YOU have recently carried much coverage of the Scotland Bill and proposed amendments. The Report Stage of the Bill in Parliament has attracted an SNP amendment seeking to transfer the power to call an independence referendum from Parliament to the devolved legislature at Holyrood, which should be voted down. Yet not this nor any of the other proposed amendments are as troubling as parts of the Bill itself.

There has been reaction to the provision that powers over abortion should be devolved. The request from Yvette Cooper MP that the Secretary of State should think further was timely. It should be heeded if we are to avoid the problem of split jurisdiction on the issue and the harm that would arise therefrom. The reaction from Deirdre Brock MP ("MP questions Cooper over devolving abortion", The Herald, November 7) was self-demeaning. The call for reconsideration was not a slight on the devolved assembly but a recognition that the issue is best regulated by Parliament. It's not enough that we have an assurance from the First Minister that there are no plans for change to current legislation if the power were to be devolved. It rightly remains with Parliament.

Then, we have the attempt by the Government to resuscitate the previously defeated measure at Clause 1 of the Bill that Holyrood should be regarded as "permanent". No, it won't. Holyrood is a statutory body. It has no claim to succeed the Scottish Parliament of 1707.

This baseless claim to succession emerged at the devolved legislature's first meeting on May 12, 1999, when the assembly's senior member declared that the Scottish Parliament "adjourned" (March25, 1707) was thereby "reconvened". No, it had been abolished on April 25, 1707, one month later and what we got was a new creature of Parliament. The error was repeated this year in a speech by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the opening of the Edinburgh/Borders railway.

The last try at creating a false permanence for Holyrood was well defeated in the House of Commons on June 15 by 302 votes to 271. If Parliament were in future to respond to a call for greater localisation of powers in Scotland, where reformed local authorities, the implementers of legislation, were also to become the policy-makers at Holyrood through indirect elections, then that will happen. There will be no "plague of boils" or other political fallout.

To re-introduce the clause shows a lack of grasp of political reality and verges upon showing contempt for a recent decision of Parliament. The Secretary of State should desert the measure.

John McAleer,

24 Clelland Avenue, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow.

DAVID Mundell's call on the Scottish Government to reveal how much it will spend on welfare benefits with the devolution of ''new powers on tax'' is a callous and tacit admission that the cuts he and his Tory Government are imposing on the poor are harsh and will require mitigation (“Opposition calls on SNP to reveal welfare spend”, The Herald, November 9).

The bumbling and ineffectual persona he presents to the world disguises a cold, uncaring individual who, through happenstance, has attained a position of authority over his fellow Scots which is totally undeserved and regrettable. He as Scottish Secretary, combined with the continued pro-Tory attitude adopted by the sole surviving Scottish Labour MP, Ian Murray, undermine devolution at every turn and with their Scotland Bill, which is transparently designed to destabilise the finances of the SNP Scottish Government.

It would seem that they are, inadvertently, hell bent on destroying the very Union which succours them.

James Mills,

29 Armour Square, Johnstone.

IN his piece on empires falling (“SNP remains dominant but all empires fall, eventually”, The Herald, November 9) David Torrance (once again) fails to understand the true nature of imperial power. It is all too common a characteristic of pro-British commentators.

Might I remind Mr Torrance that victors harness power and use it to hurt the losers: that is the proven morbidity of imperial history.

We are watching this being enacted in the face of British parliamentary power in the Scotland Bill. The delivery of devolved power to subordinate constitutions is never free of policies that favour the ruling power.

We will watch the Scotland Bill make its imperial route through the House of Lords without a single SNP voice: it is the way of coloniality.

However there is in the strange nether world of politics an appropriate binary response: the victim too wishes to hurt: part revenge, part retribution. Both outcomes offer recrimination, resentment and pain.

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green, Carluke.