Letter: Surplus Scotland

DAVID Mundell, Conservative MP and Scotland Office minister, asks your columnist Joan McAlpine MSP: "How would an independent Scotland pay an additional £13bn for a separate welfare budget?" (Letters, 13 August). Maybe I can help Mr Mundell.

In 2006-7, Scotland collected 42.35bn in taxation - in return, the block grant was less than 29bn. In the unlikely event that the welfare spend in Scotland that year was 13bn, the final figure would be about 42bn. Scotland was in surplus, as had been the case for decades.

Currently, there appears to be a deficit running at about 6.8 per cent of GDP - the UK figure is 7.6 per cent.

BILL McLEAN

Rosemill Court

Newmills, Dunfermline

IT IS perhaps fortunate that Mr Mundell MP is in the Scottish Office and not the Treasury, given that he appears not to know the answer on where welfare funding in a fiscally autonomous Scotland would be found.

The simple answer to his question is that Scotland sends a great deal more south than the 43bn spent on the Scottish Budget and welfare.

Some of the Scottish-raised tax is used to fund the MoD, with its theories of power projection and interfering in other countries' domestic affairs. An autonomous Scotland would not have the need for Trident, present and replacement, power projecting carriers and the 40 150m JSF35C aircraft being bought for them and the RAF. Scotland would not be contributing part of the $4.4bn development cost that Westminster along with seven other countries is giving to Lockheed Martin in addition to the cost of each aircraft. An independent Scotland would be spending around 2bn less on defence than the proportion presently sent to Westminster.

The answer is that a fiscally autonomous Scotland would have different spending priorities to Westminster. The savings in keeping Scottish-based taxes in Scotland would not only fund the Scottish Budget but allow a larger welfare budget.

BRUCE D SKIVINGTON

Pairc a Ghlib

Strath, Wester Ross