Letters - Thursday, February 10, 2022

Nicola Sturgeon’s implausible claim that Westminster would still pay Scottish pensions after independence is vastly more important than Boris Johnson’s dubious excuses over Downing Street parties.

In 2014, the then UK pension minister, Steve Webb, made clear that it would be for an independent Scottish government to pay its own state pensions. As in Britain these are paid out of general taxation rather than any separate fund, this statement accords with both economic reality and commonsense.

The absurd alternative would be that English people were taxed to pay the pensions of people in a separate country.

The cold reality is that on losing English subsidies of our deficit the tax base in Scotland would not be sufficient to support pensions and other public spending at the current levels. This raises the question who does Nicola take for mugs – the English taxpayers, the Scottish voters or perhaps just SNP supporters?

Otto Inglis

address supplied

VIRUS

Time to ditch advice?

Re: Medical certificate of cause of death.

Doctors and coroners have been using, and are continuing to use, F66 (emergency guidance for doctors completing death certificates during Covid).

The Omicron version of the virus is much more transmittable but is now thought to be mostly incidental as a contributory factor to a person’s death.

I find this important as, when a loved one dies, it will be a matter of record for all time. To say to their family they died of Covid can be misleading and may not alert them to underlying causes that were the major cause of their death.

F66 was brought in to enable any doctor during the emergency of a pandemic, (whether or not they had met the deceased) to give (even via a video of the deceased and without any swab evidence) an opinion of why that person died.

When Covid was at its most deadly the statistics were broadly correct, now they are not. Perhaps it is time to ditch the emergency guidance!

Mike Marlow

via email

ENERGY

Questions for suppliers

The cost of living crisis can be no longer denied. It is here and affects every household. We now know the scale and impact. When the Governor of the Bank of England says this will be the worst decline in living standards, we do well to listen. He knows inflation will be around seven per cent by April.

That means interest rates will continue to rise apace.

Unless you never leave the house, you will have noticed that petrol prices have shot up, the price of food at the supermarket is increasing daily, rail and bus fares are up, broadband charges, so vital for home working, are said to go up by around 10 per cent, and that’s before we even come to utility costs.

Last week’s confirmation of an April increase of 52 per cent (yes, really!), about £693 per year on average, is just the start.

Did you notice the small print of a further projected increase of £400 in October?

Peter Gruen

via email

ENERGY

Price rises and Smart Energy

In reference to electricity prices rising by over 50 per cent in April, in addition to an increase only six months ago, the suppliers are pleading poverty in an attempt to justify the increases.

One area the suppliers conveniently choose to ignore is the scheme known as the Smart Energy Guarantee, whereby private householders, who have solar panel electricity generation, export to the National Grid excess energy they generate in return for an agreed price per kilowatt hour (Kwh).

The electricity I buy come April will be over 30 pence per Kwh, going up from 20 pence per Kwh.

Oddly the rates on offer from suppliers to solar generators ranges between three and five pence per Kwh and no change in the rates paid by suppliers is on the cards.

Perhaps Ofgem might like to comment on this situation.

Andy Suter

via email

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