Eddie Barnes: What did devolution ever do for us?

Published on Saturday 27 June 2009 19:44

People have accepted the Scottish Parliament as their own institution

A SHORT while after Concorde flew over the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle to mark the birth of the new Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999, taxi driver Jimmy Deuchars held a meeting in a pub in Baillieston, east Glasgow. The 64-year-old had a tragic story. After giving birth to her second child, his daughter had died of breast cancer. Deuchars and his wife helped their newly widowed son-in-law to look after their two grandchildren. But when he remarried, and his new wife told them she did not want the grandparents around, the couple discovered to their horror that they had no legal rights at all to see their grandchildren. In the pub that evening were several other grandparents who had similarly been frozen out. A campaign – Grandparents Apart – was born.

Deuchars' first port of call was the new Scottish Parliament, where the public petitions system had been set up with just his kind of case in mind. The committee of MSPs looked at his demand – calling for legal recognition for grandparents – and passed it up the chain. The then justice minister, Cathy Jamieson, dealt personally with the case. An advisory charter has now been published, thanks to Deuchars' work. And a new petition, calling for it to be made mandatory, is lodged back at the Parliament.

For Deuchars – who is now preparing to stand for Parliament as a candidate of the Scottish Pensioners party – the new Parliament, ten years old this week, has been a major plus. "For one thing, we could never have afforded to go down to London to lobby MPs at Westminster. There's no way we could have done that. It's good that the Scottish Parliament is only 50 miles away. It is a lot more accessible. It gets you closer to government."

"It", for all the still-staggering 414 million that was spent on its construction, remains curiously hidden away at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Tourists who are only 20 yards or so away from its front gates regularly stop locals asking for directions, only to be told that they're practically outside it.

Only once they have rounded the bottom of Canongate, and walked into the wide open plaza opposite Holyrood Palace is the Scottish Parliament finally revealed. Enric Miralles' ghostly grey concrete palace may not be to everybody's tastes but it is weathering well.

This week, the Queen will return to the Parliament to mark its tenth anniversary. Ten years ago, she spoke told MSPs – then housed in temporary accommodation on the Mound – that their duty was to set "standards of vision and purpose, of debate and discussion, not just for our own generation but for future generations". So have they measured up to that high mark?

LIKE many Scots, Lynne Adams takes a nuanced view about the Parliament at the bottom of the hill. The owner of the George pub in Hamilton, she has seen the Parliament give and take. The smoking ban, for example, has caused her major problems. "I still think it could have been done better. They could have just introduced smoking areas. It drove away a lot of customers. They claimed it would bring in loads of people who don't normally go to the pub. Well, that's just untrue. And while people would beforehand have had more of a blether now they're all going outside. OK, so it works in California. But this isn't California."

But then she praises the Small Business Rates Relief, introduced by the current SNP administration. "It shows they are more aware of small businesses," she says. Like Deuchars, Adams likes the fact that the Edinburgh Parliament is that much more accessible than Westminster. And she feels that her local MSPs are that much more in touch with her concerns than the literally more distant MPs. Then she qualifies her case again: "Against that it is another layer of government that we have had to pay for."

Such a balanced view is hardly unsurprising. But where Adams is more forthright is in her support for the institution. "I would like to see them have a wee bit more control over what is happening in terms of our spending," she declares. This last comment is typical for many Scots. For it seems that – without knowing precisely what powers it currently has nor what powers it might benefit from having – people trust the ten-year-old Parliament to do more. Despite its dreadful early beginnings, when the fiasco over the building turned Scotland's brave new democracy into a laughing stock, people now back Holyrood; a recent poll found that 70 per cent of Scots thought devolution had been good for the country.

Professor Peter Lynch, of Stirling University, says: "People have accepted it as their own institution. Consequently, people want more powers without knowing exactly what powers the Parliament has or what powers it should have." Politicians visiting schools note these days that when they tour the classroom, pupils take it for granted that "the Parliament" is the one based in Edinburgh, not in London. "A new voter coming on to the roll now would only have been eight when the Parliament was brought in," says one Labour politician. "We've underestimated just how many people see it as the only Parliament there is." The Parliament has become embedded.

