Readers' Letters: Why should responsible and childless families pay for ever more children?

This week’s Scottish Budget brings comments flooding in

Re lifting the two-child benefits cap (your report, 5 December), if John Swinney or Shona Robison spoke to their voters who pay full rent or a mortgage they would find 99 per cent plus either have one or two children.

As responsible citizens, in a country where contraception is free, they have realised they are responsible for raising their children, so have limited numbers according to income. The question the politicians should ask is why families have more children than they can afford? Is it religious reasons re contraception or to cement a new relationship. Swinney and Robison already have childless families paying towards child benefit. Is it fair to ask them, plus those who have limited their family, to again pay more tax to cover their pre-election promise?

Elizabeth Hands, Armadale, West Lothian

Scottish Finance Minister Shona Robison has vowed to scrap the two-child benefit cap (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)Scottish Finance Minister Shona Robison has vowed to scrap the two-child benefit cap (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Scottish Finance Minister Shona Robison has vowed to scrap the two-child benefit cap (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Cap doesn’t fit

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The Scottish Government is to remove the two-child benefit cap. Finance Secretary Shona Robison claimed that the change would cost £100 million a year but the Scottish Fiscal Commission said it would be £150m for 2026-27, rising to £200m in 2029-30. The Institute for Fiscal Studies stated it could eventually cost £300m a year. Child benefit payments are available from the birth of the child until they reach 16 years of age, or 19 if the young person stays in approved education or training.

Why should Scottish taxpayers be forced to subsidise people who have large families and those who will need a bigger council house? Implementation requires the cooperation of the UK Government so one wonders how the taxpayers down South will react.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Magic money?

Shona Robison boldly announces changes to the income tax personal allowances in the Scottish Budget. However, with the median gross annual salary in the UK at just over £37,000 it is no big boast to say that a fraction over half of Scots will pay less tax than in rUK if they earn under £30,000 per annum.

She also announces a huge increase yet again in the benefits bill, with no reform or plans to get people back into work. The simple question she has fundamentally failed to answer is “Where on earth will the growth come from” that will drive forward the Scottish economy?”

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Whitehall farce

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While reading The Scotsman’s editorial assessment of the Scottish Government's Budget (“Don't be fooled by the SNP's spending spree”), I wonder if I was alone in my opinion that its final paragraph was both rather grudging and lacking in balance. The assertion within that paragraph was that Finance Secretary Robison had only been able to deliver her spending pledges due to "taxpayers’ money from Westminster".

Economists would tell you that a huge amount of the money which emanates from Whitehall towards Scotland is a direct consequence of UK Government borrowing. Many of those same economists would also tell you that much of Whitehall's borrowing would be unsustainable without Scotland's vast export activities to support sterling on the world currency markets. The £5 billion of additional funding received by Scotland this year is a fraction of the debt that has been issued by the UK Government in Scotland's name.

Whitehall is not some benevolent actor, gracefully handing us money which we either don't own or didn't earn. Whitehall can only borrow to fund a Scottish deficit because Scotland sends all of its tax revenue to Whitehall. It is so rarely said that Scotland's contribution to Whitehall supports the currency that Whitehall has sole authority to issue on sovereign debt markets. Scotland has very limited borrowing power in comparison to that of Whitehall. Whitehall spends and back-charges Scotland. It's not a gift. It's our own money.

We need to stop this fallacy that somehow we are being given a gift. We aren't. It's not a block grant. It's a partial rebate of our own taxes. Whitehall keeps the balance and issues debts on top.

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More detail would help to end the false rhetoric we so often hear and read of Scotland being gifted money by Whitehall. It would also lead to much more clarity and balance in public discourse.

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Head in sand

Shona Robison promised a “bold” budget. In essence she is committed to spending yet more money the SNP has absolutely not got for “good causes”, such as lifting the two-child benefit cap.

Has Ms Robison looked around recently? Is the outlook rosy? War in Ukraine, in Sudan and in the Middle East (in which the SNP and Greens have taken a one-sided viewpoint which may very well backfire).

Political troubles in South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and now France. Ireland heading for real financial and immigration problems. The United States on the verge of a hand-over to President Donald Trump, who has been so badly maligned by the SNP and Greens.

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Everything is in chaos but the SNP thinks it can plough along and even still push for “independence”. Do any SNP policies suggest it is in control here and able to withstand events elsewhere or is the party's head completely in the sands?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Papers wait

Another bit of bad news from the SNP's budget is their decision to scrap the “Building a new Scotland” series of papers in the name of the Scottish Government, one of the concessions they made to the Lib Dems in exchange for their support of the budget. Thirteen were published since June 2022 in an embarrassing attempt to clear up the mess from the much heralded, much ridiculed 2018 “Growth Commission Report”.

When I say bad news, the bad news is for the pro-UK side because they were fantastic evidence, along with the SNP's dismal 17-year reign in government, of their lamentable case for independence and their inability to build a new Scotland.

The Lib Dems should have made the continued publication of the papers a condition of their support.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Dying beast

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It seems Stan Grodynski doesn't get any news from his beloved EU (Letters, 4 December). He is forever pointing to the deficiencies of the UK. We do have some, and ever more as Labour digs a very, very big hole into which the economy will slide, as will defence, farming and all other areas they touch with their sticky fingers. Does anybody want to buy a second-hand illegal immigrant policy? Keir Starmer will flog you one. He's got plenty of others if you don't like that one, but they all have one common feature. They don't work.

Scotland is saddled with a dysfunctional SNP and now the UK is stuck with the terminally incompetent Labour Government. Left wing both.

However, Mr Grodynski seems to be blithely unaware of how the EU is crumbling in front of our eyes.

Romania is facing the possibility of becoming a client state of Russia. Hungary already is. Poland is preparing for a possible future attack by Russia, as it knows it cannot rely upon its fairweather Euro partners.

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Germany's economy is floundering, as is its government coalition, and it is the engine room of the EU economy, of course. Its car firms are in trouble thanks to the demands of climate activists to sell environmentally damaging electric cars, which no one wants to buy.

Now, France's economy is going pear-shaped with a deficit of €60 billion and €350bn of debt and €40bn in interest payments due next year.

When Donald Trump gets into the White House, the EU is going to face hefty tariffs on their US trade. It won't be pretty.

Does Mr Grodynski still think that tying ourselves to this dying beast is a good idea?

John Fraser, Glasgow

Operation fudge

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Once again the usual tosh “we’re better than them” propaganda is used by Fraser Grant (Letters, 5 November) regarding the Scottish NHS versus the NHS in England and Wales.

How ironic it is that today is the day I am going to the Borders General Hospital for my preop assessment for ankle fusion.

Mr Grant states that “Scotland’s NHS remains the best performing in the UK, with 98 per cent of the thousands of planned operations consistently going ahead every month”.

Perhaps it would be more illuminating to add the defining facts behind my appointment this morning.

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It is, to the day, 45 weeks and 6 days exactly since I was referred by my Consultant. While this appointment is a great step forward, I am under no illusions as to when the surgery may proceed – it could be up to another three months away. That is a conservative, positive estimate.

It is easy to say 98 per cent of operations are carried out in any given week – but do not try to pull the wool over our eyes with airy fairy statistics which, when all the other relevant information is collated and presented, shows a system which is, frankly a damn disgrace.

This false comparison between Scotland and the rest of the UK is the equivalent of me saying my Scotty dog bit ten people last week while the English Setter down the road bit 20 – they are both bad dogs but… nonsensical rubbish!

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Write to The Scotsman

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