We should dispense with Holyrood and make our MPs work harder

BACK in the heady days during the rise in popularity of the SNP (“Scotland’s oil” and so on) Alex Salmond rightly declared that if it did a good job in government there was a reasonable chance it could convince a number of undecided voters to support an independent Scotland. That was nine years ago.

Fast forward until today and a very different picture emerges. The Scottish SNP Government with increased devolved power is no longer about good governance to achieve a “stronger” Scotland but is now used exclusively to promote independence, period. One needs to look no further for evidence than the weekly threat of another referendum, failing public services and disconnect from rural Scotland regarding useless industrial scale wind farms.

Small wonder then there is a growing grassroots opinion that we should question the benefits of having a Scottish Parliament and, just like Brexit, we could save a fortune in salaries, pensions and expenses by dispensing with the services of the MSPs whilst restoring the power of the local councils.

One way of making this work would be to make our MPs work harder by restricting their presence at Westminster to an average of, say, two days a week to discuss issues of shared national importance and matters directly affecting Scottish affairs. The balance of their time could be at Holyrood implementing the devolved power in a manner that works in the best interests of the whole of Scotland. Needless to say the first-past-the-post system to elect MPs would have to cease in Scotland. Only then would devolved power be a force for efficient government and something we could be proud of. Ian Lakin, Pinelands, Murtle Den Road, Milltimber, Aberdeen. KM Campbell (Letters, September 28) highlights the benefits of independence from Westminster. He rightly concludes that all we want is to govern our own affairs and to play our part in the family of nations. I suspect that a majority of the Scottish people share this aspiration. The fact that just over half the electorate voted for SNP candidates in the 2015 General Election suggests that the argument has been won. The problem is one of implementation. Those in favour of independence seem to think that the answer is to have a referendum and win it. Instead we need to develop the powers that we have been devolved to Scotland so that when the time is right we can move seamlessly into the position which KM Campbell and so many others aspire to achieve. Sandy Gemmill, 40 Warriston Gardens, Edinburgh.