Readers' letters: Tory energy cap is not the full picture

Like Liz Truss, John McLellan is misleading the public by claiming that there is a £2500 energy cap when it is merely what the average household would pay (News, 29 September).

His claims about inflation after independence ring hollow when the UK economy had to be bailed out with £65 billion from the Bank of England.

Contrast this with the Irish Republic where the recent budget forecast a £6 billion surplus and Ireland owns more of the UK’s offshore wind production than the UK.

This market is dominated by Denmark and Norway that invested their oil and gas bonanza into renewable energy production when Mrs Thatcher squandered Scotland’s massive oil revenues on lower taxes for the richest.

An energy rich Scotland would lower electricity prices through a Scottish energy regulator uncoupling Ofgem’s outdated policy of linking electricity prices to global oil prices.

Scotland will continue to be a net exporter of electricity oil and gas plus our vast renewable resources through offshore wind, tidal and green hydrogen will produce much cheaper electricity without the need for expensive nuclear power and all its clean-up costs.

We will still need our oil and gas for several decades and the Scottish government could earn a financial bonanza by charging the producers at Norwegian levels, rather than using the benign UK taxation model, and thus wipe out the notional GERS deficit at a stroke.

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh.

The Scottish NHS should be better

As part of the devolved responsibilities, the SNP government has delegated authority and it decides how much should be spent funding our NHS.

Drugs deaths are the highest in Europe. Life expectancy is the lowest in the UK. Waiting times are getting longer. Insufficient ambulances are available to deal with emergencies. Reports have been made that booking timely appointments at GP surgeries are becoming more difficult.

The bottom line is that we need more resources for front line services. Our surgeons, doctors and nurses are stretched to breaking point. Patients are suffering and dying. SNPs planning is not working.

With more than £2000 extra funding per head in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, I would expect services in Scotland to be better than in England.

Alastair Murray, Edinburgh.

Ecological price of a green economy

Keir Starmer in his keynote address to the Labour party conference clearly revelled at the prospect of A Fairer Greener Future.

He confidently predicted that he will become the next Prime Minister in 2025 and among his many promises he stated that within just five years the number of land-based wind turbines will have doubled to 17,500.

But I wonder how may of his audience realised this will require a land area equivalent to three times that of Greater London.

The tonnages of steel, concrete and plastics required as well as with the associated high emissions will be truly staggering.

They may go under the guise of renewables, but going by their consistent failure to deliver anywhere near their rated capacities, unreliables would be a more appropriate term.

What thought was given to the environmental havoc and human misery caused by the extraction and processing of rare earth minerals from the Congo to Chile or thedamage wrought on land and marine ecosystems or the further decimation of avian life?

Neil J Bryce, Kelso.

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