The best way to describe the Smith Commission report ("Historic shift in powers to signal new era for Holyrood", The Herald, November 27) would be half-hearted.

That is not to say there is nothing in it to be welcomed - parts of it do enhance the powers of the Scottish Parliament - but it is a long way from Home Rule.

The litmus test for whether a transfer of power is real is whether it will allow the Scottish Parliament to pursue different policies than those of Westminster. The stand-out problem is with income tax. The headline part of the report is that the Scottish Parliament has been given control over rates and bands. Fair enough, but that is not where the real policy powers of income tax lie. To quote Paragraph 77 of the report: "there will be no restrictions on the thresholds or rates the Scottish Parliament can set. All other aspects of income tax will remain reserved to the UK Parliament" The real power lies in being able to set the allowance threshold, create credits and exemptions, etc. These are important policy levers that have all been left with Westminster. In the end, all Scotland has been left to do is to duplicate the headline rates Westminster sets.

This messy sharing of power creates an impossible situation. If income tax was fully devolved there would be a case for excluding Scottish MPs from income tax votes. However, with all the important parts of the tax retained by Westminster, this obviously is not an option. The fact remains that Scottish MPs will still be voting on tax bands to be separately set (albeit in all likelihood at the same level) by the Scottish Parliament. Why should the rest of the UK accept that? It creates an impossible tension that could have been avoided by devolving income tax in its entirety.

Welfare is another area with many problems. The benefits that form part of the new universal credit are not to be devolved. In other words, the powers of the Scottish Parliament, supposedly permanent, are being set according to the particular policies of the current Government. Moreover, this means housing benefit will not be devolved. The one benefit even Labour supported being devolved remains with Westminster.

It should be emphasised that wherever devolution has been a success so far, it has been where the Scottish Parliament has set policies different to that of Westminster. Many of the powers proposed for devolution are specifically designed so that the Scottish Parliament will simply administer the same policies that Westminster sets. This means that the scope to allow the Scottish Parliament to help actual people has been limited.

One thing beyond doubt is that legislation based on this report will not settle the constitutional issue. The report claims to seek a durable settlement, but before long the devolution settlement will have to be revisited yet again as it becomes clear that the incomplete transfer of certain powers creates problems that could have been avoided simply by transferring full power over any given area.

Iain Paterson,

2F Killermont View,

Glasgow.

While devolving more powers from London to Edinburgh, the UK Government is simultaneously promising much the same for England's major cities. Is there some reason the entire Scottish nation is now being lumped in with Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester? Shouldn't Scotland's extra powers be devolved from Holyrood to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, or even straight from Westminster to Scotland's major cities?

And why stop there? How about devolving more power to ordinary citizens? We could start with a series of referenda on voluntary euthanasia, drug laws, immigration, and abortion limits. Either our politicians trust us to listen carefully to key debates and make important decisions or they do not.

Keith Gilmour,

18 Netherton Gardens,

Glasgow.

Your comprehensive coverage of the publication of the Smith Commission's report includes a wide range of different perceptions and views of the outcome.

Sadly, the language of the report conveys the impression that its content contains decisions rather than recommendations to Parliament, particularly where it says: "UK legislation will state that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government are permanent institutions".

Will it? Surely not. This could create the potential for conflict between Parliament and the devolved legislature. It is an essential function of Parliament that it regulates the functions and powers of all three devolved legislatures in the UK. These are not bodies of equivalent standing to itself.

It is necessary in the discharge of this function that notions of permanence of any or all of the three be disregarded. This is to ensure that Parliament's ability to manage change in the light of future circumstances, such as the positive development of local government alluded to by Lord Smith in his address this morning, remains unimpaired.

John McAleer,

24 Clelland Avenue,

Bishopbriggs.