NICOLA Sturgeon apparently has said that she has not seen any evidence of criminality in the procurement and construction of the two ferries at Ferguson Marine, adding that coming to such a conclusion was "not her job". However, it is the job of the prosecuting authorities and the police, so why after all the public disquiet about the project is she not bringing in the police to settle matters once and for all?

With the costs of the project set to triple once the conversion costs of harbours to accommodate the vessels is factored in and with some commentators suggesting that the ferries' maiden voyages will be to the breaker's yard, the colossal waste of public money has been scandalous and Ms Sturgeon should be held accountable for it.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen.

SCOTLAND, IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP

I AM baffled by the proposed Ernst and Young CMAL/Calmac unbundling ("Calmac and CMAL may be scrapped ... to form one company", September 25). The original split of Calmac into CMAL and Calmac in 2006 was to satisfy the SNP's beloved EU and its competition laws. If this happens and independence is gained then the law shall yet again apply and the island community shall be back to square one.

In 2024, the Calmac tender shall be up for grabs for the next eight years. Let us go back to 2016 when one tenderer withdrew early because they recognised that there was no chance of gaining the contract and The Herald reported that "the whole saga has been costly and disruptive, and it is somewhat disturbing to learn that Serco, the only rival bidder, now says it never realistically expected to win". Serco was also ruled out on a technicality that made a mockery of the whole process. Its many requests for clarification on countless points were never answered and ridiculed in a manner that Putin would have been proud of. The Herald reported that "according to people familiar with large-scale tendering, such disqualifications usually occur when the agency awarding the contract wants to get rid of a bidder, and imposes terms and conditions it knows the bidder cannot sign up to".

Wake up, Scotland, to the incompetence of CMAL, whose sole shareholders are the ministers of the Scottish Government. Getting rid of both would be the most effective solution.

Peter Wright, West Kilbride.

THE PUBLIC IS BEING HARVESTED

THE private banking system creates the public money supply from thin air as debt and at interest, and as we get ever deeper into that debt – another £10 billion here, another £10 billion there – and interest rates rise, we face an expensive future. The banks are simply creaming us, and the Chancellor has now allowed them to pay uncapped bonuses so they can get their hands on the money they make from their magic money scam.

With energy, we could cut out the middleman – which is us – and government could just give money directly to their rich friends who run the privatised energy business, instead of giving it to us first to hand over when we pay their rip-off bills.

The public is simply being herded and harvested.

However, the recent tax reduction announcements from the Chancellor are welcome. No country ever taxed its way to prosperity.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.

FOCUS ON A CLEAN AND GREEN FUTURE

A NUMBER of your correspondents have been sceptical of whether climate change is a man-made phenomenon or not.

In my view, this question was probably worth debating about 40 years ago when Exxon's own scientists started seeing a remarkable coincidence between the burning of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures; however today it is totally irrelevant.

Accelerated investment in offshore wind has shown that the economies of scale soon kick in, driving down the cost per KW of clean energy to the point where it is cheaper than electricity generated by burning fossil fuels.

Massive investment in technologies such as harnessing tidal energy and combined wind/hydrogen projects are the most likely candidates to solve the challenge of providing base load with the flexibility to manage peaks and growth in demand, without resorting to nuclear or foreign gas.

The UK, and Scotland in particular, has the winds and tidal ranges and engineering know-how to capitalise on this wonderful opportunity.

It took hundreds of millions of years to form the hydrocarbon resources we seem intent on burning within the space of a single century. They should be left in the ground and perhaps a future generation will learn how to use them without risk of pollution.

Whether or not man has caused, or contributed to climate change is a spurious debate, used to divert attention and continue with business as usual. The vested interests of Big Oil have ensured that investment was pumped into exploitation of hydrocarbons. We can't turn the clock back any more than we can turn back the tide.

We can however create a clean and green future for generations to come by focusing massive public investment on reliable, safe and sustainable sources of natural energy.

Gordon Duncan, Stonehaven.

TIDAL STREAM NOT THE ANSWER

TONY Philpin (Letters, September 25) criticises my previous letter that discusses the major problems of tidal energy.

He enthuses about tidal stream turbines and claims that a critical factor of these is their speed. Well, a study that was done on the Mersey a decade ago found that tidal stream would only generate 40-100 GWh (gigawatt hours) annually, compared to 1,200 GWh in a tidal barrage in the same place. It's no use having more speed if much less overall energy is generated.

He also says that Scotland has a “huge marine engineering technical base” to develop tidal energy. Can he explain then, why the tidal stream turbines in the Pentland Firth were built abroad?

Geoff Moore, Alness.

WE DON'T PROTEST ENOUGH OVER HEALTH

I NOTE with interest Neil Mackay's article ("A disturbing prognosis: The Scottish NHS is collapsing ... but are doctors right in blaming the SNP?", September 25). I was both irritated and embarrassed reading Dr Maria Corretge's statement that we've reached crisis point.

I don't feel that I've been a heavy burden on the NHS during my 74 years. Up until around five years ago I would have defended the NHS and the access I felt was available, had it been necessary for me, especially when my husband experienced outstanding care and attention from our GP (now retired) and the hospital treatment received during two stays due to a serious illness (from which he recovered). Now I feel deflated.

From before Covid, my experience of accessing our health centre was minimised, we were told due to staff shortages, particularly with GPs. Telephone appointments are better than nothing but, in my opinion, miss the essential observation by a GP of the body language of a face to face consultation. The value of securing an appointment with a GP is having deeper problems/issues recognised by them. I don't feel I receive an NHS "service" any more.

Dentists are also a bugbear at the moment. Again I feel that attending regular check-ups over the years has certainly kept the necessity for dental treatment at a minimum but the long wait after Covid has produced an anxiety as well as an increase of unsolicited suggestions for private health care.

We're not protesting enough to the politicians. At the moment I feel impotent, especially with the SNP. Public debate has been kidnapped by independence.

The situation is really outrageous.

Liz Izat, Glasgow.

GET GRADUATES TO REPAY OUR GENEROSITY

UNIVERSITY Scotland has warned that overseas students are set to become universities' main source of income. Higher Education Minister Jamie Hepburn said that the Scottish Government invests almost £1.9 billion every year in colleges and universities. The critical shortage of doctors, nurses and dentists is quite simply that they left Scotland.

Free university education was introduced in Scotland in August 2000 for people who had lived in Scotland for three years so why did various Scottish Governments not link this taxpayer-funded education to ensuring recipients worked in Scotland for five years and thus repay taxpayers? This would have ensured that Scotland did not experience shortages in key areas.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

NO MEAN FEAT

ANDREW Tickell ("Kwarteng is selling a lie. This is a Budget for the wealthy", September 25) makes a common error when discussing the average income of the average UK worker. He describes the average income as the mid-point in the earnings scale and that is incorrect. The average income, the mean income in statistics terminology, is found by adding together the incomes of all UK workers and dividing that figure by the number of UK workers. The mid-point of the income scale is called the median in statistics terminology and is as he described it.

The median and the mean (the average) are rarely the same. The following simple example may help clarify matters. There are 10 workers with an average (mean) income of £20k, but a median income of £10k; nine of the workers earn £10k and 1 worker earns £110k.

Sandy Edmiston, Blairgowrie.