Scotland on Sunday letters: Bitterness towards Scottish democracy seems endless

The bitterness of some of correspondents towards Scotland, Scottish democracy and the Scottish Government appears endless.

Scots windfarms are being penalised by staggering energy grid charges

Allan Thompson (Letters, Scotland on Sunday July 11) castigates the Scottish Parliament for having had the audacity to protect the rights of Scottish children by incorporating into Scottish domestic law the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty already signed by the UK in the 1990s.

The bill passed unanimously in the Scottish Parliament in March where it was deemed uncontroversial. Mr Thompson cannot therefore slate the SNP for believing it within the competence of Holyrood when the UK Government was already a signatory. Where was Baroness Davidson? Or Anas Sarwar? Missing in action? It is deeply disappointing that the Tory appointed Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has challenged the bill at the Supreme Court rather than support democracy and child welfare in Scotland.

There can really only be two reasons why Mr Jack wishes to challenge this Scottish bill. Either the UK Government has no intention of honouring the treaty it signed and wishes to limit the rights of children or this is petty interference for the sake of it. Either way, both are morally repugnant and politically inept, and Mr Thomson has chosen the wrong side of the argument.

Mairianna Clyde, Edinburgh

Off the grid

Alan Brown MP said in your article in the Scotsman (July 10) that Scots windfarms are being penalised by staggering energy grid charges. Scotland is subject to the highest grid charges in Europe.

In Sutherland constraint payments have now reached £68.4 million. Why do we keep following the SNP line of building more turbines to keep paying more and more constraint payments?

Since April 2009 operators in the north of Scotland have been charged £21 per kW for high voltage access, three times the £7 levied on windfarms in Southern England.

Much of the electricity is sent over long distances to centres of demand in the rest of Britain. Ofgem is considering charging reforms.

Michael Baird, Bonar Bridge

Carrot and stick

It was heartening to note a sense of reality in Charles Wardrop's letter 'Wild Goose Chase' (Scotland on Sunday July 11) referring to the stratospheric costs entailed in our nation's dubious quest to lead the world towards net-zero carbon emissions. The original government estimate has already escalated by 40 per cent to £1.4 trillion.

Climate activists claim that events such as wildfires perfectly portray their prophecies of a scorched earth. They also maintain that the costs of achieving net-zero far outweigh the possible consequences of inaction.

Petrolium with its multitude of by products that have brought unprecedented prosperity will, like it or not, be a necessity for the foreseeable future. We need a staged and pragmatic transition to viable alternatives. Those who believe that electric vehicles (EVs) with their much vaunted "zero tailpipe emissions" are one of those options, are badly misinformed. Such technologies are creating a hidden chain of human exploitation, suffering and environmental degradation.

This spurious quest for net-zero carbon has degenerated into a carrot and stick situation of escalating taxes and lucrative carbon trading.

Neil J Bryce, Kelso

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