Readers' Letters: Scottish Government must not allow Bannockburn development

Bannockburn is surely the founding event of Scotland as, without the victory of the Scots under Robert Bruce in 1314, the ancient land of Scotland would certainly have been absorbed into a greater England and wiped from history.

Can anyone imagine the French allowing the building of a horse racing track on the battlefield of Verdun, or the Belgians on Waterloo. The bones of many of our ancestors who died for Scotland’s freedom undoubtedly lie beneath the soil of Bannockburn and must be respected.

Their proposal shows that this Conservative council may know the cost of everything but they certainly do not know the value of anything.

The Scottish Government must call in this outrageous proposal at once or face eternal shame.

James Duncan, Edinburgh

Pure contempt

Time and time again, during the general election, Scottish Labour told us they would be better able to protect Scotland's interests. With each passing day the evidence stacks up against that boast as Labour shows a remarkable contempt for Scotland.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown implored us to vote Labour and tackle child poverty. Yet the 37 Scottish Labour MPs tripped dutifully into the lobbies to defeat the SNP amendment to the King's Speech. The major charities and IFS had long said that the child payment cap was the greatest driver of poverty affecting 1.6m children. In Scotland it is mitigated by the child payment.

Another back of the envelope proposal emanated from Dame Jackie Baillie. She received considerable, deserved publicity for an eminently sensible proposal that Labour was open to a Scottish Visa, meaning we could match much-needed immigration to areas of severe skills shortage, notably the care sector, hospitality and farming. With the votes cynically garnered, Sir Keir Starmer closed down such talk within days.

Now we have the wretched, unexpected withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Payment. The statement by Rachel Reeves, a woman from Lewisham, clearly ignorant of life in a harsh Scottish winter, beggared belief. Like Ian Murray she claims this is unavoidable due to the financial black hole Labour knew nothing about; yet one can read the bulletins from the IFS and OBR. One had to remind oneself we were listening to a Labour Chancellor!

One does not have to be a Corbynite to be aware of the extremes of wealth and income inequality in the UK. The top 10 per cent have 57 per cent of the wealth; the top 1 per cent have 23 per cent, while England has 2.85 million millionaires, many of whom attained that status during Covid. Yet Reeves targeted Scotland's 1m pensioners. Age Concern has pointed out that one third of those entitled to Pension Credit do not claim it.

To his credit Ivan McKee, the Public Finance Minister, would like to mitigate Labour's austerity measures, but £100m would be needed to fund the new Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, and such a drastic change in policy, with neither warning nor consultation, has shown utter disdain for the poorest in our society.

This will come back to haunt Scottish Labour as much as the Nick Clegg tuition fees pledge.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

By their actions...

Several years ago when the organisation which employed me was undergoing change with the appointment of a new Chief Executive there was a great deal of speculation about the direction in which this individual would take us. Amid the uncertainty a close colleague advised me not to judge our new boss by what she had said prior to taking the job but on what she did after being appointed. Having learned of the cuts to public spending announced by the Labour Party on Monday, the memory of my old colleague's words struck a chord with me.

During the UK general election campaign the Labour Party stated emphatically that there would be no return to the policies of austerity as implemented by the Conservatives during the previous 14 years.

In the opinion of many, Labour's cruellest decision was to abolish universal payment of the Winter Fuel Payment to pensioners.

Although this measure will have little or no effect on the better-off pensioners it is very likely to impact severely on very many who do not fall into that category and who will not meet the means testing levels that will be imposed by the Labour Government.

Labour's intense dislike of universal benefits – not least those which currently operate in Scotland, such as free prescriptions, free tuition for Scottish students in our universities and free bus travel for our younger people – has been well documented at Holyrood over the years, both in statements from their various leaders and their MSPs’ voting records during that time. After Monday it does not take a great deal of logic to conclude that if the Labour Party – after only three weeks in power – is prepared to make a decision to abandon many UK pensioners, it would have absolutely no compunction in ending universal benefits in Scotland, if ever given the opportunity to do so

Decisions taken by Labour to retain the two-child benefit cap and also to abolish the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners have already set the scene for the debate that is going to take place between the two main political parties in Scotland from now until the onset of the 2026 Holyrood elections.

The Labour Party and Scottish leader Anas Sarwar in particular will no doubt make statements about having no intention to cut universal benefits. The words of my old colleague, to judge by actions rather than words, will need to be a consideration for many people during those 2026 elections.

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Shock treatment

Reading Jackie Baillie’s latest diatribe about the SNP government’s delivery of treatment centres (Perspective, 31 July) one is led to believe that once Labour is in power here it will be so much different. But Labour are in power in Wales. So is their delivery of treatment centres any better?

Well, if you take the Velindre Cancer treatment centre near Cardiff as an example you will have your eyes opened. Scheduled to open in 2024 it is running three years late, with costs having risen by a staggering £300 million in the last 18 months alone. It has attracted criticism from environmentalists because it is being built on valuable green space, while 160 clinicians protested about the increased clinical risks of it not being co-located beside an acute care facility. All to no avail. In their rush to award the contract Welsh Labour ministers simply bypassed their own procurement rules, including whether it represents the most economically advantageous tender. No explanations were forthcoming.

The real irony, though, is hearing Welsh opposition parties in the Senedd demanding to know how an SNP government in Scotland can procure a 180,000sq m hospital at Monklands for £700 million (£3,823 per sq m), while a 60,000sq m treatment centre in Cardiff is costing Welsh taxpayers an astonishing £884.8m (£14,746 per sq m). Perhaps Ms Baillie should submit a freedom of information request to her Welsh colleagues to find out what went wrong.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk

Labour lies

We now know Labour politicians lied during the election campaign when they denied there was a black hole in the UK finances and said there would be no austerity. This despite the obvious fact that Brexit has cost the UK economy some £140 billion and left the average person £2,000 worse off. And just this week it was reported that the UK has fallen out of the top ten manufacturing countries in the world. After years of accusing the Scottish Government of blaming Westminster for every funding issue in Scotland, Labour is blaming Westminster for every funding issue in the UK. Yet many expect the Scottish Government, without the economic powers of a normal country, to mitigate every Westminster cut.

However, this is no reason to abolish universal provision and the Winter Fuel Payment may be just the start of a slippery slope of means testing with all of the associated bureaucracy, when taxing the richest is a fairer way to help those just above the benefit breadline. After maintaining the two-child benefit cap, Labour’s latest austerity measure is an appalling betrayal of elderly Scots, who live in the coldest part of the UK and pay the highest energy charges, despite an energy-rich Scotland being a net exporter to the rest of the UK.

As Rachel Reeves has cancelled a programme to build 40 new hospitals in England, it is very hypocritical for Jackie Baillie to attack the SNP for delaying the building of new National Treatment Centres, particularly when Labour hasn’t promised to reinstate the Tories' 20 per cent funding cut to Scotland’s capital budget.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Pay their way

I agree with Clark Cross (Letters, 30 July). Having children is a choice, and if would-be parents cannot support more than two children, they can choose not to have them. In fact, I wonder why we have any child benefit at all. Have a safety net for families who unexpectedly encounter hard times, but otherwise, if you cannot afford children, don’t have children.

Stephen Moreton, Great Sankey, Cheshire

Slip roads?

How did Just Stop Oil protesters get to Gatwick Airport?

Jane Drysdale, Edinburgh

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