THE UK is the fifth/sixth biggest economy in the world. Of its total output value (GDP), around 80 per cent comprises services, less than 20 per cent is of manufactures, and around two per cent is of agricultural products and raw materials. Its tax revenues and public expenditure are almost in balance, and its national debt is a reducing percentage (currently 84 per cent) of GDP. Employment exceeds 32 million, and has never been higher. Unemployment, at 1.36 million and a rate of four per cent, is less than at any time since we joined the EU in 1973.

Of the UK's foreign trade, goods and raw materials account for just over half, and services the rest. The UK's trade deficit is falling, due more to rising exports rather than to falling imports. The country had a massive annual surplus on services trade of £80 billion in 2017, a £7bn – or almost 10 per cent – rise over 2016. Despite impending Brexit, our services exports to the EU increased by £9bn, and our annual services surplus with the EU is £30bn. This overall services surplus funds our foreign trade deficit on imports of goods, food and raw materials.

Also working in the country's favour is that in Lancashire alone the UK sits on at least 50 years' national supply of frackable shale gas. Unlike the rest of the EU it is not dependent on Russian gas supplies. And the U.K. has 15 "unicorns" or technology companies worth at least $1bn, and leads the EU in tech start-ups valued at between $250m and $1bn – more than Germany and France put together.

We should not put all the above at risk with a trade deal that would trap us in the protectionist embrace of the EU. Certainly trading on WTO terms would involve tariffs of two to four per cent on UK goods exports (10 per cent on cars) to the EU, and at least 12 per cent on agricultural exports. But our economy, as evidenced above, is overwhelmingly a service economy. WTO trade in services is governed by the "Most Favoured Nation" (MFN) principle, which would outlaw discrimination by the EU against the UK. Unilateral free trade (no tariffs on tangible products) by the UK, combined with our own policy to support the incomes of only UK farmers and fishermen (and not the rest of Europe, as we have done since 1973 under the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies) would bring down the price of all imports. Non-EU countries would be more willing to open up trade between themselves and a free-trade country. And (particularly agricultural) protectionism is why the EU has no trade deals with the USA, China and India.

However, and without any doubt, the EU would accept only a trade deal which would enforce on the UK the current Common External Tariffs, the CAP and the CFP). No, no, no.

Sadly, this Tory Government, the SNP, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are too ill-informed and too in thrall to vested interests and daft lefty ideas to see that.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive, Glasgow.

JAMES Otis, in the 18th century, expressed the resentment of American colonists at being taxed by a British Parliament to which they elected no representatives, coining the oft-quoted expression "taxation without representation is tyranny". Twenty-first century Scottish Tories are now warning us that unless Derek Mackay matches the favours dispensed to high earners south of the Border by Philip Hammond, many of their well-heeled friends will contrive to become English residents for tax purposes while continuing to live and work in Scotland. Like the EU referendum campaign, this latest incarnation of Project Fear is sadly lacking in detail of what repercussions these tyrants might face.

The principle of "no representation without taxation" would suggest that such people should be removed from all electoral registers in Scotland and should have no entitlement to any benefits provided by the Scottish Government through its discretionary devolved powers. These would include free education and university tuition, free health care, free prescriptions and concessionary travel. How much tax would the Tories' friends have to avoid to make such a ploy worthwhile? Like other correspondents in these pages recently, I am proud to belong to a nation in which many taxpayers, like myself, regard being in the higher-rate bracket as good fortune rather than misfortune.

Willie Maclean,

48 Braehead Avenue, MIlngavie.

I SUGGEST that your correspondent Ian McLaren (Letters, November 2) is one of the 70 per cent of the population who believe that the other 30 per cent should pay more tax. It's all very well to assume the moral high ground when you are not being asked to pay for it.

Your respondent should also acquaint himself with the Laffer Curve, which tells us that when you increase tax rates then at some stage in this process tax revenues will begin to fall. The increase in the rates of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax is a useful example of this.

In addition, all the empirical evidence indicates that when you decrease tax rates the tax yield goes up.

We all (including politicians) love to spend other people's money but I'm am afraid it's not as simple as that.

JI Wilkes,

7 Westbourne Gardens, Glasgow.

DESPITE Dr John Cameron’s criticism, (Letters, November 2) if Derek Mackay missed the lecture at Glasgow University on the Laffer Curve, it might not have been a bad thing. Dr Cameron writes as if, merely because the Laffer Curve was associated with Ronald Reagan and “much the same” was said by Adam Smith, David Hulme and John Maynard Keynes, it must be correct.

In fact, the Laffer Curve has been the subject of considerable debate, attracting a good deal of criticism from other economists on such matters as the shape of the curve, and its simplicity in assuming a single tax rate and labour supply. But most importantly, it has its basis in tax avoidance. If tax loopholes were closed there would be no Laffer Curve, as taxpayers would simply have to pay their tax, or resort to evasion with the possibility of criminal prosecution following. In many regards the UK tax system is a demonstration of this, as its very complexity has made it little more than a playground for tax accountants to assist their clients to avoid paying to their community what would otherwise be due.

It is disappointing therefore that someone with Dr Cameron’s background in the church does not have a greater grasp of the moral aspect of taxation. Despite his distasteful rhetorical question “is it more important to hammer the successful or help the poor?”, he might have appreciated that taxation should ensure we each contribute according to our means, and in that way help the poor and disadvantaged, the numbers of which the welfare policies of Westminster have driven up in recent years.

Alasdair Galloway,

14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.