My wife and I are pensioners living in an off gas grid house in rural Dumfries & Galloway. We have a recently installed oil boiler to provide heating and hot water. If I understand Mr Harvie correctly, it would seem probable that our current C EPC rating might be downgraded due to our heating system. Let’s speculate that’s probably from a C to a D rating. On the assumption that part 2 of his plan came into being (minimum EPC of C at time of sale), at that point we would be forbidden from selling our property without ripping out our oil boiler and replacing it with a heat pump. Our c£5,000 investment just two years prior would now be scrap and we would be faced with new expenses running to several thousand pounds.

I cannot begin to tell Mr Harvie in how many ways I find this offensive and simply a breach of my and my wife’s human rights. Without too much effort, let me conjure up a realistic scenario to demonstrate the inequity of his proposals should we decline to change our boiler.

Let’s say I am diagnosed with some dread disease. Due to the state of the NHS, I am unable to secure state treatment in a timely fashion. I therefore elect to be treated privately, at considerable cost, and need a “retirement interest only” mortgage to fund my treatment. No mortgage is now possible due to my house being unsaleable on Mr Harvie’s whim. My demise is assured. Some time after my demise, my wife is diagnosed with dementia. She requires a place in a suitable care home. The usual route to achieving this would be to sell her property to fund care. This would now be impossible. (This also presupposes that the 50 per cent of our home that I owned on my demise was transferred to her in accordance with my will. Mr Harvie’s proposed law may also preclude this.)

Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings Patrick Harvie wants to force thousands of Scots to replace perfectly in order boilers (Picture: Fraser Bremner - Pool/Getty Images)

If this is an example of “just transition”, I would hate to experience the unjust variety. Mr Harvie’s plan is outrageous. Any proposal to forbid the legal sale of a property on such grounds must be resisted – it would be a very slippery slope.

Paul Marsden, Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway

Off the boil

So Green MSP Patrick Harvie wants the majority of Scottish homes penalised for not having heat pumps. Does he not understand, these heat pumps are only very efficient in homes that are fully insulated ie basically sealed. That rules out older houses and ignores that heat pumps are less efficient the colder it gets into the minus figures. Sealed houses are not good for people with allergies etc because of lack of air circulation. Also, heat pumps cost too much to install even with grants.

J Moore, Glasgow

Future shock

The Scotsman’s report on Government debt to GDP and the cost of living crisis (“UK debt higher than GDP for first time since 1961, statistics show”, 22 July) underlines the mess that governments over the past few decades have brought on the ordinary people of this country. Debt is the cost of decision that we all make and we have to live with the consequences. Governments play with larger purses and therefore their decisions and debt-fuelled spending have a greater impact on the country as a whole.

However, recent pay awards to public servants have been sanctioned almost regardless of the impact on the country’s finances and although not a major factor today, going forward will be major factor in the decades to come

In the near future we are facing a general election. Almost certainly the elected government will face huge constraints of public spending. Will we have a government whose priority is to reduce government debt so that the country’s finances are able to allow spending on important infrastructure and defence, a government that is strong enough to withstand the noise of discontent that will arise? O r will we continue to be a country sinking in debt, inhabited by a public full of their own needs supported by the noise from social media and weak government.

The future is just around the corner, are we brave enough to face it head on? We will find out soon.

A Lewis, Coylton, Ayrshire

Irish eyes

Scottish nationalist actor Brian Cox is a man who can (and does) reinvent himself on a weekly basis, it seems. He thinks that “we” are “different from the Engl ish”. It's a bit hard to know who he is referring to when he says that, though.

After all, Mr Cox makes much of his Irish ancestry, and quite right too. Many foreign minorities hold on to their separate identity from their host community, so I must assume that he is referring to Irish-Scots. But, as a correspondent said in last week's Scotsman, there is a strangely significant number of Scottish nationalists who have Irish names and ancestry and Brian Cox is another one.

Martin O'Gorman (Letters, 14 July) made the point that the Scots came over here from Ireland, but an increasing number of historians question that. One obvious reason is that the Irish are (broadly speaking) good-looking in a quite distinct way and we ain't. I can often pick out an Irish face at 40 paces.

But, why is Brian Cox speaking in Leicester Square, London, at an Equity protest (your report, 22 July)? That's foreign territory, surely? Why isn't he protesting at home in the USA? Why does he live in the USA, if he is a Scottish nationalist? Why did Sean Connery also live abroad (oops! Another Irish name)? They're funny people, these Irish (sorry, Scottish nationalists), aren't they?

Dave Anderson, Aberdeen

Perfect pubs

An interesting article on Wetherspoon pubs by Scott Reid (24 July). Yes, value for money draws many people but there are other factors, such as many unique buildings that are worth a look. We have an old cinema at the foot of Lothian Road in Edinburgh. I visited their premises in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, a week or so ago, to find it is the old town Opera House, which, inside, still resembles an opera house – well worth a visit.

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Don’t go green

The recent three by-elections in England were widely reported in the media but little attention was paid to the turnout. In Selby and Ainsty it was 45 per cent, in Somerton and Frome, 44 per cent and in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, 46 per cent. The most likely explanation for the low turnout was Conservative voters staying at home in protest at what they see as the non-Tory policies of the present government.

This gives the Prime Minister an opportunity to attract these voters back to the Conservative fold by returning to genuine Tory policies – sound money, defence of the realm, less state direction, freedom of the individual, consumer choice and a focus on economic growth.

To do this I would suggest it would be necessary to cancel the green policies adopted by Theresa May and Boris Johnson which involve Britain in economic self-harm in order to reduce Britain's already small CO2 emissions even further.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Not anti-English

It is sad indeed that some who appear to have run out of arguments in support of our dysfunctional “union” feel the need to resort to repeat the lie that Scots who are “pro-independence” are “anti-English”. What may confuse John Fraser (Letters, 22 July) is that while welcoming all, including the English (many of whom support Scottish self-determination), most Scots rile against those who, with limited knowledge of the day-to-day lives of others, arrogantly and patronisingly speak and act as if they know better, irrespective of whether they come from Scotland, England or any other country.

The fact that many of these individuals happen to support a political party that generally appears heartless in the manner in which it regards the disadvantaged in society, and treats genuine asylum seekers and refugees with contempt, rather than compassion, is not coincidence and it is perhaps why others have used the word “detest” of politicians of that party.

Mr Fraser argues that the BBC is biased in favour of the SNP and independence, contrary to all objective analyses. Almost every political debate on the BBC reveals not only a lack of panel balance around the constitutional question, even when held in regions or cities that have strongly supported independence in elections, but a clear imbalance in time allowed for those supporting self-determination to present views without persistent interruptions. The reason there was a furore around the Nick Robinson interview of Alex Salmond was that Mr Salmond’s comments were edited by the BBC and Mr Robinson incorrectly claimed that a question posed was not answered by Mr Salmond.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

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Readers' Letters: Patrick Harvie's boiler plan unfair to Scots households

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