Letters: Do we only legislate by the grace and favour of Westminster?

Yet this is not particularly unusual. Most obviously the minimum age for marriage, or to vote in Scotland (other than Westminster elections) is 16, but is 18 in England. More seriously was the purpose of devolution not to allow different nations to legislate in line with national political opinion? I would suggest this is one such example.

Tony Blair confessed in 1997 that a Scottish Parliament would be comparable to a “parish council”. This was, at the time, widely mocked (not least by his own side) as an attempt to assuage opinion elsewhere in the UK. However, do recent events not suggest that there is something in that description, as if Westminster can step in whenever legislation at Holyrood is deemed unacceptable, or it is expedient to do so, using means such as S30 or S35, how powerful is Holyrood really?

In other regards, the present Westminster government has legislated with the Internal Market Act to allow Scottish food and drink standards to be undercut by Westminster without recourse. They are also providing funding to Scottish organisations in areas which, according to the Scotland Act, are Holyrood responsibilities.

Lady Haldane’s decision demonstrates only too clearly this critical shortcoming of devolution, that our Parliament is the creation of Westminster, and that as such it will always be outranked, irrespective of Scottish opinion. Do we really need to debate whether Holyrood should legislate on the opinions of the MSPs elected by the Scottish electorate, or only by the grace and favour of the government at Westminster?

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton

Court’s ruling reinforces devolution

THE First Minister Humza Yousaf predictably uses his latest court defeat - this time on the SNP administration's flawed gender self-ID reforms - to beat the secessionist drum. He claims the judge's decision favouring the UK government is a dark day for devolution, and, so his spin goes, Scotland should be independent.

What? The ruling, in fact, reinforces the principle of devolution by further clarifying in court what is either reserved to Westminster or devolved to Holyrood. Mr Yousaf’s party's legislation breached the devolution settlement in that it would have negatively (and, I'd suggest, intentionally) impacted existing Great Britain-wide equality protection law and, thus, have directly undermined powers reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act.

It appears, shockingly, that Mr Yousaf, and Nicola Sturgeon before him, have cynically used the Scottish trans community by illegitimately attempting to push devolution boundaries in this sensitive area of law and social policy. Rather than indulge in phony posturing about the constitution, Ms Sturgeon and Mr Yousaf must now issue an immediate apology to all taxpayers and the trans community.

Martin Redfern, Melrose

Read more: Letters: At last – a bit of common sense on heat pumps

Johnson’s disastrous handling of the pandemic

I CAN’T believe Martin Redfern is defending Boris Johnson over his disastrous handling of Covid (Letters, December 9). At the UK Covid inquiry, Mr Johnson claimed that he couldn’t lock down sooner but armed with the same WHO advice, Norway locked down on March 12.

Despite warnings, the Prime Minister procrastinated for nine days before bringing in the lockdown and during this time the number of infections had rocketed from an estimated 200,000 to 1.5million. This caused thousands of unnecessary deaths.

As an island, the UK should have had one of the lowest rates of infection but it meant Britain had more infections than any other European country when they took the same drastic decision, as well as fewer intensive care beds than many. Scotland had no control over its borders and it was Mr Johnson who said “old people have had a good innings. They are going to die anyway".

As Scotland’s chief nursing officer said, people were only discharged into care homes after clinical risk assessments and where infection prevention and control guidance were in place. Evidence suggests that agency staff workers, often employed on zero-hours contracts, unwittingly spread the infection in care homes as the pandemic grew.

Scotland didn’t get additional Covid powers until March 25, 2020 and it was only after Scotland diverged from the UK approach that we got on top of the virus with the resultant fewer cases and deaths than in England or Wales per 100,000 population.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Difference should make us grateful

TYPICAL of many union apologists and those who wish to undermine devolution, Martin Redfern (Letters, December 9) attempts to ignore reality in order to shamelessly divert blame from the UK Government onto the Scottish Government in matters supposedly “fully devolved” while blissfully ignoring the reality of his own making.

Boris Johnson as leader of a grossly incompetent Tory Government was responsible for many of the nearly quarter-of-a-million deaths across the UK because, in spite of warnings from Italy and elsewhere, he did not initially respond seriously to the threat of Covid which exacerbated the fact that the Tory Government in running down the NHS in England had reduced its preparedness for a pandemic (including the provision of spare beds and mass supplies), all with dire consequences for Scotland.

It may have slipped Mr Redfern’s attention but besides controlling the UK’s major economic levers, the UK Government also controls international border arrangements which was a factor in limiting, or not limiting, the spread of the Covid virus.

Certainly the Scottish Government also made mistakes, but Nicola Sturgeon seemingly made rational decisions in tune with the advice of medical and epidemiological experts and worked hard to keep the public informed of the reasoning behind the decisions made by her and the Scottish Government. These essential differences between the two governments and their leaders are differences for which most people in Scotland, despite many personal tragedies, are grateful.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry

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No more spin on political history

PUTTING aside liking or disliking Margaret Thatcher, she and her party were propelled to power in 1979 by the SNP and she remained in power for 13 years. In an act of political hara-kiri, unequalled before or since, the SNP group, small as it was, voted down Jim Callaghan's government, knowing full well what it would mean.

There is no spin or excuse that can be put on that simple fact. Recent SNP decision-making would suggest that little has changed over the years in their reasoning abilities and ability to think things through; if anything they have regressed.

In 1979 they went on to lose the vast majority of their handful of MPs at the election and were almost wiped from the political map. Unfortunately, no matter how much they try, history and recorded fact cannot be rewritten. They inflicted 13 years of Margaret Thatcher on the UK, for good or bad.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Read more: Letters: Court ruling really is a dark day for devolution

We must actively promote peace

I REFER to Malcolm Parkin’s letter (December 7) referring to the slaughter of innocents in Palestine: “Where is God in all this? … not a word from the Church in your pages”.

I am confident that up and down the land appropriate prayers are being offered every Sunday from the pulpits of the Church of Scotland. However, prayer not backed up by meaningful action is a shallow diversion from the good we could be doing by way of actively promoting justice and peace.

In fact ,Christians are called to care for the sick, needy, underprivileged, widowed, orphaned, poor, abused, and vulnerable including those so obviously suffering at the hands of the Israeli government, the settlers and Hamas.

Furthermore those called to lead us must be more courageous in expressing their opinions on what is happening to these innocents. They must not be afraid of speaking truth to those in power in Israel, the USA and the UK.

In particular, the Church of Scotland must be an effective voice of and an effective hope for its Lutheran and Episcopalian partner churches in Palestine. Once a major portion of the population in this region, since 1948 the number of Palestinian Christians has dwindled to a tiny percentage of the Palestinian population, many driven overseas by Israeli persecution.

Why are the “leaders” of the Kirk so reluctant to speak out in these tragic times?

John Milne, Uddingston