Readers' Letters: What kind of Budget will Rachel Reeves give us today?

An important clue may lie in this year's budget cycle, characterised by an unusually high volume of press leaks. Treasury leaks started in 1997 under Gordon Brown’s chancellorship: strict adherence to a month-long purdah had been the previous protocol, one firmly rooted in the belief that any foreknowledge could distort markets and allow individuals to profit.

Challenging economic circumstances, the Chancellor’s “iron-clad” fiscal rules, and increasingly sharp debates within her own backbenches have forced Rachel Reeves to consider an unusually large and varied range of policy options to fill the estimated £30 billion black hole in the public finances. The multiple leaks and U-turns we’ve witnessed reflect the difficult trade-offs she faces as she seeks to manage, test and shape “expectations” among many different interest groups.

Commentators suggest the result will be a different kind of budget this year – a “smorgasbord budget” – of multiple tweaks to tax and spend, including many smaller tax-raising measures, plus some fiscal drag. All will be revealed.

One thing is for certain – taxes are going up! Unfortunately, history shows no government has ever been able to tax its way to growth.

The three remaining budgets in this Parliament provide additional opportunities to get the balance right. Tricky! Very tricky. Thinking caps will be needed, along with a dash of magic that so far has remained elusive.

Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire

Energy hypocrites

The hypocrisy of Labour and the SNP is quite something to behold. They are falling over themselves to hold “summits” to “rescue workers” and to blame Exxon Mobil for refusing a stay of execution when they have known for months closure was on the cards (“Alexander blasts SNP Government for ‘weaponising’ Mossmorran closure”, 24 November).

Exxon Mobil was looking for a buyer for at least a year, but beside that, if governments (Tory, Labour and SNP) pursue net zero – that is, shut down oil and gas development in the North Sea and in the meantime tax the hell out of them – of course multinationals will move their plants elsewhere.

The workers and supply firms at Mossmorran are not the victims of a nasty multinational, but of economically misguided zealots in government. The only party that has been consistently clear about the economic madness of net zero is Reform.

Linda Holt, Pittenweem, Anstruther

Green means poor

There has been a deafening silence by the BBC, the press and the digital media over the fact that, in January 2026, there will be a 5 per cent fall in the unit cost of gas to below 6p per unit. No comments on the fact that the increase in bills to consumers is down to the massive costs of renewable electricity.

Note, also, the lack of discussion over the fourfold increase in the strike price for the output of floating wind farms to £271 per MWhour – a cost that increases the price of electricity to around 45p/unit once the turbines are installed in the North Sea.

Once Holyrood introduces a ban on domestic gas the annual household energy bill will escalate to around £7,000, meaning Scots earning less than the salary of their MSP will be in fuel poverty.

Why the deafening silence from all political parties, especially the Reform Party, over the fact that going green will mean Scotland going poor? Just ask the people working in the oil and gas industries in the North East, at Grangemouth, Mossmorran or those manufacturing buses in Falkirk!

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

Not just a pause

Tim Hopkins’s letter defending puberty blockers relies on claims that are simply not supported by the evidence (Letters, 25 November). Blockers for precocious puberty cannot be treated as equivalent to their use for gender-distressed adolescents, a distinction central to the Cass Review, which also emphasised that the putative “pause button” effect is unsupported: most children placed on blockers progress directly to cross-sex hormones. While the newly announced UK blockers “trial” looks, on the surface, like a helpful evidence-gathering exercise, its proposed design raises serious concerns, appearing to replicate the very same pathway seen during mass clinical rollout, with minimal follow-up and a non-randomised “treatment as usual” comparator that risks telling us little about long-term outcomes.

Mr Hopkins suggests that pausing or scrutinising interventions equates to denying “trans people exist.” This is a false equivalence. No other area of paediatric medicine treats rigorous, evidence-based caution as cruelty.

Crucially, Mr Hopkins makes no allowance for the well-established alternative of watchful waiting. Long-term studies from Toronto, the Netherlands, London and elsewhere consistently show that 65–94 per cent of children supported in this way no longer experience gender dysphoria by adolescence, with a very large proportion later identifying as lesbian or gay adults. The approach Mr Hopkins advocates would, for many of these young people, have undermined their future capacity for intimacy, fertility and sexual function.

Brian Forsyth, Edinburgh

No nukes needed

The recent ludicrous remarks from Westminster on the need for nuclear weapons and building new nuclear power plants, costing countless billions, shows that Labour are further away than ever in understanding the needs and wishes of the Scottish people. In continuing to destroy Scotland’s manufacturing base, another nail enters the UK coffin.

The repeated Labour accusation that the SNP is a threat to the UK’s security and has the worst NHS in Britain is utterly wrong and a disgrace. Scotland will only create a cleaner, fairer society as an independent country, making its own decisions and in control of all of its many assets.

Grant Frazer, Newtonmore, Highland

Failed state

Despite being a supporter of nothing short of full independence myself, I quite like the closing paragraph of Stan Grodynski's letter (21 November). In particular, his suggestion that, if those who rail repeatedly against Holyrood want Scotland to remain in some form of relationship short of full independence (the suggestions offered included “a federation or, better still, a confederation”), then they need to start by accepting that the Union – as currently constituted – is already in its death throes.

Alas, I fear that the best we'll get, whenever any election or referendum is approaching, will be a repeat of 2014 last-minute pleas to “lead us, don't leave us” along with promises of “devo max”, or similar, from the Westminster Establishment cabal. Promises which will subsequently dissolve, as they did following the vote in 2014, like the proverbial “snaw aff a dyke”.

Are those readers who repeatedly reject independence happy to see that polling is showing that the next Westminster government will, most likely, be a Reform UK government led by Nigel Farage? Have they noticed that the current London Tory party, and London Labour, are shifting ever rightwards to chase the Reform vote? And that their “Scottish” branch offices must follow their lead? Or is that something they are also in denial of?

I find myself admiring the stance of the Scottish Eco-Federalist Party (SEFP), despite that being against full independence. It accepts that Scotland, within this current “United Kingdom”, has been very poorly treated – and seeks a path to recover something workable (for the UK) short of independence. Regrettably: such views are unlikely to find a voice in mainstream print and broadcast media, for the very reason highlighted by Mr Grodynski – other folk just can't bring themselves to admit that the UK is a failed state.

One of the best things that will come from independence will be the removal of London-directed MSPs in Holyrood, to be replaced by MSPs from more new, genuinely Scottish parties. Parties who will all have Scotland's interests at heart – without interference from London Central.

Ian Waugh, Dumfries

Peace hopes

At long last there is a beacon of hope for a ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky deserves a great deal of credit for resisting, under the greatest pressure, acceptance of President Donald Trump's 28-point plan, which has been described as “Putin's wishlist”.

Europe's Coalition of the Willing, led by the much maligned Keir Starmer, have shown an admirable determination to broker a deal which is acceptable to the Ukrainians themselves. The only question remaining is just how much Vladimir Putin wants peace.

This war, which was planned as a military operation lasting for three days, has been costly, to say the least, to both sides, not least to the beleaguered Russian people. There's no praise high enough for the steadfast courage of the Ukrainians, citizens and combatants, in transforming this three-day operation into an unwinnable war, now in its fourth year.

Let's hope that they get the peace they deserve.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

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