In the early days of devolution, the ruling Labour-Lib Dem coalition was routinely accused of being addicted to legislation. There was a lot in this because the vast majority of Bills that the coalition steered through were neither radical or especially innovative.

When the SNP came to power last year, the opposite was true - the critics argued that there was too little legislation on the party's stocks. This was mainly due to the Nationalist government's minority status, but also to the fact that Alex Salmond and his colleagues were exploiting to the full their ministerial ability to govern by decree without needing to bother with the dull practicalities of parliamentary scrutiny.

The SNP package announced yesterday appears to be some kind of happy medium. Many of the 15 Bills are routine and will not lead to knife-edge votes in the parliamentary chamber.

But any legislative programme that promises a massive reform of local finance, sentencing and licensing laws - all areas that have an everyday impact on the lives of ordinary Scots - could never be said to be plodding or predictable.

Chief among these more “dangerous” measures is, of course, the replacement of council tax with a local income tax (LIT). The Bill will be published next year with the aim that it will reach its legislative conclusion long before the spring of 2011 when LIT is meant to be introduced.

The Nationalists know that they have a massive fight on their hands, but they also know that they are in a “win-win” situation. If they get their Bill, they will have delivered on a key manifesto commitment to scrap the “detested” council tax.But if they lose the Bill, or cannot deliver on its detail or have to make major changes to it, they will have a range of culprits to blame, from the Lib Dems to the Labour Government at Westminster.

The latter has dug its heels in and intends to remove the payment of £400million in council tax benefit to Scotland if the council tax is abolished.

While that sounds entirely logical, it will leave Mr Brown's Government open to the usual SNP charge that it is being spiteful and ignoring the wishes of the Scottish people, as expressed at last year's election. It would drive a coach and horses through the SNP's plans for a 3p in the pound LIT.

Of course, Labour is heading for defeat in the 2010 general election and a David Cameron-led Conservative government may look more kindly on the SNP's demand that the £400million should still come north.

That was, in any case, the import of recent remarks by David Mundell, the Shadow Scottish Secretary. This may turn out to be part of a Cameron strategy to kill the Nationalist campaign for independence with kindness, simply by undermining the constant cry from the Nationalists that Westminster doesn't care for or understand Scotland.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Unlocking the cruellest prison
• Prince Charles named in £81m court battle