I CAN assure John Birkett (Letters, October 17) that I am most certainly not in favour of the SNP Government using long-term borrowing to meet the cost of additional spending on welfare benefits. I am a firm believer that governments should keep their spending within the limits of the income available to them from taxation and other public revenues. Long-term borrowing should only be used to finance capital investment programmes, the returns from which may not become available until some future time.

The UK and Scottish governments should behave just like ordinary citizens trying to keep their spending within the limit of their regular earned income, while using a mortgage for the long-term investment in their home and a bank overdraft for short-term financing or exceptional items.

Some politicians and commentators constantly use the terms “fiscal deficit” and “national debt” as if these were one and the same, which they most certainly are not. The deficit is simply the amount by which government total spending exceeds total income in any given year, whereas the national debt is the cumulative total of all outstanding government borrowings over many years.

Of course recurring fiscal deficits increase the national debt, as do exceptional events like the major financial crisis in 2008/09 requiring the Government to borrow the massive amounts needed to bail out UK banks. Getting rid of the deficit as constantly promised by George Osborne is an admirable aspiration, but that would have a relatively small effect on the national debt, currently standing at an eye-watering £1.5 trillion.

And Mr Birkett is right to point out that true national debt is very much greater than this. The quoted figure does not include long-term borrowing by major institutions like the National Health Service or the 30-year capital debt from PFI projects. Nor does it include the enormous debt owed by the British population as a whole on mortgage and credit card borrowings. Another banking crisis or global economic collapse would have a disastrous effect on the Britain’s financial structures, and we are not well prepared.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court,

Glasgow.