Former first minister speaks yet again!

Mctosh45 · Former first minister speaks yet again!

Comment: Henry McLeish:The debate we should have

From the Sunday Times, 5 th November 2006

http://www.timesonl ine.co.uk/ article/0, ,2090-2438468. html

The elections for the Scottish parliament may be
seven months away, but already it is clear that
the campaign will be fought on an agenda that is
too narrow in its scope, too short-sighted and
set by the wrong people.

Instead of a campaign dictated by the fears of
Westminster and the bombast of the Scottish
National party, Scotland deserves a reasoned
debate on powers to make Scottish government
better - and Scotland a better place.

Jack McConnell, in his recent John P Mackintosh
lecture, defended the union, rejected fiscal
autonomy and said the existing powers of the
parliament must be fully used "before demanding
lots more".

The late Donald Dewar was right when he said
devolution was a process, not an event. The
constitutional genie is out of the political
bottle. The parliament and devolution will take
on a dynamic of their own. It is not whether new
powers and changes to the constitutional
settlement will happen, it is a question of when.

Equally important is who will drive the debate
forward? This is the challenge facing Jack
McConnell. As the leader of Scotland's largest
party, it will be dangerous for him to leave this
debate to others.

The current debate on powers and constitutional
issues is far too narrow, increasingly polarised,
partisan and predictable. The terms of the debate
are being dictated, on one hand, by Labour
ministers at Westminster who see devolution as
complete and believe that Scots should be
satisfied with the current settlement. For them,
any talk about new powers is both dangerous and
unnecessary and raises the spectre of the
"slippery slope" to full independence. As a
result, enormous pressure continues to be exerted
on the first minister to conform to that line of
thinking.

On the other hand, the SNP has learnt very little
from eight years in the Scottish parliament. They
are still tied to independence and separation
from the British state, a policy and brand that
have been consistently rejected by the Scottish
people in real elections; and which seem
strangely at odds with a world where borders and
boundaries are disappearing and new political
spaces - global, European, and in the UK - are
opening up. Increased voter support for the
Nationalists in recent opinion polls has more
than a hint of protest against Labour than a
popular embrace of independence.

There is a danger that if the first minister and
Labour are not alive to the dynamic of
devolution, that it does have a life of its own,
then that may actually be a threat to the union,
not something that reinforces it.

A debate about the future of Scotland's
parliament has to be rescued from the
increasingly limited confines of status quo
versus separation. There are other choices for
Scotland, on our parliament, on the future of
devolution.

For Labour in Scotland, and the first minister in
particular, this poses a real dilemma. It is
widely appreciated that he wants to have a much
more distinctive Scottish perspective and to
develop more popular policy innovations, such as
free personal care and the very successful ban on
smoking in public places. He also appreciates
that the political, media and public interest in
more powers for the parliament will not go away.

So why is he not leading this debate? Labour
delivered on devolution to the Scottish people.
Labour, as the senior partner in the executive,
can claim significant achievements. The first
minister must do more to convince the electorate
that Labour has the ability and the courage to
provide a real alternative to the struggle that
exists between the status quo and separatism and
that means defying Westminster and demanding more
powers for Holyrood.

The stakes are high. This would not be a popular
strategy at Westminster, but what is clear is
that Labour, despite facing a difficult election
year, should not be panicked by the SNP into
fighting on their ground.

If Jack McConnell sits tight and does nothing,
Labour could be left behind as the debate on
powers takes shape. The political space would be
filled with ideas and issues that may be
politically attractive to some but fail the
Scotland test as to what is really in the
country's long-term interests.

New powers for the parliament are only one aspect
of the new debate that needs to open up in
Scottish politics. There is also a need for a
more open and vigorous debate on key policy areas
neglected because they are complex, difficult and
inevitably controversial.

Devolution, in a perverse way, has closed down
debates in crucial areas. In the UK, we have seen
important debates take place on the health
service, secondary education and the funding of
higher education. Why has there been so little
debate north of the border? We need not agree
with the controversial policy conclusions arrived
at in Westminster, but neither should we avoid
debates for this reason.

Secondary schooling requires reform and
modernisation. Higher education funding is in
desperate need of a more realistic debate that
would confront the "everything is free" mentality
of the Liberals and the SNP; and avoids our
universities being put at a competitive
disadvantage with England, where top-up fees will
provide an extra £1 billion of income for
university spending over the next three years.

And why do we allow Scottish Enterprise -
spending almost £5 billion over the next decade -
to review its own activities. This organisation
continues to be out of touch with best practice
worldwide; and, in turn, has failed to improve
the fundamentals of the Scottish economy and
embrace the idea of human capital and the
knowledge society as the real driver of economic
growth and innovation in the 21st century. A
root-and-branch reform of Scottish Enterprise is
long overdue.

There is growing criticism of devolution and all
things Scottish at Westminster and interest in
devolution is at an all-time low. Conservatives
at Westminster talk of excluding Scottish MPs
from voting on English matters and the West
Lothian question is being used to stir up
anti-Scottish sentiment. All of this presents a
real challenge to the future of devolution.

Henry McLeish is the former first minister of Scotland Henry McLeish