KATE Forbes has stated that new powers must be given to Holyrood to avoid a return to austerity. It’s irrefutable that Scotland receives more than £12 billion a year as part of the "Union dividend". This year, an additional £10 billion has been spent in Scotland to mitigate Covid-19 so far, sums that are far in excess of what an independent Scotland could ever do on its own.

How much is that per person? Where exactly does it go? These funds come from taxpayers, either individuals or corporations throughout the entire UK, but the SNP has successfully broken the link between services and taxation in Scotland now. There are many people who believe that most of their services, support, and medication are delivered at no cost, magically appearing from the ether like manna from heaven.

They are not; costings are just pushed along vertically or horizontally. There are economic, social and environmental limits to everything, except in Scotland apparently.

Surely such profligate spending in Scotland by the SNP needs more attention at the moment, not just to refute the SNP’s vision of a "milk and honey" independent Scotland but for taxpayers across the UK.

David Bone, Girvan.

MAY I answer the question put by Liz Galbraith (Letters, June 9) regarding how an independent Scotland would pay for the current crisis?

An independent Scotland with its own National Bank would do exactly as all other independent countries have done and are doing – borrow from their own National Bank, a debt incurred which would never need repaid, as they own that bank. It is simply a strategy for printing money and increasing the supply within the economy, and that is exactly what Westminster is doing.

As things stand, as part of the UK, Scotland is not allowed to borrow a single penny from anyone, nor is it allowed to overspend its budget. In fact, it is legally obliged not to spend all its budget, but must end every financial year with a surplus. It is therefore prevented by our membership of the UK from dealing with this crisis as all independent countries around the world are able to. The value of oil, or anything else, is totally irrelevant.

P Davidson, Falkirk.

I NOTE the letter from Liz Galbraith in respect of differences between New Zealand and Scotland and "extreme financial challenges". I quickly checked a few things and found that GDP per capita in both countries are broadly similar, that Scotland has slightly more people, New Zealand has more land. So how will New Zealand handle those challenges given that they are not any wealthier than Scotland?

I submit the difference in performance is a combination of constitutional differences and powers with, perhaps, the luck to have an exceptional leader at the time of crisis. Of course, Scotland may also have had an exceptional leader in Nicola Sturgeon, but without the kind of constitutional powers that Jacinda Ardern has, we may never know.

Iain Cope, Glasgow G13.

RUTH Marr (Letters, June 9) and others are indulging in a fallacy in their assertions that "if Scotland was independent..." with regard to the current Covid-19 pandemic. There is no comparison to be made between Scotland and New Zealand, not least because the latter is an archipelago so biologically remote from the rest of the world and anomalous that it had no terrestrial mammals at all until the Polynesians arrived in the 13th century.

What is more, Scotland voted to stay in the UK in 2014. The choice of two million Scots was the preference for the risks and responsibilities of being part of bigger and more diverse country and economy over those of being part of a smaller and narrower one. If we want to play Ms Marr's parlour game and pretend that something else happened, we can also imagine the penury that Scotland would have faced following the greatest economic shock in its history, and wonder how on earth we would have managed with public services stripped of over £10 billion every year.

Such speculation is all very entertaining, and makes useful material for the attempts of nationalists to distract us from the failings of the SNP Scottish Government. But Scotland is not New Zealand. Nor Norway nor Denmark nor the Republic of Ireland. Nor in terms of responsibility for public health and the NHS and care homes, is it even England.

In the real world, we can only judge Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman and co by the actions and decisions they have taken, and have failed to take, and above all by the Covid-19 infection rate and death toll in Scotland. No wonder that their supporters want us to be distracted by their pointless fantasies.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow G13.

Read more: Kate Forbes: Expect 'deep cuts' to public services without new powers from Westminster