Letter: Unionist squeeze

Conventional unionist wisdom about public spending by the Scottish Government is that it is excessive and irresponsible (Bill Jamieson, 9 June).

However, since the advent of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish administrations, of all political hues, have succeeded in staying within budget, and all the time the Barnett formula has tightened Scotland's share of UK spending from the, admittedly, fairly generous allocation dating from the 1970s and 80s when Westminster was anxious about losing Scotland and its all- important oil revenues.

The recent examination of per capita health spending across the UK illustrates the Barnett squeeze well. From 2002-3 until 2009-10, spending on health in England increased by 76 per cent compared with only 56 per cent in Scotland.

In 2002-3, Scottish per capita spending was 22 per cent higher than in England, but by 2009-10 it was only 8.4 per cent higher, and the gap has since decreased by a further 2 per cent.

The resulting 6 per cent difference is probably insufficient to compensate for Scotland's difficult geography, with spending in comparable urban areas probably very similar. What is true in health, where the Scottish Government has maintained spending, is almost certainly true in other areas of spending.

There is now little evidence of a northwards flow of monies for public services in Scotland, but there is plenty of evidence of revenue flows from North Sea oil in the other direction.

Ian Grant

Ashburnham Gardens

South Queensferry

In response to R Goodall (Letters, 10 June), it was indeed state intervention in the money supply that caused the crash.

Central banks make credit much more available than otherwise would be in a free market. If this continued, this "cheap money" policy would lead to a currency collapse, hence interest rates are raised sharply giving the classic "boom-and-bust" cycle.

The supposedly "deregulated" Bank of England was specifically told by Gordon Brown to exclude mortgage repayments from its price calculations.

As such, this led to a government-mandated credit expansion and property boom that, in turn, led to the crash. Between this intervention and the subsequent bailing out of loss-making banks, the state has, in effect, told the banks that they can violate the laws of economics with impunity.

Bruce Crichton

Victoria Road

Falkirk