Readers' letters: Straight answers on independence, please

I read a paper from a Fraser of Allender academic in which he asks how the SNP will deal with the huge debt Scotland will have at the start of being independent.

The hard times we will have for the first five to 10 years and the higher taxes and spending cuts we will need to make to show the EU that we have control of our finances.

I want to know how much Scotland will have to put into the EU if we are accepted. I believe Ian Blackford comes from a banking background. Will he tell us how the ordinary man and woman are going to live in an independent Scotland?

It’s the every day things we need to know. Will we have to pay for prescriptions or GP visits; will there be free bus passes, free school meals; will councils have to cut back drastically and will Scottish students who want to study in a Scottish University have to pay for their course?

Simple things, but things that mean a heck of a lot to ordinary people. Please start asking all these questions and demand truthful answers.

We will get a new government in Westminster and we will get back on track. Maybe a general election would be the best thing to happen as we could talk to our politicians in the street and demand answers.

We are continually compared to Norway. It’s very expensive to live in Norway but they have very high wages, so will the SNP give every working person a huge increase in pay?

So many questions and not enough answers.

Mrs Susan Smart, Penicuik.

A Scottish currency can be a success

The SNP leadership doesn’t seem to understand the role of a Scottish currency, which is as a domestic, not foreign exchange currency. As such, no ‘tests’ will be required.

A domestic currency is very different from an international exchange currency such as sterling, the US dollar and euro, all of which play two roles – as a domestic currency for the UK, US and Eurozone nations and as a foreign exchange currency.

The Scottish pound will, like the Danish krone or Swedish kroner, be used solely for the domestic economy which is 80 per cent of economic activity, not for international exchange, and it will be regulated by the Scottish Central Bank.

Scotland will use sterling, dollars and euros for foreign exchange. It will have large sterling reserves when Scots change their accounts from sterling to Scottish pounds and from trade with the rest of the UK, which would pay sterling for Scottish exports. It would receive US dollars and euros in the same way.

As a net exporter Scotland has a far healthier trade balance than England, so the Scottish Central Bank will have ample foreign exchange reserves and, unlike England, Scotland won’t have any national debt.

Using sterling, the weak currency of a foreign country, post-independence would prevent Scotland from controlling its own economy, keeping England in the driver’s seat. That hasn’t gone too well. It would also preclude Scotland re-joining the EU.

The SNP leadership should stop putting the interests of Edinburgh’s financial elite above those of the Scottish people.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh.

Pause for thought

Reading more disclosures about the ongoing ferries scandal and the Scottish NHS crisis - as well as the baffling SNP abstention on the anti-abortion safe zones vote in parliament - one wonders yet again at those who believe an independent Scotland would be better governed than the UK has been in recent years.

Wishful thinking or a case of “it will be oor mess”?

Rodney Pinder, Kelso.

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