Readers' letters: Underspend should pay for NHS nurses

The Auditor General of Scotland had recently published his audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for 2021/2022.

The main item highlighted is the Scottish Government underspent its budget by £2bn. Why then are the SNP reducing funding for the NHS by over £400m?

Would this available money not be better spent now, treating and helping all those suffering on increasingly long waiting lists?

This money could also give NHS front line workers the pay increase they deserve, and still have funds left over for teachers and other public service workers.

It seems that SNP believe that finding another grievance with the rest of the UK is more important.

Alastair Murray, Edinburgh

What happened to the £1.33 billion?

The latest report from Scotland's Auditor General shows that the SNP government had a £2 billion underspend from the last financial year. They spent £49.2bn of a £51.2bn budget. Around £670m was in relation to the student loan book valuation, leaving £1.33bn unaccounted for.

Given that Ms Sturgeon and Messrs Swinney and Yousaf have been telling public sector workers that there is no more money for pay deals, where then is the £1.33bn left over from last year?

Jim Houston, Edinburgh

Royals can challenge religious bigotry too

Black charity boss Ngozie Fulami who was upset by continually being asked where she was from by Lady Hussey, Prince William's godmother, has raised the racist question after attending a Buckingham Palace violence against women reception hosted by Queen Consort Camilla.

My question to Ms Fulami must be: what were you doing in the first place hobnobbing with unelected monarchy and its supporters knowing full well that by its very nature the monarchy must be bigoted towards Catholics?

Although the 'jury is still out' regarding royal racism, Prince William says: 'Racism has no place in our society'. He and Ms Fulani need to go a step further by challenging religious bigotry as well.

Meanwhile, democrats must continue to campaign for an egalitarian society where people denounce both racism and bigotry as citizens not subjects.

Jack Fraser, Musselburgh

Worrying signs on green energy

Ominously the CEO of VW has stated that making batteries for electric vehicles in Europe is now “unfeasible” due to soaring energy costs. This means production will go to places like China and Indonesia, where the majority of energy comes from burning coal.

Worse is a recent Finnish Government report on net zero. One of its stark statistics is that the world would need 573,400 GWh (gigawatt hours) of electricity storage (the UK has only built 1 GWh of storage in the last decade, to add to the 30 GWh that had existed since 1984).

The report concludes that replacing fossil fuel using renewables by 2050 “will not be possible for the entire human population. There is simply not enough time, nor resources”.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

Lack of clarity

Whenever we hear politicians start an answer to a question with the practised words ‘let me be very clear’, it is a guarantee that whatever follows will not be clear. Let me be very clear, it is not working.

Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide

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