an independent Scotland but its ability to detect and prevent them might be reduced, according to the Home Secretary.
The UK Government has launched its seventh analysis paper on Scottish independence, focusing on security.
It concludes that threats to Scotland from organised crime gangs, cyber criminals and global terrorism “are best confronted with Scotland inside the UK”.
Home Secretary Theresa May launched the paper in Edinburgh with the warning that the UK’s current intelligence and security network would be difficult to replicate in an independent Scotland.
She rejected nationalist arguments that Scotland may face a diminished threat from terrorism by rejecting nuclear weapons and shunning “illegal wars” such as the Iraq conflict.
Ms May said some terrorists have “an issue with the way of life in the west” rather than any specific grievances about foreign policy.
“I don’t think it is possible to guarantee that the threat would diminish with a separate Scotland,” she said.
“There are a number of issues that give rise to the threat that is currently facing the UK.
“There are those for whom it is not just country-specific because of foreign policy, or actions that have taken place, but there is an issue about the West and the way of life in the West.
“But what would change would be the scale of capability that Scotland would have access to.”
The UK’s current intelligence and security network could not be easily divided and resources such as the £860 million UK cyber security programme “would not be available to Scotland”, she said.
Mrs May added: “Separate bits could not be hived off. This is one of the challenges, one of the hard issues that the SNP need to address.
“We took a decision when we came into government in 2010 that we were going to put significant resource into improving cyber security of £860 million over five years. That would not be available to Scotland as a separate state.”
The Scottish Government argues that assets, including defence and security assets, should be divided fairly between Scotland and the remainder of the UK, but Mrs May said the SNP must articulate how they would deploy their security assets.
“The question in relation to funding and budgets is for the Scottish Government to actually answer the question of what they are looking to produce,” she said.
“What would their security service be like? This is an area where they have been singularly unclear and hazy up to now.”
The UK Government would not prevent UK security personnel from joining an independent Scottish security service, she said.
“Obviously people do move away from the existing security organisations and work in other spheres, so it is for individuals to decide if they wished to be recruited into another organisation.
“It isn’t the case that we would prevent people from ever leaving the security services and working elsewhere.”