Lib Dems: Give more powers to Holyrood

Published on Sunday 7 October 2007 01:54

LIBERAL Democrats yesterday backed a call for the Scottish Parliament to have more powers.

They called for their party to join with others to set up a second "constitutional convention" or commission which would seek to build a consensus on what the powers should be.

The call came in a short debate at the Lib Dem autumn conference in Edinburgh.

The first "constitutional convention" met in the 1990s and drew up the blueprint for what was later to become Labour's devolution scheme.

It was a cross-party body which included various public organisations, but the SNP and the Conservative did not take part.

The motion passed at the conference yesterday welcomed moves from other parties to "more fiscal and legislative powers" and urged the party to lead the debate.

Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown led the call in the conference debate, where he derided First Minister Alex Salmond's "national conversation" on the constitution - "less a conversation, more like a monologue".

He told the conference: "Let us send out a clear call - we Liberal Democrats, both in the Scottish Parliament and Westminster, stand ready to work with other political parties and others to establish a new constitutional convention, widely representative of Scotland."

This would write a new chapter in Scottish politics - "in which the story is written by the people", not by Alex Salmond and his "authoritarian" Government, Brown said.

"Our aim is not a national monologue, far less a never- ending series of divisive referenda, but a national debate and accord that can be supported by the vast majority of the people of Scotland."