Writing in the East Lothian Courier, Association Chairman Tim Jackson, provides clarity to the amount of Taxation & Expenditure occuring in Scotland.
"Peter Swain is clearly confused. In his letter of October 15, he claims that in every one of the last 30 years, people in Scotland have sent more money in taxes to the London Exchequer than the London Government has spent in Scotland. He is wrong.
"What I suspect he meant to say is that every year of the last 33, Scotland raised more taxes per head than the rest of the UK. This is true. But Scotland received from the UK Government more spending per head than the rest of the UK in every single one of those 33 years - last year £1,200 per head.
"In 2013-14, all taxes raised in Scotland amounted to approximately £54 billion (including a geographical share of oil revenue) and all spending in Scotland amounted to £66.4 billion. That is a black hole of £12 billion and most of that was before the oil crash (Scottish Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland figures).
"As for his comments on Trident, the sum normally quoted for the cost of Trident is £100 billion. However, we need to remember that this is over a 40-year period, so £2.5 billion per year. Scotland's population share of this (approximately eight per cent) works out at approximately £200 million per annum.
"While this is a substantial sum, it represents significantly less than the underspend in the Scottish Government's budget every year (£440 million in the most recent financial year).
"There is this no justification for claiming, as the SNP do, that poverty could be wiped out, welfare funding could be increased, health service and education funding could be improved etc. if there were no Trident replacement. There is also the separate but related issue about the many thousands of jobs in Scotland dependent on Trident, which runs into many thousands.
"Crucially, however, Trident is the ultimate insurance policy to guarantee the UK's security and sovereignty."