Move to let more prisoners out early is down to SNP failure

The recently resigned HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland in her final annual report commented on many of these issues including “there is one particular issue with far-reaching consequences that I and my predecessors have consistently reported on: the stubbornly entrenched issue of overcrowding in Scotland’s prisons. The high numbers in Scotland’s prisons and the issues that it causes are sadly not unexpected and remain a serious concern”.

Releasing prisoners is an easy option to deal with overcrowding but it does not address the issues surrounding crime and prisoners. Scots have a right to feel safe in society; those committing offences should be suitably punished but also offered the opportunity to be rehabilitated. Neither of these things are happening under the SNP who don’t listen to the experts who are telling them they are failing all of us.

More prisons need to be built, more rehabilitation services need to be provided to reduce drug addiction, better education services need to be provided in poor areas. The SNP has been in power since 2007 and these issues are only getting worse on its watch.

Jane Lax, Aberlour.

Read more letters

• The generating giants will feel the pain of a market backlash
• The assisted dying bill could lead to a point of no return

Canada claims are false

DR Ramona Coelho (“Weak safeguards in Scotland will ‘push the poor, the elderly and disabled towards assisted death'”, The Herald, November 13) is a known and vociferous religious opponent of assisted dying in Canada. She presents her opposition to assisted dying in Scotland as based on our bill’s “weak safeguards”. Aside from the fact that Liam McArthur's bill includes very robust checks and safety measures, no safeguards would be stringent enough to satisfy Dr Coelho’s agenda.

Dr Coelho has strong connections to religious organisations and causes which evidently influence her thinking on assisted dying, including the Christian Medical Society of Canada (which actively campaigns against Canada’s Medical Aid in Dying or MAiD law). She has also co-signed a communication from the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute against assisted dying.

Dr Coelho is entitled to object to assisted dying on religious grounds. But she presents her opposition as based on concern for “marginalised” groups. This implies that, if Scotland’s assisted dying bill had stronger safeguards in place, she might be swayed on its efficacy. This is disingenuous. She is a religious opponent of end-of-life choice and unflinching in her enmity towards assisted dying laws.

The strength of Dr Coelho’s enmity explains her reliance on anecdote (“I recall a conversation with a man”, etc) rather than robust data on how assisted dying in Canada actually works. This data shows that, contrary to her claims, marginalised groups are less likely to use assisted dying than the rest of the population. People higher on the socio-economic spectrum are most likely to use it. She also implies that assisted dying will become an alternative to palliative care if introduced. This is demonstrably false based on evidence from Canada, where, since the introduction of MAiD, there has been a major increase in the funding and staffing of palliative care.

Two more facts are worth pointing out. First, Dr Coelho refers extensively to anecdotes from Ontario (where she is based) about patients using MAiD “who are not dying”. Scotland’s proposed law would be available only to those who are terminally ill, thus all of her examples in that category are functionally irrelevant. Claims of a "slippery slope", such that the law would inevitably be expanded once in place to include those who are not dying, have been proved wrong by the countless jurisdictions around the world where terminal illness-only models of assisted dying have been in place, unaltered, for decades.

Secondly, Dr Coelho is a conscientious objector to assisted dying. She has no involvement in the provision of assisted dying in Canada, in spite of positioning herself as an expert on it. It is vital that the Scottish public receive calm and informed testimony on how assisted dying works rather than scaremongering.

Fraser Sutherland, CEO Humanist Society Scotland, Dunfermline.

A hollow boast

SCOTTISHPOWER states that it is the first integrated energy company in the UK to shift completely from coal and gas generation to 100% renewable energy generation ("Positive energy fuels mission to make the UK fully electric", Commercial Focus, The Herald, November 20). It now relies on solely wind and solar sources. That would be commendable and really worth credit if all its top team would agree to use only electricity supplied by either wind or solar.

The rest of us will keep taking, for now, some of the 40%-plus share of electricity supplied by gas in order to cook our dinner in the evenings. Or even to just keep the lights and heat pumps running when there is no wind or solar.

We're so lucky that other companies haven't followed our ScottishPower heroes.

Ken Mackie, Strathaven.

ScottishPower says it has shifted completely from coal and gas generation to 100% renewable energy generation (Image: PA) Poor show from the BBC

I AGREE with the points made by GR Weir (Letters, November 21) regarding the overwhelming Englishness of the BBC.

Its news coverage is almost exclusively concerned with England (or England and Wales) with no acknowledgement of different circumstances here.

Also, publicising BBC programmes (whether soap opera, sports coverage, podcasts or documentaries) is not news: it is advertising.

Allan McDougall, Neilston.

Pitch imperfect

SURELY the plastic-reinforced grass pitches used by professional football clubs for training and games are a health hazard? They should be phased out to reduce the amounts of injuries caused to leg and ankle joints.

These pitches are responsible for many injuries not caused by old-fashioned grass ones, and will lead to a lot of players having careers shortened, and joints permanently damaged.

Iain Stirling, Lenzie.