THIS popularity might appear counter-intuitive. For the tenth anniversary has brought forward a welter of analysis which shows a none-too-flattering light on Holyrood's work. New figures from the Office of National Statistics show that, during the course of the devolution years, English 16-year-olds have now overtaken their Scottish counterparts in exam results. Meanwhile, there is continuing criticism that the Scottish NHS – also run by MSPs in Edinburgh – continues to lag behind England on waiting times and results. Simply put, the critique is that MSPs – their pockets loaded with boom-time cash – sprayed money over Scotland in the hope of winning approval, without giving enough thought to whether the funds were well spent.

But the criticism hints at tougher times ahead. The money tap which paid for all the various spending pledges of the last ten years – from free personal care, free bus passes, and end to bridge tolls and tuition fees – is now being switched off as the UK government prepares to rein in spending. For perhaps the first time, MSPs are facing trying times. Jenny Stewart, head of public sector at KPMG, said: "You have got a 30bn Scottish budget and if you are trying to take out around 1bn of that per annum then that could lead to hard choices if you haven't made savings." MSPs more used to telling their constituents about the goodies they have provided them might soon have to explain the cuts as well.

Quite how this will affect the future shape of the Parliament is anybody's guess. For Nationalists, the tough times make the case for a Parliament of greater strength. Independent MSP Margo MacDonald says: "The Scottish Parliament can do a very good and very sound job and do all these things that can make a bit of a difference, but it can't change things fundamentally. It has been shown to be impotent in dealing with the financial crisis in a holistic fashion. The collapse has strengthened the argument for the Parliament to have macro-management of the Scottish economy."

Unionists, not surprisingly, take the opposite view. Conservative MSP Margaret Mitchell says: "The block grant we receive (from Whitehall] is fine. Apart from the chattering classes and academics, I don't think there is a real desire for change."

Few can predict how the Parliament will look in ten years' time. Alex Salmond will table his independence referendum bill later this year (although it seems certain to be voted down by the Unionist parties). Alongside that plan, the recommendations of the Calman Commission now propose that MSPs be given the power to set half the rate of income tax in Scotland. Proponents say it will lead to better government, as ministers and MSPs seek to squeeze every penny harder in order to keep their new tax rate down.

Whatever happens, however, it seems likely that – despite all initial signs – the Parliament will have a fair wind of popular support behind it. Whether this means that it is inevitable that Holyrood will become ever more powerful, perhaps to the extent of being sovereign, will be one for the next ten years.

Ten years on, the verdict of those who were there at the start

Constantine Inneme

We tracked down Scots who played a role in the Scottish Parliament's opening ceremony on 1 July, 1999, and asked them their verdict on ten years of devolution.

MICHAEL LLOYD

Silversmith who made the mace presented to Parliament

"The day was filled with a great sense of goodwill and hope, and I think that this is still there. I felt a privilege to have been a very small part of it. The wording on the mace – 'Wisdom, Justice, Compassion, Integrity' – was very important and I was delighted that the wording had been picked up and is still being used to set the course of our values. Integrity being one of the words on the mace that has become relevant recently. I think what we expected of Parliament is that it would give Scotland great self-confidence, and I think it has done that over the past ten years."

MIKE PAUL

Depute Head Teacher at St Machar Academy

"It was fantastic, really enjoyed it. We were in the march right behind the pipers, being the school representatives for Aberdeen Central constituency. We were right at the front of the procession and the pupils understood the significance and importance of it – they had a ball. It gave the pupils more a sense of ownership; what I was teaching them in the classroom about politics became real. The Parliament might not have made the difference people thought it would in its first years, but it has overcome its major hurdles such as the cost, which people resented."

SHEENA WELLINGTON

Singer, whose rendition of 'A Man's A Man For A' That' was a highlight of the opening ceremony

"I enjoyed the day a great deal. Before I sang I was very nervous, but once I'd sung it was a great day. I felt it was a great moment. I was particularly nervous that day because my father and his brothers had always dreamt about that moment – it was very emotional. Going out into the crowd was very exciting. People wanted me to sign their flags and kiss their babies. The Parliament has changed Scotland possibly in more ways than some would like and in less ways than others would. I am glad I was part of it and I look forward to the future. It should rid us of our perpetual 'it's not fair' attitude. We are responsible for ourselves and we shouldn't whinge about things. The Scottish Parliament will help with that. It was a comfortable feeling to be able to blame Westminster for everything, but that's gone now."

