Letter: GDP growth study

Professors Scott and Hughes Hallett have been prolific letter writers on the back of their recent appearance before the Scotland Bill Committee, complaining to all who might lend them an ear.

But now we discover that instead of the six cross-country studies covering up to 91 countries over three decades, their research about their claimed link between fiscal autonomy and Scottish GDP growth is in fact an extrapolation of one study involving decentralisation from US states to counties in the 1990s.

So much for their "academic evidence". And thank goodness for parliamentarians determined to search out the evidence and give it proper scrutiny.

Will the SNP apologists in the letters pages now concede they were used? And the whole "etiquette" issue turns out to have been a nearly successful smokescreen to try and divert the committee from "examining" their work. Even SNP apologists surely have some desire to see the truth about the professors' evidence emerge?

Donald Mackay

Maryhill Road

Glasgow