SPEAKING on his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Mr Sunak said that “it’s not right that some people jump the queue”. It is morally repugnant that the Prime Minister should think of there being a “queue” to gain asylum. People should be treated according to their need, not the order of their arrival.

READ MORE: Watchdog raps UK Government after 'barefaced lie' on asylum backlog

Mr Sunak is wrong to think that putting people in a queue to wait their turn is “fair and compassionate”. Clearly there needs to be some kind of triage upon arrival rather than detention in a queue, whether near the point of arrival or in Rwanda. That will not happen as long as Mr Sunak and his Conservative Party lack the imagination to see beyond their rush to deport as many people as they can before their scheme is identified as illegal again.

In Scotland, with our ageing population, we need to increase our population of economically active people who intend to invest their future in our country, so an effective solution to the immigration issue is in everyone’s interest. I would hope an independent Scotland will never consider it acceptable to treat everyone the same but will instead pursue social justice and treat people according to their need.

Ni Holmes
St Andrews

A VERY sobering moment for the Scots who elected the seven Tory MPs to see how little respect they and their Westminster colleagues have for the decisions made through due process by the judiciary.

The Rwanda Bill gives any Minister of the Crown the power to override interim decisions by the European Court of Human Rights: “It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the interim measure” of the European Court of Human Rights.

READ MORE: Therese Coffey red-faced after 'excruciating' Rwanda gaffe

There do not appear to be any guidelines on the criteria the Minister of the Crown should consider before making these momentous decisions.

A court has already ruled that it is for the Secretary of State for Scotland to decide what criteria he considers before making decisions under Section 35 of the Scotland Act to overrule the Scottish Parliament.

How long will it be before the Tories put Rwanda-style clauses on the European Court of Human Rights into domestic law?

John Jamieson
South Queensferry

MICHAEL Maclennan’s letter raises my frustration level yet again, when his perfectly reasonable worries around our future energy use do not seem to lead to a fairly obvious solution – independence. He rightly points out that much of our housing stock will be very difficult to insulate, heat pumps will be beyond our ability to afford and energy, oil and gas are not devolved.

The very reason Westminster so terrified of losing Scotland is the very reason that independence is a major part of the solution. From the start, more than 80% of the oil has come from Scottish territorial waters, but all the income from it has gone to the UK Treasury, with Scotland credited thereafter with only a percentage, based on our share of the UK population – around 8.4% – while the other 91.6% remains with Westminster. With independence, all 100% would be Scottish and help fund the transition to renewables, even during gradual phasing out.

READ MORE: Scottish Government raises 'availability of food' concerns over Brexit

All this time, the wealth from our oil and gas has consistently been hidden, as recommended by The McCrone report, while it was used by Thatcher and others to fund the destruction of our industries, fund the privatisation programme and hide mismanagement of the economy.

Also scaring the wits out of the UK Government is the fact that Scottish renewables companies currently pay £7.36 per MWh to feed into the Grid and send 40% of their output to England. With independence, our companies would save that amount and get paid it instead, adding to the taxable profits of Scotland. Independence could also mean the end of plans for a pipeline, for which we will pay a share of costs, from Loch Ness to England to solve their summer drought problem.

READ MORE: Scottish independence support continues to grow - even in winter

There are many other instances where we unwittingly contribute to the English side of the Treasury balance sheet. When you buy online from an England-based company and pay a price including VAT, your VAT features on an English company VAT return.

Let’s stop being Westminster’s cash cow, and then we can get paid for whatever we have in abundance that they are short of, in a normal trading relationship.

L McGregor
Falkirk

“GROW the economy” is the mantra of most UK politicians. “Drill baby drill” is the chant of a would-be second-term American president. Careful shrinking of the economy might be a more sensible view before the climate does it for us.

“Scotland needs to appoint that industrial policy minister now” says Douglas Chapman MP in a column in Wednesday’s National. Holyrood’s Green Industrial Strategy makes sense, provided the word “green” is kept top of its policies. The world’s first trillionaire is in the making. Much control of the global industrial output and the rampant consumerism which it engenders is in the hands of a relatively few mega-wealthy individuals. Have we any power to influence their thinking? Do they count their carbon footprint?

As we squander the earth’s bounty, soon all of us currently party to the planet’s asset-stripping will be forced to start taking notice. An egalitarian, independent Scotland becomes ever more pressing. It could work together with environmentally conscious financiers and business leaders.

As Douglas Chapman ends, “do it NOW”.

Iain R Thomson
Strathglass