Readers' Letters: It's time to set limits on public inquiry costs

Lord Bracadale, the Chair of the inquiry into the death in police custody of Sheku Bayoh, is reportedly considering resignation over allegations of potential bias (your report, 30 April). As the inquiry has already cost taxpayers more than £23.7 million without reaching a conclusion, resignation should not be an option — the Chair ought to have been dismissed. It is not acceptable that so much money has been spent with no result.

It’s time we set strict controls on public inquiries. Each should have a set budget, a contingency allowance and a firm deadline. Meeting time and cost targets should be core objectives, that the Chair must meet.

Brian Barbour, Prestonpans, Edinburgh

Lord Bracadale has chaired the Sheku Bayoh inquiry since it began in 2020 (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Migrant memories

The discovery of prehistoric 11,000-year old stone toolkits on the Isle of Skye (your report, 29 April), is both significent and saluntary. These toolkits belonged to our hunt gathering ancestors, who undertook a perilous journey of thousands of miles by foot to settle on the island.

To undertake that journey would demand an unexpected level of sophisticated civilisation and a deep sense of adventure. It is also a salutary reminder of a world without borders with a freedom of travel.

One can only surmise whether there were opportunistic people traffickers way back then, and the equivalent of precarious small boats. Very probably, many died en route. What is certain is that the lust to travel is written very deeply into the human gene, in the constant quest for a new and better life.

At the end of the day, we are all descended from migrants and all borders are arbitrary, and a modern construct. Perhaps the urgent lesson is to forget our divisive nationality and recover our humanity sans frontieres.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Mixed messages

It is appalling, but sadly predictable, that SNP MSPs on Holyrood’s Equalities Committee are defending Green MSP Maggie Chapman, who is deputy leader of the Committee, for her outrageous and dangerous abuse of the Supreme Court because of their legal definition of a “woman” according to to her biological sex.

While initially, the First Minister, John Swinney, and other senior members of the Scottish Government declared their acceptance of the new ruling, it has rapidly become obvious that they hope to delay and circumvent its implications being implemented.

Speaking to journalists after addressing the Trade Union Congress, Mr Swinney warned against “a knee-jerk reaction to banning trans people from single sex spaces (your article, 29 April). He said the purpose of addressing leading trade unionists was to to “renew his pledge to the LGBT community” and he was concerned “specifically with the rights of trans men and trans women in society”. He and his ministerial colleagues maintain that before they start to implement the new ruling, they have to wait until they receive advice from the Human Rights Commission. This is despite the EHRC having issued “interim guidance” suggesting that “trans women should be banned from women-only spaces”.

Mr Swinney maintains that as First Minister he is committed to“ protecting the rights of everyone in Scotland today” However, he is still unable or unwilling to define what is a “woman” and refuses to acknowledge and apologise to women for the frightening death and rape threats they have received and are still receiving.

It is apparent that John Swinney, like his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon, does not govern for all Scots but is concerned disproportionately with the needs of trans people. Despite denial to the contrary, it would seem that our current First Minister and many members of his government share very closely the sentiments expressed by Maggie Chapman.

Sally Gordon-Walker, Edinburgh

Self-interest

Maggie Chapman’s comments about the Supreme Court were reprehensible, but in many respects pale into insignificance when one considers her failure to recuse herself from the decision process in a meeting called to consider her removal from the committee. Holyrood should be considering her suspension from itself for bringing the Holyrood Parliament into disrepute by voting in her own interest in a conflict-of-interest environment.

Alasdair HM Adam, Dollar, Scottish Borders

Not so equal

Scots have almost certainly pondered the value of Holyrood, especially in recent years. Unpopular legislation coupled with rapidly declining services have been a topic of conversation throughout the land. Now we are observing the SNP members of the Equalities Committee (are some more equal than others?) saving the job of the Greens's Maggie Chapman after her intemperate outburst over the Supreme Court judgment.

This outcome was unexpected as Ms Chapman's actions were caught on video for all to see. The somewhat questionable reasons for the SNP not to vote her off leaves many of us scratching our heads. Is Holyrood really doing its “assigned at birth” job?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Scrap the cap

Clark Cross says he does not agree that the UK Government is keeping children in poverty via the two child benefit cap (Letters, 29 April). Only a week or so ago, a number of leading charities – including Barnardo's, Save the Children UK and the Child Poverty Action – Group wrote jointly to Sir Keir Starmer to point out that Labour would oversee the highest child poverty rates on record if they failed to scrap the two child cap.

Recent figures showed child poverty rising in England and Wales but falling in Scotland, primarily due to the Scottish Child Payment. The Child Poverty Action Group estimate that the number of children in poverty will jump from 4.5 million now to 4.8m by 2029 unless urgent action is taken. Surely a key indicator of a humane and caring society is how it treats its most vulnerable groups – children, pensioners and disabled people.

Mr Cross suggests we can't afford to scrap the two child benefit cap. I would suggest that with the welfare of our children in mind we can't afford to keep it!

Alan Woodcock, Dundee

Go, Fergus

Is it good that several respected newspapers have encouraged Fergus Ewing to stand as an independent MSP at next year's Holyrood election… or is it just another unionist ploy to further weaken a troubled SNP and the independence campaign?

My friend Fergus is an energetic, honest and forthright politician and just maybe the inevitable vicissitudes of life have misplaced the memorable statement of his late mother Winnie – the glorious Madame Ecosse – “Stop the world. Scotland wants to get on.”

Grant Frazer, Cruachan, Newtonmore

On balance

Perhaps David Millar (Letters, 29 April) could enlighten us by presenting, on a sheet of A4 paper, how, over the next decade, we can finance the UK, how we could re-enter the European Union, how we could rely on a so-called “nuclear deterrent” controlled by the USA, how Scottish pensioners and the poor could afford to keep the lights on with electricity prices among the highest in the developed world, and finally, how Scotland would trade internationally when our so-called “partner” in the current dysfunctional union continues to concentrate major UK transportation infrastructure spending in the south east of the island of Britain.

Perhaps if Mr Millar had been presented with a “balance sheet” in 2014, “realistically” outlining the dire state of the UK economy in 2024, he, along with others, would have made a more enlightened decision and voted for Scotland to determine its own future.

That sheet would have read that UK debt more than doubled to £3 trillion with annual interest of £100 billion (Scotland’s share being close to £10bn annually) and growth stagnant, the UK taken out of the EU (contrary to the wishes of the people of Scotland), nuclear weapons (still based next to Scotland’s most populous city) under the control of an unreliable megalomaniac, those closest to our renewable energy resources paying among the highest electricity prices in the UK, and finally, international trade not only hampered by Brexit red tape but by insistence on perpetuating a so-called “special relationship” with the USA.

Perhaps this is what Mr Millar “realistically” voted for in the 2014 Referendum but this was not the messaging of the Better Together campaign and if it had been then we would probably now have a mutually respectful relationship with our close friend and neighbour, plus economies better targeted, via enhanced democracy, to meet the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of each proud nation country.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Frankly, no thanks

So former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon is to launch her memoir at the International Book Festival and promises an open, honest and candid account of her achievements and heartbreaks.

What achievements would that be then? The last time she launched anything it was a ferry with nae windaes! No need to rush to buy it, it will be piled high in the bookshops remainder bins soon, or perhaps in the load of cookery section under “Mince”. As for your local library, check out the fiction shelves first, for that is where it belongs!

Andrew Kemp, Rosyth, Fife

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