THE Secretary of State for Scotland manages to fit French lessons and Burns Suppers into her less-than-arduous three-day-week, yet still manages to pull down a £100,000 salary.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament concentrates on banning fox hunting and legalising the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It costs, if the ever-rising total for the new Holyrood building is taken into account, hundreds of millions of pounds. When all is said and done, the Scottish voters - and, to be fair, taxpayers in the rest of the United Kingdom - didn't get much of a bargain from devolution.

However, the sinecure that Helen Liddell, the present incumbent, enjoys is still breathtaking. The details of her diary, revealed by this newspaper yesterday, showed that because the Scottish Parliament is now responsible for virtually all domestic legislation north of the border, she has very little to do.

Opposition politicians, as well as some in her own party, are now asking whether the new constitutional arrangements justify having a minister of Cabinet rank solely for Scotland; the same argument applies with respect to Wales. The Scottish National Party calls for the abolition of the post of Scottish Secretary but, as its raison d'etre is the end of the union, this is hardly surprising.

The best solution - certainly the one that would appeal to those with an interest in preserving the United Kingdom - is for Scottish affairs to be handled by a Cabinet minister with other UK-wide responsibilities. In a re-arranged Cabinet the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, for instance, could make sure that Scotland's interests were represented - and its voice heard - in Cabinet.

It would be an improvement on the current farce of Mrs Helen Do-little.