Leaders: Loss of voter trust the real casualty in legal wrangle

ALEX Salmond clearly had the air of a man who thinks he is gaining the upper hand when he answered questions yesterday at Holyrood on the saga of what he said about the legal advice he has and has not received from government law officers over an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU.

Yesterday it emerged that there are two types of legal opinion that ministers receive. The first is that law officers will advise if any government statement or document contains something which goes “against the law”, to quote Mr Salmond. The second, and rather more searching, advice is to give an opinion on a point of law if so asked by ministers.

It now seems that when Mr Salmond said in an interview that he had taken advice from law officers on Scottish EU membership, he was referring to the first type of advice. The Scottish Government has published several documents contending that an independent Scotland will be an EU member, a statement which law officers have cleared as not “against the law”.

Indeed, from a legal point of view, such a statement, while it might be questionable or even misleading, cannot possibly be “against the law”. On these rather narrow grounds, plus the fact that the relevant contestable statement was made in a TV interview and not to MSPs in parliament, the investigation by former law officers and civil servants is likely to conclude there has been no breach of the ministerial code.

The public, on the other hand, will take a different view. To borrow Nicola Sturgeon’s rule of thumb, it appears that at least some people who would describe themselves as fair-minded (and who are we to say they are lying) concluded, judging by the correspondence in this newspaper, that in fact Mr Salmond had sought and received the opinion of the law officers on Scotland’s putative EU membership. The view seemed even more fair-minded and reasonable when ministers started a court action to prevent disclosure of the legal opinion they did not in fact have. These people have been misled, either deliberately or in error.

Now, of course, the law officers’ opinion is to be sought, but Mr Salmond will not publish it. There are good reasons – ministers’ ability to obtain confidential legal advice in the pursuit of good governance being the principal one – why it should remain 
undisclosed. And lawyers give opinions, ministers take decisions.

But Mr Salmond’s dancing between the heads of two legal pins has undermined public trust in this process. Mr Salmond may yet have to publish the legal advice he finally gets, or face being regarded by the electorate as non-credible on this issue.

He may well be cleared of any breach of the ministerial code, but it looks probable he will suffer a marked loss of public confidence in what he says on the key subject. And Mr Salmond needs people to be confident when it comes to a referendum vote.

Growth jump cause for some joy

The verdict that Britain’s economy grew by 1 per cent during July, August and September this year is cheering. Coming after nine months of recession, it certainly brought a smile to the face of Chancellor George Osborne who said it proved that the economy was on the right track. Hardly, Mr

Osborne.

Independent debate is still divided on the nature of the track the economy is on. Some think, because of rising employment levels, it is actually doing quite well and the GDP, or output,

figures must be wrong. Others reckon that the jobs numbers are misleading because there is a rising trend of part-time employment which masks a truer lower level of real employment.

These GDP figures include a bounce from the Olympics, thought to account for half the jump in output, and a bit of a jump from the previous quarter, which was a little depressed by the extra bank holiday. Take that into account, add in the three previous quarters of decline, and the picture of a broadly stagnant economy looks quite realistic.

Coincidentally or not, yesterday’s major industrial news matched that view. On the one hand, there was the good news of a record allocation of North Sea exploration licences, which promises an upsurge in offshore activity. But back onshore and on the other hand, Ford announced it was axing two plants and 1,400 jobs. Since car manufacturing has a big supply chain, this will have severe knock-on effects.

The best that can be said for the 1 per cent figure is that it may add a little bit more confidence that things are improving. Confidence, however, is an extremely fragile thing which can be shattered all too easily.