THERE is a proposal, from Common Weal, that Scotland should set up a statistics agency to provide more accurate figures on Scotland’s accounts. It is argued that, to better manage our economy, we need to have a better handle on what is really happening within Scotland. The Government and Expenditue Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures we have at present are largely based on a proportion of UK figures and back-of-a-fag packet estimations and have been used as a political football.

Prior to the 2014 referendum they showed Scotland in surplus and, since then, in deficit. This was put down to the supposed “collapse” of the oil price but is more likely to be the cost of Westminster’s mismanagement of the UK’s National Debt.

Brent Crude is trading around $60 a barrel and had just fallen from a recent average of around $70 a barrel. Over recent years, when the oil price was lower, the oil companies made strenuous efforts to reduce their costs; I understand that the cost of extraction for BP is now around $15 a barrel or a little less. In 2016 the UK Government paid the oil companies £396 million rather than collect any tax from them. In the same year, Norway collected several billions of pounds.

We have a Petroleum Revenue Tax that used to tax oil production but it is set a zero. Are we deliberately refusing to collect the best revenues we can from the oil companies, cutting off our nose to spite our face, so that we can continue to gloat about the deficit in Scotland’s finances?

We live in times of fiscal catastrophe when hospitals, particularly in England, have people stacked in corridors awaiting attention; our local councils are unable to cope with the demands put upon them with the resources they are given from Westminster’s settlement, yet we do not take advantage of a bounty on our doorsteps. Let us back this proposal from Common Weal and seek the real fiscal balance in our finances using this fact based statistics gathering agency and put aside the nonsense that is GERS.

DS Blackwood,

1 Douglas Drive East,

Helensburgh.

THERE is another very good reason “sterlingisation” is a non-starter for an independent Scotland within the EU: quite simply it is impossible to see how or why Brussels would allow a member state to use the currency of a non-member state as an international currency in direct competition to the euro (Agenda: “Not such a sterling idea for justice and sovereignty”, The Herald, February 13). If Scotland were to do so, why should, for example, other states not use the pound as well, or the dollar, or the yen?

At the same time, there are major impediments to a new independent Scottish currency. On the one side there is the question of savings: would these assets of individuals and families be forcibly converted from sterling to poonds (or whatever they will be called)? Conversely, there is the issue of existing mortgages and loans: in 99 per cent of cases, these are contracted to be repaid in pounds sterling.

As the currency of an untried economy that would immediately be depressed by the loss of a large chunk of its income in the form of tens of billions of fiscal transfers from the rest of UK, the poond would undoubtedly be valued by the markets at a level lower than the pound. So the case of the SNP will be: “Vote for independence to devalue your savings and put up your mortgage repayments.” Tempting.

Peter A. Russell,

87 Munro Road,

Jordanhill,

Glasgow.

ONE thing we were repeatedly told during the Scottish independence referendum was that the UK was a union of four equal countries.

It doesn’t seem like that now as we prepare to exit the EU. Scotland and Wales appear to have no voice and no say in the proceedings. The hapless Scottish Secretary, David Mundell, far from representing our interests in Cabinet, is excluded from the Cabinet sub-committee discussing Brexit and seems to be little more than a mute witness to the terms sought from the EU.

He has fled abroad; sorry, on government business abroad. He also doesn’t seem to do interviews; has he nothing to say to us?

The Scottish and Welsh governments have been locked out of any participation in the negotiations( I seem to recall Theresa May stating that the agreement of all would be necessity for progress). No amendments from these countries has been accepted in the Commons and the promised government amendments have been reneged on. The Lords? A democratic jest, surely

If we do have a second independence referendum, this lack of involvement will surely be part of the debate.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochil.

IAIN A D Mann pens an eloquent letter (February 13) but once again his facts are somewhat flawed.

He may well be right in his assessment that few concessions have been achieved in Brexit negotiations and that few will be forthcoming in the next round from the other side.

His assertion that the Conservative party is at loggerheads and the Cabinet does not appear to have any consensus is hearsay. Interpreting healthy debate in such a way is misleading and unhelpful.

This same conversation is taking place in all parties on both sides of the argument and would continue no matter who was in power at this special point in our history.

This is as it should be. Furthermore, Iain AD Mann seems to think that the Government is deliberately working against the proletariat, amongst others, many of whom actually voted to leave

the EU.

On the contrary, it is striving to achieve the best possible deal for the UK as a whole; who knows, he might even be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

The so-called damage Mr Mann claims will be inflicted on the nation and the people they represent by our elected politicians is also speculation and cannot possibly be known at this stage in proceedings.

This so-called “small but vocal group of politicians” is merely endeavouring to carry out the democratic will of these same people.

It is tiresome in the extreme to have to read so much pessimism on subject of Brexit when we should be celebrating the fact that our country will soon be free from a union not of our making.

Christopher H Jones,

25 Ruthven Avenue,

Giffnock,

Glasgow.