 The
elections to the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years
took place on 6 May 1999.
Not of course the first-ever
Scottish Parliament. Until 1707 and the Treaty of Union with
England, Scotland was an independent nation with an independent
Parliament.
By that treaty, technically,
both the Scottish and English Parliaments were abolished - although
the combined entity continued to meet at Westminster, prompting
many to regard the ostensible merger as an effective take-over.
Now there is a Parliament again
in Edinburgh: but a devolved Parliament firmly, according to
the Labour Government's devolution White Paper, within the United
Kingdom.
The Parliament has begun sitting in a temporary
home on the Mound in Edinburgh; it will move to its permanent
Holyrood home, at the foot of the city's Royal Mile, in Autumn
2001.
A wide range of Scottish domestic issues
will in future be settled by the democratic mandate of that Edinburgh
Parliament rather than processed through Westminster where the
mandate may or may not coincide with the expressed wishes of
the people of Scotland.
The UK Parliament, however, remains sovereign
and will continue to govern the broad economy, defence, foreign
policy, social security and other big issues.
It is that division of powers - advanced
by Labour, supported by the Liberal Democrats and now accepted
by the Tories - which is itself under attack from a nationalist
party in Scotland which wants to go further.
Independence argument
Labour's plans may reasonably be regarded
as reform of the Act of Union. They produce, according to some,
the looser arrangement which many Scots would have preferred
in 1707 had they been given the choice. The Scottish National
Party, however, longs to table the repeal of the Act of Union
itself.
In advance of the elections, there was
much warm talk of a new consensual approach in Scotland. Certainly,
Labour worked with the LibDems and the SNP in winning a double
"yes" vote in the devolution referendum on 11 September
1997.
Certainly, all four main parties worked
together successfully in a steering group which drew up detailed
plans for the practical operation of the Parliament. The Liberal
Democrats and Labour are now working together in a coalition
government.
They wanted, they said, a "family-friendly"
body which would meet at sensible hours, follow the Scottish
school holidays and open itself widely to public checks and balances.
All thoroughly admirable - but it led a
few of the more rash analysts to urge that this spirit of consensus
might extend to the political working of the Parliament. That
was never a serious proposition for a simple reason. The parties
have a fundamental disagreement over Scotland's future.
This is not simply a temporary squabble
over economics or social policy. The SNP wants to end the union
with England and establish Scotland as an independent member
of the European Union. The other parties want Scotland to remain
within the United Kingdom.
Bitter rivalry
 The
new fault line in Scottish politics is between the Labour/Liberal
Democrat coalition and the SNP - with the Conservative seeking
to play a significant role.
The rivalry between the SNP and Labour
is bitter in the extreme. The Tories may have been the party
most rigorously opposed to Scottish self-government in the past
- but the nationalists always knew they had to overturn Labour's
power base in urban central Scotland to succeed.
From the other side, Labour may confront
the Conservatives, its Westminster opponents. But the SNP is
the detested enemy.
This is rough politics - with an edge added
by the SNP's decision to take Labour on over the issues of tax
and spending. In his Budget, the Chancellor Gordon Brown - himself,
of course, a Scottish MP - announced that from next year the
standard rate of income tax in the UK will fall from 23p to 22p.
The Scottish Parliament is relatively limited
in its financial powers. It operates broadly within a block grant
from the Treasury: continuing the system which funded the Scottish
Office in its century-long task of supervising the administration
of Scotland. It cannot touch corporation tax, VAT, National Insurance
or the upper and lower bands of income tax.
Tax debate
But the Scottish Parliament can vary the
STANDARD rate of income tax up or down by a maximum of 3p. The
SNP says it would make use of that power to thwart the Chancellor's
proposed tax cut for Scotland alone. In other words, for Scotland
it would freeze the rate at 23p while the rest of the UK drops
to the new 22p standard tax band.
That announcement prompted perhaps the
defining argument of the entire election campaign. The nationalists
point out that the chancellor has also introduced a new 10p tax
rate. They say that means that the average Scot will still be
better off next year than they are now. Their standard rate will
not go up - and they will benefit from the new 10p rate.
The nationalists say they were asking Scotland
to forego the 1p cut announced by Gordon Brown which they characterise
as a tax "bribe". The impact, they insist, amounts
to asking average earners to do without a tax cut of roughly
£2 a week.
That penny on tax in Scotland would raise
an estimated £230m a year, starting next year. Over the
remaining three years of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP says
it would have devoted the money to health, education and housing.
By contrast, Labour says that the SNP plans
would have left Scotland paying more in tax than the rest of
the UK. That would disadvantage the Scottish economy, making
the business sector less competitive and destroying jobs.
Labour warning
The Liberal Democrats had derided Labour
and SNP financial plans - stressing instead the need to make
a full costing of present Scottish Office spending before deciding
finally on taxation. The LibDems, however, are prepared to consider
a 1p increase on income tax in Scotland to be devoted to education
if it is not possible to find that cash in other ways.
The Scottish Conservatives made great play
of the tax question. They have long condemned the Parliament's
fiscal powers: what they memorably called the Tartan Tax. Not
only would they not use the tax powers, they say they have detected
a financial threat from other quarters which requires resistance.
The Scottish Parliament, they point out,
will be in overall charge of local authority finance and must
be prevented from forcing up council taxes through the manipulation
of council grants or from levying other back-door charges.
With all those qualifications, caveats
and variable party perspectives, this is obviously not an entirely
clear-cut issue. But to some extent it is an elemental conflict
between taxation and public expenditure: the sort of conflict
seen only rarely in Britain since the drive by the Labour Party
to ditch its tax-and-spend image.
There are other key issues of course.
- The question of competence: who best can
govern Scotland and manage the diverse range of issues to be
controlled by the new Parliament from education to the health
service, from the criminal law to transport?
- The question of Scotland's future: will
legislative devolution finally achieve the long-nurtured ambition
of the British political structure to placate the Scots or will
it lead to independence? (The SNP says it will hold a referendum
to decide the latter point).
The 6 May elections in themselves, therefore,
did not determine that question. The people of Scotland would
have a further chance to say yes or no to independence - just
as they did with devolution after the election of a Labour Government.
The SNP made considerable play of its Scottish
credentials at the elections. It styles itself "Scotland's
Party" and argues that the other parties, to a greater or
lesser degree, all have to look over their shoulders at Westminster
or London party offices.
That approach appears to have borne fruit
in that opinion polls suggest that Scots are more inclined to
vote nationalist in elections to the Scottish Parliament than
they are for Westminster, perhaps in search of an unquestionably
Scottish voice to articulate Scotland's concerns.
Electoral dividend
But now to the new Parliament itself -
this powerful new body which will make the laws of Scotland,
updating and reforming the canon of Scots Law which dates back
before the union.
Labour says it is the party which has delivered
on devolution after a century and more of sporadic campaigning
from the people and parties of Scotland. Plainly, it expected
and received an electoral dividend from that - while stressing
also its practical credentials and policies.
The nationalists insist they will not wreck
the new Parliament. Rather they will strive to make it work in
the interests of the people of Scotland - while retaining the
right to campaign for their ultimate objective of independence.
The Liberal Democrats say they are the
true guarantors of devolution, the party of self-government for
more than a century. The Conservatives say they are the bulwark
of the union: expressed in their willingness, if it comes to
a vote of confidence, to support Labour if necessary to prevent
the SNP from taking power. |
