Readers' Letters: Why can't we impose a windfall tax on wind farms?

Brian Wilson is correct when he suggests that “wind farm community benefits should be a legal requirement” (Scotsman, August 24), but why should they be restricted to the community in which the wind farm is located?

We had a windfall tax on the banks some years ago and still have a windfall tax on the oil companies, so why don’t we have a windfall tax on the wind farms?

Their costs are fixed to a certain extent but their income is dictated by world prices which have doubled in two years.

A reader suggests wind farms could be made the subject of a windfall tax (Picture: John Devlin)

The wind is owned by no man, but the wind farms are owned mainly by foreign companies, so why don’t we tax them, or as an alternative to follow the Danish policy where local communities are entitled by law from the outset of a project to take a 20 per cent stake?

James Macintyre, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Dismal prospect

“Things will get worse", the Prime Minister said in his Rose Garden speech – a slogan to inspire the nation. “Between now and Christmas we will carry on as we have started,” the Prime Minister opined, conjuring up visions of an even more dismal Scrooge and a snowy December with ice in the inside of the windows.

Here we are in the the world’s sixth largest largest economy, blessed with innovative engineers, scientists, creative artists, great universities, a civil service and the rule of law which is admired across the world, a global reach in soft power, oil and gas fields waiting to to be tapped, world-class companies like Rolls-Royce, Astra Zeneca, BP, HSBC and a hundred others, yet Starmer can find nothing positive to say about our great country and its future, which would be bright under the right leadership. Sir Keir Starmer is not that leader, unfortunately.

William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Fooled again

It was with jaw-dropping incredulity that I listened to Sir Keir Starmer’s claim that he had no knowledge of the £22 billion “black hole” in the UK Government’s finances until the Office for Budget Responsibility told him about it after the general election.

I have never considered SNP leader John Swinney to be in the mould of Nostradamus but I distinctly remember that during the election campaign he repeatedly stated that there was a £20 billion deficit in UK Government finances and that the Labour Party would continue to inflict austerity on the country after the election. The figures he quoted came from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) and were in the public domain. If Starmer is now trying to indicate that he had no inkling of this he is either being dishonest or incompetent.

As for Sir Keir's two leading henchmen in Scotland, Ian Murray and Anas “read my lips” Sarwar, who denied there would be the continuation of austerity in the post-election period, I saw that neither had the courage to make themselves available to go onto the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme and answer questions about Labour’s continuation of austerity.

I recall that following the change of government at the general election of 1970 the rock band, The Who, released a new single called Won’t Get Fooled Again. A memorable line from that song was “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss”. It would appear that on the July 4 this year very many Scottish voters actually did allow themselves to get fooled again.

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Labour’s choices

It was no surprise when the “invisible man” suddenly appeared on TV news programmes after the Scottish Fiscal Commission indicated that, in addition to financial pressures caused by the UK Government, Scottish Government choices were contributing to current pressures on the Scottish budget (Scotsman, August 28).

What Anas Sarwar was apparently not asked by BBC Scotland and other reporters was what different choices would he have made as First Minister had the Labour Party been in government in Scotland. The Scottish Fiscal Commission identified three areas where the Scottish Government could have made different choices – social security reforms, public sector pay and the freezing of council tax. Unless I missed it, I did not hear Mr Sarwar speaking out in opposition to the SNP’s choices and given the influence of the trade unions on the Labour Party it would seem likely that if his party were in power in Scotland the financial pressures on the Scottish Government budget would be even greater.

Of course if prior to the general election Sir Keir and Mr Sarwar had been honest and openly accepted the assessment of the IFS of a “black hole” in the UK’s finances of the order of £20 billion, many people in Scotland might have decided not to vote for a party that essentially is committed to Tory austerity policies and still is content for UK firms to supply arms to Israel with no ceasefire in Gaza on the horizon.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothan

Tough measures

An easy way to eliminate Scotland’s £1.5 billion spending black hole could be to disband the expense of the Scottish Government.

Derek Sharp, Edinburgh

The plot thickens

Almost daily your columns inform readers of the parlous state of government finances and consequences for the arts and culture sector in Scotland.

Corporate sponsorship – which is offered, not picked from a list – is helpful in supporting the sector. The Edinburgh Book Festival’s decision to decline funding from Baillie Gifford, which has been open about its two per cent exposure to the oil and gas sector, has set a high bar.

Other corporate entities will now be more circumspect about coming forward as disentanglement from oil or oil services in its many forms is almost impossible.

Individuals will now bear the brunt of making significant donations and ticket prices will inevitably rise within the arts and culture sector.

The authors who opposed Baille Gifford as a sponsor will start to feel the impact within their profession. Never have so many been disadvantaged by so few in the book industry.

I am curious to see how the plot develops.

Ian Culbertson, Edinburgh

Truss tactics

According to Brian Monteith, Liz Truss was not responsible for the financial crisis which brought the British economy to its knees. It was the Bank of England acting independently and nothing to do with her (Scotsman, August 26).

The fact is that had it not been for the Bank of England buying government bonds the economy would have crashed even more. Not only that, she did not consult the Office of Budget Responsibility before her massive unfunded tax cuts, causing a run on the pound and the then Chancellor having to be summoned to the IMF to explain himself. Truss subsequently sacked him to save her own skin!

She also blamed the mythical “deep state” for plotting against her – paranoid delusions. Jeremy Hunt, who took over as Chancellor under Rishi Sunak was forced to reverse every single economic policy she introduced.

A poll carried out before the last general election found many voters would never vote Tory again because of her disastrous 44-day premiership, which sent their mortgages rocketing. That is why Brian Monteith and his ilk will not see power again for a very long time – and a good thing too.

Jim Park, Edinburgh

First and last mile

My late father-in-law lived in Malysia. When visiting, I was often struck by the way that the people discussed transport. Their government has tried to tackle the problems with the transport network and, when they do, they talk about the “frst and last mile”.

Getting to public transportation and getting to your destination is often hobbled by that first and last mile and, boy, is that true in Scotland.

Last week, the Scottish Government ended its peak-time rail fare experiment. It had failed to meet the success criteria: they wanted a ten per cent increase, uptake was only 6.8 per cent.

Some 25 years ago, I studied a unit called The Economics of Transport. Economists then were stressing the need for an integrated transport policy which would allow for buses to tesselate with rail; for effective park-and-ride schemes, for congestion zones. In essence, solutions to the first and last mile. What we got was further fragmentation, further privatisation, a relentless march of higher prices and worse services.

The Scottish Government has taken ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper back under its wing and is making tentative toddles towards sorting things. But it will continue to fail to meet its climate targets if it does not take long-term choices, invest in them and leave them to play out over the long term.

Transport infrastructure investment, the multiplier effect of jobs in manufacturing, staffing and providing these systems is inherently good for an economy.

But it is not a quick fix. And the Scottish Government is not able to do long-term planning because of the short termism imposed by Westminster: no borrowing powers on international money markets, no guarantee of stability in the block grant, a requirement to balance the budget annually.

Satre said: “Hell is other people.” In order to make sharing a confined compartment with those other people, public transport must be cheaper, more reliable, more frequent and less attractive than a hermetically sealed box of your own company.

We’re not there yet and, last week, we moved further away.

Peter Newman, Edderton, Highland

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