Improving the governance of Scotland and UK I would like to come back to the central point of my recent letter - which is that moving forward on the constitutional issue requires a broad consensus across civic and political Scotland.

Improving the governance of Scotland and UK
I would like to come back to the central point of my recent letter - which is that moving forward on the constitutional issue requires a broad consensus across civic and political Scotland.

There is very clearly broad support for acquiring more powers for the Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom: there is equally clearly no such broad support for independence. That is why it it is important to identify where we are going - and why the SNP white paper is a cul-de-sac.

Liberal Democrats do, indeed, support a broadly federal structure of government for the UK. We made a major contribution to the debate with the Steel Commission report which has been widely recognised as seminal. But I accept entirely that there are many issues for debate as we move forward and, contrary to some of the letters criticising my position on this, I regard it as essential that people with a broad range of views and ideas contribute to shaping the future. That was the secret of the success of the Constitutional Convention which led to the Scotland Act proposals. The end result, as in 1997, has to be something Scotland is comfortable with.

It is all very well to claim, as one of your correspondents did on Monday, that nuclear weapons, illegal foreign wars and rendition flights would be ended by independence. Others of us could claim they wouldn't have happened under a better government than Tony Blair's. These issues are arguments for a change of government, not a change of constitution.

But I make no apology for saying that the object of the exercise should be about improving the current arrangements for the governance of Scotland and of the United Kingdom - to build a constitutional settlement which bases itself on the experience of the past eight years in particular and which considers what further powers it is necessary for the Scottish Parliament to have for this purpose, what areas require improved partnership working with the United Kingdom government and parliament, and what areas are best dealt with at a British level.

That is a different concept to independence. Central to the white paper is the objective of a referendum on independence - not on more powers, on a federal settlement or other possibilities but on empowering the SNP government to cede Scotland from the United Kingdom.

That is a different concept to reforming the Union by improving and widening the powers of the Scottish Parliament. I think there is increasing recognition of this as political commentators assess what the white paper is really about.

Robert Brown MSP, Glasgow Region, 1 Douglas Avenue, Rutherglen.

Future of the world
I think that what Ms Janet Cunningham is trying to say (Letters, August 21) is that the modern world, in its scientific and technological advances, has outstripped the ability of religious organisations to contribute usefully to the acknowledged problems facing our global civilisation. These, as we trawl the media, can be easily identified as lying within the moral and ethical spheres. In this we are so far lacking any effective consensus that the very future of mankind on planet earth has been held to be in question.

This year's Reith lecturer, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the leading economist, effectively demonstrated that civilisation as we know it can only survive if, by the year 2015, we have arrived at a common policy with regard to (a) nuclear stock-piling, (b) world poverty, notably in central Africa and c) in steps to combat climate-change. He did not say how these global problems could be resolved, but he did emphasise that it was within the power of western powers to resolve them, and that their solution could be found in the teachings of Christ and Muhammad.

Gavin Fargus, Loan Fearn, Ballachullish.

The bridge tolls test
I share the concerns in your editorial (August 21) regarding the potential problems from the abolition of tolls on the Forth and Tay road bridges. One simple method of monitoring the effects of such a change is to suspend the tolls for a limited period and record the results.

Such an experiment could also be expanded in order to see what happens when tolls are removed outside of the peak congestion times.

Sandy Gemmill, 10 Mertoun Place, Edinburgh.