What a waste

What excellent news. According to your report (7 July), three powerful Westminster committees are to carry out an audit on whether or not devolution has delivered.

Considering, for example, the hospitals and schools that could have been built and staffed by the billions that have gone on the Holyrood building and then on the members and staffs to fill it for ten years, it will be most interesting to see the results and compare the benefits with what we had before.

What we can say for sure it has delivered is the opportunity for a self-publicity-addicted First Minister to visit China, with his entourage, twice, as well as trips to Copenhagen and the Maldives on matters that should not have concerned him. Oh, and don't forget the "National Conversation", in almost every respect an SNP roadshow funded by our taxes.

Devolution was an unneeded sop to a Nationalist threat that existed only in the minds of the then decision makers in Scotland.

ALEXANDER MCKAY

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh