Nurses beware: strikes could lead to a very different NHS

There is a wider, UK issue. The right-wing media are already declaring the NHS (lurching from crisis to crisis) “dead” and will wish it replaced with private health care. Privatisation has been slowly gearing up since internal “market testing” was introduced three decades ago, and these strikes could usher in a different heath system altogether.

England's Health Secretary Stephen Barclay and his Labour shadow Wes Streeting are both calling for reform but this needs careful all-party consideration, because knee-jerk reform during a crisis is strictly for jerks.
GR Weir, Ochiltree

Time to praise Scotland's NHS

DR Gerald Edwards (Letters, December 21) is right when he says "the people are suffering" – but we are left to think from his letter that Scotland is the only part of the UK where the people are suffering.

I write this letter on the day that ambulance workers in England and Wales are taking strike action and note that other public services are seeing industrial action due to the Westminster Government’s refusal to get round the table and find a solution. Dr Edwards highlights the staff shortages in our NHS and writes that that "Mr Swinney’s tax grab last week" will only make things worse. Worse for whom? The aforementioned tax rises are ring-fenced for the NHS budget, surely a move most would applaud, and a constructive move by the Scottish Government.

You publish many letters criticising the performance of our NHS yet those letters carry no concrete proposals for improvements. Perhaps during this season of goodwill, some recognition of the excellent NHS service we have here in Scotland could be acknowledged.
Catriona C Clark, Falkirk

• YOU report that Jackie Baillie, Labour's health spokesperson, is calling for Health Secretary Humza Yousef to be sacked over A&E performances ("Warning to avoid A&E amid ‘Christmas of chaos’", The Herald, December 21); certainly, if Labour were in power Ms Baillie wouldn't have had any problems with performances at the A&E departments at Ayr and Monklands hospitals, as Labour and its Liberal Democrat cronies had endorsed plans to close them the last time they were in government at Holyrood.
Ruth Marr, Stirling

Let's follow a fairer tax model

I DON'T often agree with Allan Sutherland, but there may be some common ground between us regarding tax on wealth (Letters, December 21).

In its latest report Billionaire Britain, published this week, the Equality Trust highlights that the number of billionaires has increased dramatically over the past 30-plus years, not least during the past three of the Covid pandemic.

The impact of Government financial support, whilst helping many in society, also enabled the richest to accrue even greater wealth. The Equality Trust describes the increasing disparity as "a national disgrace" and that "the UK’s record on wealth inequality is appalling, grossly unjust, and presents a real threat to our economy and to our society."

In my view this inequality is the root cause of societal discontent in the UK. I'm not sure if Mr Sutherland is advocating fairer taxes on wealth or just using the issue to criticise the SNP. Certainly, I would prefer a Scandinavian model of tax and public services and would vote for the party which advocates measures to redress the equality imbalance.
David Bruce, Troon

Happier despite paying more

ALLAN Sutherland may inadvertently have shot down his own argument. He writes that of the 10 countries "wealthier, happier and fairer" than Scotland, eight of them “collect an average of 41% of GDP in taxes, not 34% like the UK”. Indeed, Denmark’s rate is an eye-watering 46%.

I agree that increasing rates to this degree bring risks and would certainly demand much wider debate, but if “a better, fairer Scotland” is to be more than a soundbite, these are the kind of decisions that we have to consider. As Mr Sutherland writes, “the STUC report 'Scotland demands better, fairer taxes' shows how an extra £3.3 billion could be raised”.

However, the implication of his own data is not necessarily that "vote Yes for a a 20% tax rise" wouldn't work”. In fact, the data he quotes suggests that 80% of the countries cited are "wealthier, happier and fairer" than Scotland, despite tax take being at least 20% higher, and in the case of Denmark 35% higher.

Lastly, comparison is not straightforward, for Mr Sutherland refers to collecting “an average 41% of GDP in taxes”, so including tax by all means and not just income tax, to which the Scottish Government’s powers are restricted.
Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton

Scotland could be wealthy

CONTRARY to Robert IG Scott’s opinion (Letters, December 21), a self-governing Scotland could be one of the wealthiest nations in Europe while Westminster’s National Debt increases at more than £5,000 a second and is heading for £3,000 billion.

The UK is banking on an extra £20bn each year from Scotland’s North Sea to help balance the books while Scotland is losing out on £3bn a year in tax revenues due to the UK’s tax avoidance rules.

As a net exporter of electricity, gas and oil, it is astonishing that Scottish consumers have to pay the highest fuel charges in the UK while our renewable energy producers pay the highest charges in Europe to connect to the UK National Grid.

As much oil and gas has been produced in Scotland’s territorial waters as in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea but the billions of revenues were used by Westminster to pay for Thatcher’s tax cuts and London transport infrastructure rather than developing a modern manufacturing base in Scotland which has allowed Norway and Denmark to become world leaders in renewable energy manufacturing and enjoy a standard of living far higher than in the UK.

Westminster still controls the bulk of Scotland’s economy and under devolution any Scottish government is constrained by the fact that it has very limited tax options and virtually no borrowing powers to boost our economy and health services that have been devastated by UK inflation and a Brexit we didn’t vote for.

Given our vast renewable energy potential and a highly educated population with a healthy balance of trade surplus, there is no logical reason why an independent Scotland can’t match the economic growth of Denmark, Finland or Ireland in the EU.
Fraser Grant, Edinburgh

• “A NEW breed of politician has emerged in recent years, the only aim of whom seems to be to try to undermine the 315-year-old Union of Parliaments. Their motives can only be described as narrow and economically unsound – and would only result in Scotland becoming one of the poorer countries in Europe.”

I wonder if Robert IG Scott, whom I have just quoted, appreciates that rather than a future independent Scotland he describes the present UK? Westminster ideologies and Brexit have contributed to an OBR forecast of a 7% decline in household incomes and the biggest fall in living standards since records began. One London-based paper this morning (December 21) says people are dying because their NHS is broken beyond repair.

Mr Scott concludes that we should “just try to get on with our lives in a less contentious political climate”.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light: Plato.
Alan Carmichael, Glasgow

• L MCGREGOR (Letters, December 21) should be aware that university tuition is not free. Someone else has to pay for it. It is just a transfer of wealth from people who don't go to university to people who do.
Geoff Moore, Alness

A lesson for today

THE Scripture Text this morning (The Herald, December 21) certainly gave food for thought and careful reflection: Mary, a pregnant and unmarried lady on an arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, soon to give birth in the circumstance of poverty and become a refugee family under the sentence of death from Herod. I hope that all leaders reflect at this time on how we can open our hearts and if required our borders to the vulnerable.
Roddy MacDonald, Ayr

Read more letters: The way to fix devolution is to have more external control

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