Letter: Experts in error

I NOTE that professors Scott and Hughes Hallett (Letters, 25 January) now state "nowhere in our paper do we make the assertion that fiscal decentralisation will, per se, improve the underlying rate of growth of the economy".

I quote from their paper: "…a 1 per cent point increase in fiscal devolution (share of local expenditures in total government spending for that region) generates additions of between 0.16 per cent and 0.32 per cent to growth rates." It does not assist any case the professors may wish to make if they now misrepresent their own paper.

David McLetchie

Conservative MSP Holyrood