Readers' Letters: Decisions made in Scotland aren't automatically good ones

First Minister John Swinney reckons decisions served up in Scotland are bound to be better than Westminster fare; SNP candidate Tommy Sheppard can be seen behind him (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

John Swinney claims that decisions made in Scotland are better for Scotland.

Would that include the decision to go ahead and build two ferries without a builder's refund guarantee? Or to pour hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money into Bifab or Prestwick Airport with little prospect of return? Or to attempt to implement the Named Person scheme or a National Care Service or a Deposit Return Scheme? Or to postpone the A9 upgrade or the Climate Change Plan or the overhaul of Scottish education? The list of catastrophic decisions and delays is endless.

The best decision that could be made in Scotland would be for the Scottish people to consign this feckless lot to the dustbin of history. All that we get from the SNP is a continuity of world-leading incompetence accompanied by a dogged determination to cover it up by finger pointing, obfuscation and secrecy.

All of this made in Scotland to the detriment of Scotland.

Colin Hamilton, Edinburgh

Rural votes

Jill Stephenson (Letters, 28 June) would be “genuinely interested to know” what the SNP Scottish Government does for rural Scotland that makes people so mysteriously willing to vote for it. As with the Life of Brian question “what have the Romans ever done for us?” the answer is – quite a lot.

More is to be done, but the Scottish Government’s Scottish Land Fund, the Land Reform (Scotland) Act and the Scottish Land Commission address issues of access, ownership and management of rural land. Rural housing, and the balancing act between homes for locals and tourist revenue associated with second homes, has led to the government's ambition to provide 100,000 affordable homes by 2031/32; the total affordable housing supply from 1 April 22-31 March 23 was 10,466. The Scottish Government delivers far more social housing than in England (which sets, admittedly, a very low bar).

The Queensferry Crossing, giving enhanced access to rural areas beyond the capital, was delivered on time and within budget. The Borders Railway has exceeded expectations for passenger numbers (around 1.7 million a year before the pandemic), while the new stations at East Linton, Leven and Cameron Bridge provide further social, economic and environmental benefits to rural communities.

Scottish Tories and Labour used the blunt instrument of the delayed delivery of ferries to attack the government, an obsession that blocked discussion of the main issues. First, CalMac’s passenger numbers show that in spite of the inexcusable delays with the ferries, in 2023 the number of passenger journeys by ferry in Scotland was 5,079,478 on 29 routes. Beyond that, there is a huge swirl of movement via the ferries and managing this in the interests of workers, residents and visitors is extremely challenging.

According to the Fairness Foundation Britain is deeply unequal, with the gap between south and north widening over the next five years on every inequality measure. Before voting Ms Stephenson might ask another question: what have 300 years of union done to mitigate the inequalities that make the average person in England’s South East £195,400 richer than the equivalent person in the north?

The real mystery is why our neighbours keep voting for a two-party, FPTP system that perpetuates the inequality and unfairness that harms both the economy and the life chances of millions.

Paul Brna, North Berwick, East Lothian

Private functions

Forgive me if my heart fails to bleed about the plight of private schools in Scotland (“Schools seek talks with UK Labour over VAT on fees,” 1 July). Private schools have, ludicrously, enjoyed charitable status for many, many years and will probably continue to have this status under a Labour government.

Should Labour become the new government on Thursday it will, quite rightly, aim to improve the experience of the vast majority of pupils in public sector institutions throughout the UK, starved of adequate funding and run into the ground by a Tory government whose cabinet just happens to include around 65 per cent of its members educated in the private sector.

Private schools may bleat about how places are offered free of charge to children who may not be able to afford private education, in other words “saving” them from the ignominies of a state education. This, however, fails to understand that all young people deserve the good education the private institutions claim to offer, particularly those from non-privileged backgrounds, and by diverting this funding to state schools it should be possible to achieve this.

The rather flimsy and desperate argument that this policy will put pressure on public sector schools just does not hold water.

After all, these institutions are essentially businesses and should expect to be treated as such. Even if it does mean raising their prices.

D Mitchell, Edinburgh

Taxing the brain

Listening to John Swinney on BBC TV yesterday, he supports Labour in imposing VAT on private schools. He is clearly unaware of, or ignoring legal advice going back as far as the Eighties, apparently, that to end tax exemptions for private schools would likely breach international human rights laws to which Britain is signed up. It also smacks of discrimination. Why not apply VAT to private tuition fees as well?

Labour has pledged to use the estimated £1.5 billion in tax revenue to fund 6,500 new teachers for state schools.

However, according to the UK government, 3.6 per cent of total benefit expenditure in the financial year ending 2023 was overpaid due to fraud and error, resulting in a net loss of 3.1 per cent after accounting for recoveries. That net loss translates into £7.3bn… of taxpayers money!

Christian Hook, Banbury, Oxfordshire

One-way street

Having previously insisted that the SNP winning a majority of seats is a mandate to begin independence negotiations with Westminster, on a BBC phone-in, John Swinney is unable to confirm the obvious: that failing to win a majority means the SNP should “let that matter lie”.

So there we have it. While his claim that winning a majority of seats works as a mandate is beyond dubious since that would be based on around 35 per cent of voters supporting the SNP on a probable 60 per cent turnout, it's clear that, for Swinney, democracy works only when it's in his favour.

We all know that for the SNP, whose constitution puts seeking independence first and foremost above governing Scotland, the fact that the people of Scotland rejected the SNP's UK break-up obsession in 2014 and, using Swinney's own measure, may do so again on Thursday is irrelevant: nationalist dogma is what matters to him, not what voters want.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Sponsor silence

In the 19th century many industrialists, of whose activities we might now not approve, financed art galleries, museums and other facilities for the public benefit that we enjoy today Perhaps those critics of Baillie Gifford should be looking at the Amazons, hedge funds and other tax-shy organisations who currently make miniscule, if any, contributions to facilities available to the public. Who is going to replace Baillie Gifford?

Ian Sutherland, Liberton, Edinburgh

Standing out

Thank you for the big photograph of First Minister John Swinney and Edinburgh East and Musselburgh candidate Tommy Sheppard. It was an odd choice of picture to accompany Brian Monteith's article which was advocating tactical voting to ensure that the SNP do not win seats simply because the opposition is divided between Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative (Perspective, 1 July). Monteith even went so far as to say that he would vote Labour himself if that was the best option tactically to keep the SNP out. So logically the picture to accompany the article should have been one of Anas Sarwar, but instead we got Swinney and Sheppard – a strange choice.

However, I did appreciate a sighting of Mr Sheppard, since he is my local MP and I have seen no reports of his political activities since the last General Election. Apart from something about how he had managed to get Covid money for his entertainment business when many other small businesses got nothing. It is just a pity that we do not need any more stand-up comedians, given that Holyrood is full of them.

Les Reid, Edinburgh

Child protection

We were shocked to learn that, unlike in England and Wales where it is limited to medical need, Scotland allows ritual genital cutting – circumcision – on boys to be carried out by the NHS for purely religious reasons.

The Scottish Parliament, however, has incorporated the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which will come into force on 16 July.

It states that no one should be “subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment during infancy or childhood” and that “children’s bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination” must be protected. Those who argue for this non-consensual and irreversible surgery to be available on the NHS say that the many examples of botched private operations and the consequent adult despair of its victims are a worse problem.

There is a third option. Let those for whom a 3000-year old biblical regulation is important pay for the procedure when they are old enough to decide for themselves.

Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society

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