Scottish devolution is here to stay. But the Scotland Office should be given more power and money – John McLellan

It is one of the more remarkable achievements of the fag end of the Sturgeon years, and there are precious few from which to choose, that the SNP’s increasing distance from the public mood has breathed life into a Scotland Office which devolution had threatened to make irrelevant.

All the functions which came under the old Scottish Office were transferred to the Scottish Parliament under Labour’s devolution settlement and, with Labour in charge at both Westminster and Holyrood in the early years, it was difficult to know what the Scottish Secretary actually did, other than referee internal disputes between then Chancellor Gordon Brown and the First Minster.

Big Labour figures like John Reid and Alistair Darling held the post, but only came into their own as senior UK ministers after their time in Dover House, and once Alex Salmond became First Minster in 2007, the position of Scotland Secretary became even harder to define, other than chief intelligence officer.

No longer. Whether by accident of political miscalculation or design of political confrontation from a cornered and increasingly desperate SNP, the Scotland Office has never had a higher profile in the 24 years since the establishment of the modern Scottish Parliament, and if UK Governments learn anything from the experience of SNP dominance at Holyrood, that’s how it should stay.

Rishi Sunak and Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, in the green hat, visit the Port of Cromarty Firth earlier this year (Picture: Russell Cheyne/pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Much has been written over recent weeks about the failure, or rather the complete absence, of checks and balances in the Scottish Parliament which leads to poor governance and bad law, and there has been no shortage of terrible SNP virtue-signalling legislation: offensive behaviour at football, named persons and hate crime to name but three.

But cutting across UK legislation is a relatively new phenomenon and, unfortunately for the SNP, they have created the circumstances for Scotland Office intervention on the side of public opinion, and no matter how much they or the Greens whine that blocking the Gender Recognition Reform Bill is an affront to Scottish democracy, a significant number of voters across the political spectrum, are not affronted but relieved. Similarly, the SNP and Greens are desperate to pin the blame for halting their deposit return scheme on the UK Government when it was clear the problems were down to poor planning and a high-handed attitude towards concerns from smaller businesses, but whatever the cause they are grateful for the delay. Trying to turn the embarrassment on Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, as Green MSP Ross Greer is very keen to do, in fact just hands him the credit for avoiding mayhem.

Perhaps worse for the SNP, even committed nationalists could see the law prevented the Scottish Government calling an independence referendum without UK Government assent. And the lack of a popular majority for a referendum ─ never mind independence itself ─ which would have made continued refusal politically untenable, was because the SNP had failed to produce a persuasive case. Unionists will argue there was no persuasive case to make in the first place because the economics of separation never stacked up ─ only briefly did last year’s Supreme Court ruling boost the independence cause ─ and now the wishful thinking on which the independence prospectus relied has been smashed by the self-destruction of its most passionate proponents and proof that the Sturgeon-Salmond SNP was a morally superior castle built of sand.

Along with freeports and investment zones, another supposed affront was directly funding local capital projects through the “levelling-up” process, whereby plans threatened by lack of cash through the Scottish Government could seek UK Government support, like the Granton Gasworks regeneration which will receive £16.4m. How very dare they disrespect devolution by not giving the money, some £400m, to the Scottish Government to disburse? It was the “slow demise of devolution in the hope that no one will notice”, complained SNP president Mike Russell, and indeed no one noticed as SNP-led councils also applied for the money.

The higher profile for the Scotland Office, and Alister Jack, should, if anything, encourage the UK Government to go further because the more nationalist politicians squeal about direct investment being a threat rather than a benefit, the pettier they seem to all but the most committed activists. Going further should involve giving the Scotland Office a proper budget so it becomes a spending department, rather than just acting as a signposting service to other Westminster departments. It would also be a very clear illustration of the fact that Scotland has two governments acting in its interests and provide a stronger basis for closer cooperation than has been the case over the past decade.

It would also provide a very different approach to the current alternatives of independence, Gordon Brown’s plans for more devolution, the status quo, or freelancing Conservative peer Lord David Frost’s call for the devolution to be reversed. Lord Frost’s article in the Daily Telegraph caused quite a furore for someone without much influence, despite support for abolition being about as great as it is for the Green party and that it will never be Conservative policy either here or in London.

Holyrood is here to stay, but that is not to say it has been a success and hopes that more power would create more responsibility have, to say the least, not been realised. With the SNP on the point of taxing high earners at 68 per cent to raise less than it will cost to build half a ferry or three miles of an Edinburgh tram line, making Scotland a place where success is punished, illustrates the width of the Scottish Government’s gap between posturing and practicality.

Barely a day goes by without more evidence that the Scottish Parliament can’t cope with the vast responsibilities it has, or that giving it more won’t produce better outcomes, but there is another way. Labour’s devolution settlement emasculated the Scotland Office because it didn’t see the threat it was creating. Now there is a clear case for rectifying that error.