Inflated account

I WAS astonished that Scottish Socialist Party spokesman Colin Fox (Letters, 15 October) didn’t appear to know that VAT on domestic fuel is only 5 per cent (not 20 per cent).

Perhaps he and others who wring their hands over what they see as an outrageous rise in fuel costs also do not know that official statistics show that, in 2009, fuel expenditure as a percentage of total household expenditure was 4.7 per cent.

That is only slightly higher than it was in 1990 (4.5 per cent) and less than it was in 1980 (5.6 per cent).

Steuart Campbell

Dovecot Loan

Edinburgh