Give us a break

After years of telling us that they are the only party that puts “Scotland first” we see yet another example of twisted logic from the Scottish National Party (“Tax breaks plan to attract skilled migrants to Scotland”, 25 May). Higher tax rates for consultants, doctors, teachers, lecturers, lawyers, accountants, successful businesspeople and anyone doing a little better for themselves, who have given a lifetime of service and taxes to our country, mean they are relegated to second-class citizens.

These new migrants, from Day One, will be entitled to free prescriptions, free higher education, free healthcare, free personal care, free bus passes and even a free baby box. To add salt to the wound, they will be paying less in tax to begin with. Mass immigration and higher taxes are therefore to be foisted on to the population of Scotland if the plans of this flawed Growth Commission see reality. No wonder the SNP delayed publication. It must enter the Guinness Book of Records as the longest political suicide note in history.

(DR) GERALD EDWARDS

Broom Road, Glasgow

Peter Bennie, chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, fears that the uncertainty over Brexit will cut off the supply of EU medics coming to work in Scotland, thus putting the NHS under more pressure (your report, 23 May). He said that since 2010 more than 200 students from the EU have graduated from Scottish medical schools, but does not state how many remained in Scotland. Perhaps this is embarrassing in that, despite getting their fees paid, these EU students chose not to work in Scotland when they qualified.

Not only is it wrong that they received free university education but as Professor Sir Ian Diamond of Aberdeen University stated recently, they stopped “well-qualified Scottish students” getting a place.

The SNP policy on free education for EU students has cost £1.5 billion, and will cost another £400 million after Brexit. If EU students had not been bribed to come to Scotland, many more Scottish students would have got medical places and there would be no doctor shortage in the NHS.

CLARK CROSS

Springfield Road, Linlithgow