Citizens’ Advice

Citizens Advice Scotland has accurately described the extra costs associated with living in remote areas and is reporting them to the Scottish Affairs Committee in Edinburgh.

The expense of living at a 
distance from the centres of population in Scotland is simply a microcosm of the extra costs we would all incur in an independent Scotland.

Currently, large retailers average out transport costs across the whole United Kingdom and charge the same price for a pair of slippers in Inverness as in London.

If transport costs were only averaged across Scotland, with much longer distances from the distribution centres and a far smaller population, there would be a substantial increase in the cost of just about everything.

The consumers in London are effectively subsidising the consumers in Inverness. This would cease immediately on independence.

The Scottish Affairs Committee will be completely unable 
to take any effective action which can nullify the impact of living far from the madding crowd. You can’t trump 
geography.

And the SNP will be able to do nothing to ease our substantial extra costs if we go it alone.

It is not just the dramatic fall in the oil price which would make independence such an economic disaster.

Carole Ford

Terregles Avenue

Glasgow