VICTORIA JOFFE

Girl who read out a poem during the ceremony; she's now 27 and working in TV production

"I was only 17 so I was a schoolgirl. I was very excited and honoured even though I didn't really fully appreciate how influential the day was. As soon as I went to university, politics affected my life directly through tuition fees and what-not, which then made me reflect that I had been part of something very special. It had a lot of pressure – everybody expected it to take off – but it is still relatively young. It has presented remarkable legislation like the smoking ban."

JAMES MACMILLAN

Composer, who conducted his own specially created piece during the ceremony

"I don't remember anything of the day and I couldn't care less about the last ten years."

A decade of highs and lows at Holyrood

HEALTH

What they've done

• Banned smoking in public places.

• Introduced free personal care for the elderly

• Pioneered new laws on mental incapacity

• Abolished health trusts, which have now been merged into 14

all-powerful health boards

• Cut prescription charges

What it cost

The NHS now swallows 11 billion a year, double what it cost in the first year of the Scottish Parliament. In Scotland, 2,000 a year is spent per head on health, compared to less than 1,000 in 1999.

What it has achieved

• Waiting times are down, with almost all patients now waiting less than 12 weeks for a hospital appointment.

• New hospital buildings erected across the country

BUT

• The "whole journey" target of 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment — already met in England — won't be reached in Scotland until 2011

• Life expectancy up since 1999 but, again, not as much as in England.

EDUCATION

What they've done

• Introduced new pay deal for teachers

• Blocked tuition fees for students

• Scrapped graduate endowment

• Backed major new school refurbishment programme (although this has stalled in the past two years)

• Introduced a new 3-18 curriculum — the Curriculum for Excellence.

What it cost

Since devolution, local government spending on education has rocketed from around 2.5bn a year to around 5bn a year.

What it achieved

• Teacher numbers up from 47,000 to 53,500 (although this figure has fallen since 2007)

• Number of pupils leaving school for the dole queue or with no qualifications has fallen

BUT

• Office of National Statistics figures show that 16-year-old English pupils overtook Scottish pupils in 2007 in achieving five good grades (GCSEs in England compared to Standard grades in Scotland).

• International studies show that attainment levels of pupils in reading and maths fell by 5 per cent between 2000 and 2006.

LAW AND ORDER

What they've done

• New laws on antisocial behaviour

• Cracked down on sectarianism

• Major shake-up of court system

• New prisons built

What it cost

• Ministers now spending 1bn a year on justice

What it achieved

• There are now 17,048 full time police officers in Scotland, the highest level ever recorded.

• Recorded crime is now at its lowest level in 25 years

BUT

• Some crimes, such as serious assault and rape, have both risen since 1999

• Re-offending rates still high, blamed on overcrowding in prisons which, inspectors say, prevents rehabilitation work

ECONOMY

What they've done

• Small businesses now being given rates relief

• Major investment on improving the transport network

• Council tax freeze currently in place

What it cost

Holyrood has limited room for manoeuvre over the economy, however it is spending 3bn a year on improving road and rail, and half-a-billion a year on enterprise and training.

What it achieved

• Survey of industry opinion shows that 70 per cent of respondents think that trunk road, rail and air services were very or fairly good in Scotland

• The number of people in employment has increased, notwithstanding sudden impact of the recession in recent months.

BUT

• GDP in Scotland consistently lower than in England and has fallen more sharply than south of the border following the credit crunch

• Government spending, of which Scottish Government is the largest share, is set to hit 58 per cent of the economy next year, way above UK average

AND THE OTHER STUFF....

• Banned hunting with dogs

• Introduced new land reform act

• Brought in fines on owners that allow their dogs to foul the pavement

• Removed the ban on promoting homosexuality in schools

• ....and, of course, banned fur farms in Scotland — even though there aren't any in Scotland.

AND THE VITAL STATISTICS

• All told, including the 414m Scottish Parliament building, MSPs' salaries, pensions and administration costs, the Scottish Parliament has cost taxpayers 1.19bn since it was opened in 1999.

• MSPs have sat through a total of 3,570 hours of debates in the chamber.

• Just over 2 million people have visited the new Holyrood building at the bottom of the Royal Mile.

• The Parliament has received 433 gifts including a full tea set from Thailand, a didgeridoo, a rodeo buckle and a set of Santa Claus nested dolls.

• The Parliament's website has received nearly 93 million views since 1999.