There will be an apparent “exodus” of middle-class earners, a “brain drain” of those heading to the brighter uplands south of the Border where those earning more than £28,000 will pay less income tax than in Scotland.

Putting aside the merits or not of this, what it neglects to highlight is that income tax is only one element of taxation. Scottish council taxpayers, for example, are on average paying £276 a year less than they would in England and £552 less than in Wales.

The average council tax bill for every band is cheaper in Scotland than either England or Wales. Average water charges are also lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK.

Cabinet Secretary for Finance Shona Robison is due to unveil the Scottish Budget today. (PIcture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Those parties also forget to mention the free tuition enjoyed by Scottish students, with those south of the Border having to pay more than £9,000 a year. Prescription fees in England are also more than £9 per item, while in Scotland they are free.

Let us also not also forget that better-funded public services are a key element that make somewhere an attractive place to live.

Most Scottish taxpayers pay less income tax than their English neighbours, but for those with the broadest shoulders who pay more, let us not forget the likes of lower council tax, lower water charges, free university fees and free bus travel for pensioners and young people.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Tough choices

So the SNP are facing a massive black hole in spending plans for 2024-25. Looking at the budget for 2023-24 I can see obvious areas where spending can be cut or eliminated. Like Future Transport Fund – Low Carbon (£99.4 million), International and European Relations (£35m), Offshore Wind (£6.2m), Scottish Government Operating Costs (£696.1m) and Covid and Other Services (£252m) to name a few.

After all, politicians keep telling us that “difficult decisions have to be made”.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

Taxing times

Isn’t it odd that the SNP hold up Ireland as an example of how successful a small independent country can be, when its “wealth” is predicated on low taxes. Perhaps we will be surprised today when we hear the details of the Scottish Budget. Mind you, the temptation to create yet another (sixth) tax band might prove too great.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Full disclosure

In view of the extortionate amount of taxpayers’ money involved, the SNP are correct to demand full disclosure of the facts surrounding the botched procurement of PPE during the pandemic (Scotsman, 18 December), in respect of which Baroness Michelle Mone has belatedly admitted that she had concealed her relationship with the controversial PPE firm in question.

Can we similarly now expect full disclosure from the SNP regarding the large amount of public money which has been thrown at Ferguson Marine in a bid to get two ferries built?

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirling

Switch to STV

In effect, S Beck (Letters, 18 December) is calling for the use of the party list system, where the whole country is one constituency and voters vote for parties on a national list. It’s used in Israel with the result that Netanyahu could only form a government with a coalition of seven parties! In The Netherlands, where it is also used, a four-party coalition recently collapsed and it remains to be seen if another can form a government. It doesn’t form stable government.

Far better to use the single-transferable vote system used for Scotland’s local authority elections and Eire’s national elections. In the latter case, the ruling coalition consists of only three parties. Regrettably it’s use for Stormont in Northern Ireland has resulted in stalemate because one party refused to cooperate with others. Proportional representation attempts to be fair to all voters but it does require compromise. Quite right too; rule by a minority as in the UK parliament is certainly not fair.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

Immigrants needed

Rishi Sunak says that illegal immigrants threaten to “overwhelm” the UK. Last year there were 750,000 legal immigrants, 15 times more than the 54,000 illegal immigrants.

The illegal traffic has to stop and it makes good headlines, but the real, complex, unpopular problem for politicians to fix is how to get more of the UK’s nine million economically inactive people back to work. In Scotland 150,000 people have never worked.

The government plans to reduce annual legal immigrants to 300,000. That’s the same number as Labour’s annual target for housebuilding over five years. Maybe that’s as good as it can get, but if it is we have to accept that for whatever reason British jobs are not being filled by the available British workforce so we need immigration.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Ukraine delusion

I hope that those above his pay grade in Western governments are not living in the same Ukraine policy delusion as Stewart McDonald MP. Referring to Ukraine, he writes: “We know that they can win “because its allies – UK, EU and US – outmatch Russia 30 to one and represent a bloc that is diplomatically, militarily and economically superior to their adversary” (Scotsman, 16 December). Neither he nor anyone else in that bloc has defined what a Ukraine “win” is, and none that I can find have fully endorsed President Zelensky's definition of every square inch including Crimea. If this bloc is so superior, why did Ukraine fail to break through the Russian defences this summer past?

There are some unpleasant facts that our bloc leaders need to face. First, from the beginning the bloc has placed Ukraine on a military leash, by refusing it weapons that could strike undisputed Russian territory – a new rule of war intoroduced by Ukraine's backers that one side can batter the other’s society, but the aggressor’s own civilian life must not be disturbed; second, falling for our own early propaganda that the Russians were incapable of improving on the shambles displayed in their first intervention; third, expecting the Ukrainian army to break through Russia’s massive, well constructed defence lines that no Nato force would have contemplated doing without the necessary firepower and air supriority that Ukraine was not given, and does not have today.

As for Stewart McDonald’s assertion of the western bloc’s superiority, the problem is that it lacks the unity of organisation and purpose, diplomatically, militarily and economically that would make its strength effective, while Russia is a single entity that can provide the necessary military manpower in large numbers, and is now supplying them from a reconstructed defence manufactuting industry.

Muddled war aims, failure to supply the level of weapon-power Ukraine required to retake the Donbas, the heavy militarty casualities that Ukraine cannot sustain, will not see Putin confronted with a reality dictated by western interests. If our bloc is not prepared to arm Ukraine at the level necessary to at least take the Donbas region, then a compromise at Ukraine’s territorial expense is inevitable. Unpalatable fact, but true.

Jim Sillars, Edinburgh

Game over

Ross County’s manager Derek Adams is spot on with his argument that the vast majority of England’s third and fourth tier sides would roast Scottish Premiership opponents.

Pointing out his old club Morecambe (with the bottom budget in League Two) are 100 times better than Ross County and Dundee is merely stating the obvious to anyone not wearing tartan-tinted specs.

Most of Scottish football wastes silly money on has-been journeymen hoofers from England and abroad while better players chose to remain in England’s lower tiers, because no serious professional footballer or coach willlingly wastes their potentially short career plying their trade in a Mickey Mouse professional league of slapdash training, last century’s facilities (if they’re lucky) and routine officialdom bias to ensure the Old Firm’s perpetual “ascendancy”.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Trans prisoners

Susan Dalgety (Scotsman, December 16) criticises the Scottish Prison Service’s (SPS) policy on where to house trans women prisoners, which involves a thorough risk assessment of each case.

According to SPS published figures, over eight years there were two physical assaults by trans women prisoners on other women prisoners, and zero sexual assaults. In a single year, 22-23, there were 74 assaults by other women prisoners. Trans women prisoners held in the women’s estate make up two per cent of women prisoners, and doing the maths, those trans prisoners are significantly less of a risk to other prisoners, not more.

Trans women prisoners with any background of violence towards women are not placed in the women’s prison estate. Moving non-violent trans women prisoners who are in the women’s estate into the men’s estate would not make the women’s estate safer, but it would put those trans women at greater risk themselves.

Tim Hopkins, Director, Equality Network Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won’t print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid ‘Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters’ or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.

Readers' Letters: Income tax warnings are more amusing than credible

Comments