Readers' Letters: Scotland's tax system isn't to blame for state of economy

The reality is that our economic woes are driven by long-term underinvestment, inequality, and political drift, not by slightly higher taxes on top earners in Scotland.

In fact, compared to many similar countries, including those we often admire – like Germany or the Nordic nations – Scotland’s personal tax rates remain lower.

People in these countries often pay more in tax, while enjoying more disposable income overall because strong social infrastructure, like cheaper childcare and housing, reduce everyday costs. This in turn creates the basis for a dynamic economy, with thriving businesses and higher standards of living for most people.

Fair taxation isn’t the problem; it’s part of the solution, alongside smarter public spending. Scotland’s slightly fairer system is already raising hundreds of millions more to invest in public services and fund crucial payments to help lift children out of poverty.

But there’s still work to do. Council Tax is embarrassingly stuck in the 90s and deeply unfair. It’s time to scrap it and bring in a fairer, modern system that taxes properties based on what they’re actually worth.

We also need action on pollution-spewing private jets; the Scottish Parliament has had the power to tax them since 2017. It’s time to use it.

And business rates are ripe for reform: not because businesses pay more than in England, but because the system should reward employers who do the right thing, like paying the Living Wage and cutting pollution. The Laffer Curve gets wheeled out as a warning, but the joke’s on us. Other countries are laughing because they’ve worked it out: fair taxes, strong public services, and a thriving economy can go hand in hand. It’s time Scotland did too.

Lewis Ryder-Jones, Oxfam Scotland, Edinburgh

Failures forward

“Free” is a word used by Alan Woodcock (Letters, 19 July) no less than six times in efforts to defend nearly two decades of profligate SNP failure, along with this party’s shameless promotion of an unaffordable dependency culture. Mr Woodcock exhaustively lists “Free tuition, free prescriptions, the Scottish Child Payment, free bus travel” etc. The Scottish Government is very good at giving away cash but haven’t a clue how to generate the revenue needed for all these handouts. Without the Barnett Formula, such generosity would have to be financed through draconian taxation, savage cutbacks to other areas of state expenditure and/or frightening levels of unsustainable borrowing. Nationalist economic strategies consist of building highly subsidised, inefficient wind turbines while at the same time discouraging growth by penalising those very entrepreneurs who create most of our wealth in the first place. Separatists blame others for their lengthy catalogue of costly, abandoned projects such as Highly Protected Marine Areas, the deposit return and named person schemes, the Gender Recognition Bill and a petty, botched attempt to absorb British Transport Police north of the Border into Police Scotland. Not to mention the continuing ferry fiasco, a topic which our self-styled freedom fighters are noticeably reluctant to talk about.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Spend on peace

George Robertson’s sabre-rattling call for increased defence spending (“Britain and its people ‘not safe’, warns ex-Nato chief”, 19 July) must have been music to the ears of arms manufacturers and traders. It rivalled some of the most paranoid utterances of Conservative MPs during the Cold War. For decades we were told we needed to spend massive amounts on a nuclear deterrent to keep us safe. Now it appears that this was not true after all, and that we need massive spending on conventional armaments as well.

Let us be clear: any armed conflict between the UK and Russia or China would lead to incalculable casualties on all sides. Everyone involved would end up in an impoverished and broken society.

We have only one planet and we need to find ways to share it in peace. There is no future in policing the world by demonising other states and fuelling an arms race. The scale of resources George Robertson wants to give to arms companies should instead be used to build mechanisms of international co-operation that would incentivise states financially to pursue their legitimate political and security interests within a multilateral framework.

We have much to learn from the wisdom of those who rebuilt the world after 1945.

Nigel Lindsay, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Best defence

Former Nato boss Lord Robertson’s claim that the UK is “not safe” (Editorial, 19 July) is no different from Britain’s unpreparedness pre-World War Two. Even during the Battle of Britain in 1940 Moffat-born Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding lamented the lack of pilots, which he thought might cause Britain to lose and be invaded.

According to Robertson we lack “the ammunition, the training, the people, the spare parts, the logistics and we don’t have the medical capacity...”. Given that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s number one priority is to keep Britain “safe and secure”, he has a long way to go. The Strategic Defence Review, co-authored by Robertson, emphasised more drones, equipment replenishment and AI complementing artillery are apparently learnings from the war in Ukraine. Surely the main lesson, however, is missile defence, given Russia’s success in destroying key infrastructure and causing devastation to Ukrainian people. Recently Patriot missiles were promised as priority by Donald Trump to Vlodomeyer Zelensky. The Israeli Iron Dome system has proven largely successful against Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. The UK is wide open to such attack and has little defence against Russian hypersonic ballistic missiles. Instead of seeking “war fighting readiness” the UK Government should be ensuring its citizens are kept “safe and secure” through world leading cybersecurity, development of a missile defence shield and safeguarding of pipelines and cables. Given stretched resources, equipment and expertise should be concentrated in such niche areas rather than an extra £15 billion on nuclear warheads when missiles from our submarines fail on testing. Scotland has long led innovation in defence through niche technologies and would stand to benefit in the development anti-missile systems and defence cybersecurity.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Look homeward

With Holyrood elections not too far off, First Minister John Swinney appears to be an incredibly desperate figure. In an attempt to stop nationalists deserting the SNP for Alba and the Greens he tries to present his party as the natural choice for independence supporters while swiftly glossing over the SNP's long-running failure to hold a second referendum, let alone win one.

Overseas conflicts are always a useful way for governments to distract voters from domestic policy failure, and so Swinney, even though foreign affairs are wholly reserved to Westminster, endlessly pontificates about the Middle Eastern conflict.

Yet it seems few voters are fooled, preferring that he and his party focus on their domestic remit and effectively address, despite the efforts of front-line professionals, systemic failings in the NHS, our schools and transport.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Bad friends

It seems that to wear a T-shirt of an organisation that campaigns against genocide makes one terrorist in the eyes of the UK Government. But the same government arms and stands “shoulder to shoulder” with a regime that has killed over 40,000 civilians and has starved and rendered homeless the survivors. This is a disgraceful perversion of values and priorities, but no more than we have come to expect from the British state.

If any more reason for Scotland to free herself from the UK was needed, surely this us it .

David Currie, Tarland, Aberdeenshire

Principles devalued

After a mere year in office, Labour is looking ever less electable, trailing Reform UK in the opinion polls. While Keir Starmer flourishes abroad, his popularity ratings at home are plummeting, even within his own party.

The main complaint is that the Cabinet members are not listening to their backbenchers. Rather, they are inclined to suspend them at the slightest provocation.

Only last week four MPs, including, Scot Brian Leishman, had the whip withdrawn for nothing more culpable than backing Labour principles. Gone are the days of open and frank discussion and principled agreement to differ on questions like the two-child cap and Welfare Reform, among other things.

Nothing reveals more that this Labour government is on the wrong side of history than their shameful treatment of Diane Abbott. Lauded by Keir Starmer as a “trailblazer” on becoming “mother of the House”, in the next breath, the excellent constituency MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington for 38 years has been suspended for stating the obvious on the question of race.

Like Jeremy Corbyn and John O'Donnell before her, she could well stand as an Independent candidate at the next general election, assured of a stonking majority. She deserves no better, for that rare thing, principles.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

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