CLAIMS by Theresa May that a co-called “Brexit dividend” will help pay for a boost to NHS spending in England worth £20 billion a year within five years are highly disingenuous (“Sturgeon is urged to spend extra £2 billion on healthcare”, The Herald, June 18). The Tory chairwoman of the health committee, Sarah Wollaston, is absolutely right in calling this claim “tosh”.
The UK will continue to pay into the EU through the transition until the end of 2020 and will pay £20bn of the “divorce bill” through to 2028. In addition, the UK Government has committed to keep EU funding for agricultural subsidies, research and development and other key areas at the same level in the short-term. These are set figures so it will be at least 10 years before any so-called “Brexit dividend”, if it were ever to materialise, is to be realised. Add to that, if the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts are accurate, the public finances are set to be £15bn a year worse off by 2021, or £300 million a week.
Mrs May must come clean over whether she intends to finance this increased spend through higher taxes, increased borrowing or a combination of the two. Interestingly, if taxes are set to rise, which they will clearly have to, it is staggering hypocrisy for the Tories to have attacked the Scottish Government’s boosting of the NHS through progressive tax changes and then look to hike taxes themselves.
Alex Orr,
Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace,
MARY Rolls began her letter (June 18) contending that Theresa May “has evolved despite widespread opposition from politicians, bureaucrats and the media from politician into statesman”.
I see nothing statesmanlike in the power-grabbing politician who declared herself a Remainer during the EU referendum but was quick to announce that “Brexit means Brexit” on becoming Prime Minister and who emphatically assured us that there would be no snap General Election, before calling one which left her seriously weakened and at the mercy of the DUP.
Mrs Rolls suggests that “the current pressure from Scotland must be a serious aggravation of the stress under which the Prime Minister is manfully labouring”; would that be the pressure from ignoring the Scottish Parliament’s opposition to the EU Withdrawal Bill and the contempt she has shown to devolution? The pressure from thousands of people who have joined the SNP over the past week? Or perhaps it is the pressure from within Mrs May’s Cabinet and from her backbenchers under which she is having to manfully labour that is aggravating her stress.
However, Mrs Rolls is right that, if the Prime Minister was forced to resign, it wouldn’t be much of a benefit to Scotland; she would simply be replaced by another Tory who, like the incumbent, has no mandate to impose any of their poisonous policies on Scotland.
Ruth Marr,
99 Grampian Road,
Stirling.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here