Readers' Letters: Reeves must not cut investment for scientific research

Will the next pandemic be caused by an agent spread by sex, like HIV, or by projectile vomiting, like the norovirus? It is not possible to say, even if the number of syphilis cases is increasing fast and is at the highest level since the Second World War.

Attempts to develop vaccines against HIV and syphilis have all failed, but fundamental medical research led to discoveries that in themselves eventually formed the basis for successful treatments. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when researching the pigmentation of Staphylococcus aureus, the cause of boils and wound infections. Eighteen years elapsed before it was used to cure syphilis. It is still the standard treatment, and still works like magic.

It is hard to think of a more compelling example of the long-term and unexpected benefits brought by investing in fundamental research. So I hope that Reeves supports it, and eschews short termism, whatever the immediate political gain it brings.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Labour’s ignorance

The stupendous ignorance of how the world works evinced by the newly-elected Labour government is only exceeded by that of the SNP administration in Scotland.

Quite how Rachel Reeves thinks that she will encourage business growth when she intends to give rights to employees from day one to take action against a new employer is a perfect case in point. Why should employers subject themselves to being sued for any one of a number of sins by someone with a grudge, or simply someone who wants to make a nice heap of money to feather their nest? At best, employers may use temp agencies for urgent roles, but they may also find problems with zero hours contracts, even though many employees find this beneficial.

Then we have the Employer’s National Insurance contribution being jacked up and then also being levied on employees; pensions contributions. Whatever happened to not taxing “working people”? Employers will, of course, avoid that by reducing pensions for their staff, or take a hit on those payments. That will get passed on to their staff, because companies don’t have a Magic Money Tree called Lord Alli, unlike Labour.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Business blows

Small business owners will be fearing today. Predictions around increases in employers national insurance and the minimum wage could be devastating to some.

Let’s take a business with 10 employees all on minimum wage (£12) working 40 hours a week. Let’s use £1/hour wage increase. So that’s a £400 increase. Now add a two per cent increase in National Insurance. That’s a further cost of £100. That adds up to £500 per week, or £25,000 per year. So what do they do? Increase their prices to the consumer, reduce staff or shut up shop? It’s no surprise to read that not one of the 22 members of the cabinet have ever run a business.

Lewis Finnie, Aberdeen

Brass neck

It takes a lot of gall for Shona Robison to plead for more cash for schools and hospitals from the Chancellor in the upcoming budget (Scotsman report, 29 October).

Time and again SNP ministers have made the same plea. In each and every case, every penny they receive, instead of going on special cases, appears to be blown on the usual suspects of pretend embassies, overseas junkets, independence, papers, ferries, airports, many more Spads, and so on. These are the sacrosanct budget items in the SNP view. And we have demonstrably seen other supposedly “ring-fenced” cash in the SNP coffers seemingly disappear.

So, if the Chancellor was tempted to give in to nationalist demands, any extra should go only if paid directly to the local authorities and schools or to NHS Scotland.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Private school bias

On Reporting Scotland on BBC1 there was a very informative piece on the government imposing VAT on private sector school fees.

An “education researcher” Barry Black from Glasgow University told us that this was the way that “the most affluent families” could contribute to a more equitable education system for all children.

If Mr Black, who we were informed is a member of the Labour Party, “researched” just a little more he would understand, it’s not that difficult, that these families pay for state education through taxation and then do not take up the places that they have funded. It costs £8,500 a year to educate a child in the state system. There are over 28,000 children in private schools in Scotland. This saves the state £238m per year.

If the state need more money for education maybe they should ask themselves why are we paying for an "education researcher" at a university? What does he do all day,? Other than justify Labour Party policy?

Howard Lewis, Edinburgh

Jet extreme

Oxfam Scotland is urging the Scottish Government to introduce a tax on private jets since they are “fuelling the climate crisis” (your report 28 October).

Oxfam Scotland says taxing the 13,000 flights of private jets into Scotland would raise between £21 million and £30m and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

There are 5.4m flights by private jets worldwide so why does Oxfam Scotland pick on Scottish airports?

Oxfam should get on with their day job which is “Fighting injustice for a more equal world” rather than preaching the gospel of Climate Change in Scotland which has a miniscule 0.1 per cent of global emissions.

There is a huge private jet world out there just waiting to be saved by Oxfam. The US, with more than 12,000 private planes, would be a good place to start, then Brazil, Mexico and Canada. Closer to home is the Isle of Man which has the second largest number of private jets in Europe.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow

Gone astray

Arguing in favour of immigration being “a devolved issue”, Ian Petrie (Letters, 29 October) claims that it’s necessary due to Scotland’s ageing population and humanitarian considerations.

The problem is this: if immigration were to be devolved, what’s to stop these new arrivals simply relocating south, which is where most wish to go thanks to Scotland’s higher taxes and anti-enterprise policies? Or is Mr Petrie hoping for a frontier with border checks to control the movement of people?

The fact that he can’t resist mentioning the Highland Clearances provides another clue as to which side of the constitutional divide he might possibly stand on.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Crossed wires

The Scottish Power Energy Network’s (SPEN) proposed 80 kilometre Cross Border Connection will see the heart of the Borders bisected by power transmission lines carried on 400, 60 metre-tall pylons. This was foreseen by numerous protest groups when wind installations first began to appear on out hills.

The obsessive quest for net zero has resulted in the peremptory electrification of the housing stock and transport and thousands of acres of farmland being lost to trees.

Scotland aims to more than double its current on-shore wind power capacity from 8.8GW to 20GW while its off-shore capacity is targeted to increase massively from 2.1GW to 11GW by 2030.

SPEN have belatedly extended their consultation period by a month. However, the best that can be hoped for are minor tweaks involving some burying of cables and a bit of re-routing which may mollify a few concerns but will fail to avoid unwelcome social and amenity intrusions and further industrialisation of our fine, natural landscapes.

Opposition to wind power development has frequently been overcome by politically inspired financial carrots under the guise of community benefits and false promises of cheap electricity.

Communities that availed themselves of such monetary inducements failed to heed the blatantly obvious fact raised by many objectors that in due course hundreds of miles of new transmission lines would be needed. Now that the harsh reality has become apparent their concerns will fall on deaf ears because unfortunately this is already a “done deal”.

The development and deployment of zero emissions small modular nuclear reactors would provide a more realistic alternative while we continue with the judicial use of hydrocarbons.

Pragmatism like this would help bridge the electricity generation gap left by the short sighted closure of reliable fossil fuel plants and restrictions on the extraction of large remaining North Sea resources.

Neil J Bryce, Kelso

A better option

John Forster claims that “Renewable energy is the only way forward now” (Scotsman, 29 October). That’s clearly untrue. There are many ways to generate electricity for the National Grid. Furthermore renewable methods are inadequate: they cannot reliably “keep the lights on”. Base load in particular requires a supply that is reliable and constant. For that purpose nuclear power is a natural fit.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

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