Iain Gray: Parliament should listen to the people, not the political elite

Published on Wednesday 2 December 2009 21:09

IN HIS opening speech to the Scottish Parliament, Donald Dewar called on those first 129 MSPs to "never lose sight of what brought us here: the striving to do right by the people of Scotland; to respect their priorities and better their lot".

We must remember the radical achievements in our parliament's early years: the Land Reform Act; the Adults With Incapacity Act; the smoking ban; abolition of clause 2A (the Tories' "gay ban"). We blazed a trail for the rest of the UK to follow.

But despite this, ten years on, if we are not careful, there is a danger that the greatest beneficiaries may not be the Scottish people, but rather some of the elites around government, governance and politics.

The commentariat; the bureaucrats, the chattering classes, the politicians themselves. Our political process needs us all but we must be sure we are chattering about the right things.

We are a small country and sometimes it seems to me that we have created an even smaller community around our young parliament. The competition of ideas is stifled by a culture that is too inward looking and incestuous. We focus too much on personality and process and not enough on the issues that the Scottish people care about.

The Calman Commission concluded that devolution had been a success, but could be better in terms of its democratic architecture. Likewise, when we judge how it has delivered for the people, we must conclude that we could do better.

I believe if we are to serve the people we must move Scottish politics away from the politics of identity towards the politics of values.

The argument for the Scottish Parliament centred around Scottish solutions for Scottish problems. But our "Scottishness" was not supposed to be the solution, nor is it sensible to try and make it so.

For example, a recent report from the Centre for Public Policy for Regions said Scotland had been overtaken by England in health and education. The official government response was: "(This] shows that devolution cannot realise Scotland's full potential, which is why we need to move towards independence"

This is nonsense – on stilts. Worse, it's a cop-out.

We have complete control over delivery of health and education and a higher rate of public spending on both. What the report shows is that we should be doing better for the people of Scotland.

The job of politicians is to make this happen by listening to the people. As Labour did on antisocial behaviour. Some said we were demonising young people. The truth is we finally understood the stresses faced by those living in constant fear of disturbance, threat and intimidation.

Our parliament should be debating respect, solidarity, equality, fairness, compassion, community, citizenship; a belief in education, hard work and service. The test should be how we promote and embed these values in the everyday life of our country.

The old Scottish parliament was "reconvened" (as Alex Salmond loves to have it) not to concern itself with the kind of parliament it is, but rather with the kind of Scotland it wants.

Overall the first decade of devolution has been a success. We have got the balance of powers broadly right. There was a gap around ensuring the parliament is financially accountable and Calman has given a clear roadmap for the way forward. We should get on with that as quickly as possible.

And then we need as a parliament to hear what really matters most to the people we represent and to get on with the job they want us to do.

To be, in other words, a People's Parliament.

&#149 Iain Gray is Labour leader at the Scottish Parliament