Madam, – For EU citizens and their families living in the UK to have to pay £65 to secure the rights they already have to stay here beggars belief.
Putting aside the fact that there are not currently 235,000 EU citizens in Scotland, but in fact 5.4 million EU citizens, it is clearly deeply insulting to ask those who make such a major contribution to our economy and society to pay £65 for the apparent ongoing privilege.
Adding insult to injury, it should be remembered that this is also a group of individuals who were not even given the opportunity to vote in the EU referendum.
As such they were denied the opportunity to decide the future of the country in which they live.
I fear that what we are continuing to forget is the enormous value of EU citizens to the UK economy.
Those from the EU living in the UK contribute substantially more than they cost.
They make a considerable addition to the exchequer coffers and significantly ease the tax burden on other taxpayers.
Those from the EU contribute £2,300 more each per year in net terms than the average UK adult to the exchequer.
Over their lifetime they pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits, while the UK citizen’s net average contribution is zero.
This is because most of those from the EU arrive fully educated, and many leave before the costs of retirement start to weigh on the public finances.
Taxes will therefore inevitably have to rise if we bring in curbs on those from the EU.
If we want to insult and chase away those who are not only our relatives, friends and colleagues, but who make such a major economic contribution, the UK Government is going exactly the right way about it.
Alex Orr.
Flat 3,
2 Marchmont Road,
Edinburgh.
A sad state of affairs at RBS
Madam, – Today I had the misfortune to visit the nearest branch of the RBS.
This involved a 24-mile round trip.
When I arrived at the branch I was at the wrong end of a 23-person queue.
After 45 minutes I was possibly halfway to the counter.
At that point I made two decisions – firstly to leave the branch and secondly to transfer my banking requirements to a different bank.
Prior to my visit to the branch I had spent 15 minutes in a telephone conversation with an online department of the bank where, for some unclear reason, it was not possible to deal with my simple requirement of transferring money from one account to another.
I sincerely hope that an ombudsman or senior RBS officer reads this letter.
A A Bullions.
6 Glencairn Crescent,
Leven.
Another year of turmoil awaits
Madam, – I am sure the first minister will be delighted that Alex Bell is suggesting she is all washed up and has a hard year ahead in his latest column (“Sturgeon is all but washed up”, Courier, January 3).
At least if people are talking about you, even in disparaging way, they know you exist and are relevant.
What exactly do Scottish Labour, the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party have to offer a working class, independence supporting Fifer who stays in Peterhead in 2019?
We will have Willie Rennie MSP pleading with the first minister to stop any form of Brexit for the next three months, Richard Leonard MSP expecting the Scottish taxpayer to mitigate the effects of cruel Tory policies and Jackson Carlaw MSP standing up for the “aspirational unionist” whenever he gets the opportunity.
Only those on a certain income can aspire to anything apparently – not something that a working class person who was in Perth, Western Australia, before Perth, Scotland, and probably had more practical skills than many of those “aspirational Scots” Mr Carlaw speaks of can achieve, quite obviously.
While it would be nice to think that the Scottish Government will listen to reasoned argument by those opposed to some of their policy positions and the opposition will appear to be a government in waiting in 2019, I think we can look forward to neither happening in 2019 or any time soon, in my opinion.
Peter Ovenstone.
6 Orchard Grove,
Peterhead.
A testing time for the SNP
Madam, – I have an exam question for SNP politicians…
Explain the following: Bursaries for poorer Scottish students have been slashed to pay towards the cost of those on “free” degrees such as European and Scottish students.
This policy meant that 15,150 Scottish school pupils with straight As in 2018 were rejected for courses such as law and medicine.
Discuss.
The current funding model for universities means the Scottish Government covers the cost of undergraduate degrees for Scots and EU-domiciled students and they have to cap the number of places available to Scottish students to control the costs.
Discuss.
Could the £93 million spent annually funding EU students be better employed?
Discuss.
There is surely one possible conclusion to all of these interesting topics – and that is evidence of the continuing failure of SNP policies.
Clark Cross.
138 Springfield Road,
Linlithgow.
Trust in our democracy
Madam, – Winston Churchill regarded a one-person-one-vote-based system as the worst way to achieve true democracy, until one considered all the other possible practical voting arrangements!
Nevil Shute suggested, in his 1950s novel In the Wet, a priority system giving more votes to those better-educated, law-abiding, responsible people than to the less well educated voters.
A scheme difficult to make practical because of many voters’ inevitable complaints and risks of some officials’ possible temptation to corruption.
In his recent letter (January 3) Rev Dr John Cameron suggests that often gross ignorance among the voters may have tipped the referendum balance towards Brexit, which evidently appals him, though I have yet to see his list of complaints beyond the financial drawbacks he anticipates for Great Britain after leaving the EU.
Dr Cameron suspects that some referendum voters might even have thought they were, in fact, voting to leave the USSR.
That fanciful idea is actually apt, since many “Brexiteers,” including myself, regard the centralised, imperialising EU as, in some ways, exhibiting the undemocratic personality of the unlamented Soviet Russia, attracting the nickname of “EUSSR”!
Dr Charles Wardrop.
111 Viewlands Rd West,
Perth.
A rather difficult concept to grasp
Madam, – I previously spent 35 years in the meat trade.
As such I find a vegan sausage roll quite an alien concept.
Please give it another name, or preferably give it up altogether.
Harry Coates.
Bridge Lane,
Perth.
