NICOLA STURGEON wants Scotland to have a veto on the UK's possible exit from the EU. This reflects a difference between Scotland and England in the balance of pro and anti-EU sentiment.

Underlying this are different attitudes to inward migration, with most English people feeling they are getting too much of this while the SNP maintains that Scotland needs more. Is there not scope for a win – win solution here?

The problem is to make Scotland more attractive than England for EU and other migrants, as well as any English people who may be encouraged to join that flow.

Here we may be able to turn to advantage some of our other problems. One is the astronomical price of houses in the South-East relative to the rest of the UK and another is the burgeoning cost to the taxpayer of housing benefit.

Currently, the benefit payable for a property depends upon the level of house prices in that post code area. But higher prices are an indication of a shortage and it is debatable whether we should be facilitating residence in expensive places rather than letting employers show who is most needed there by paying them enough to afford the rent.

There is a case for benefits to go down rather than up where property values are highest.

This would only be acceptable if there is somewhere else desirable for those displaced or excluded by the change to go and live instead. Scotland represents just such a place.

John Riseley, Harrogate.