Adversarial system parliament's founders were keen to avoid

IN HIS book, Stone Voices, Neal Ascherson records a meeting in the old building of the Royal High School to launch the campaign for a yes vote in the 1997 referendum.

He says that Winnie Ewing, at that time an SNP member of the European Parliament, sat in the convener's chair and that Alex Salmond of the SNP sat beside Henry McLeish of Labour and Jim Wallace of the Liberal Democrats.

Winnie spoke first. "She praised parliaments based on co-operation across party lines, like the European Parliament and the Scottish Parliament now coming to birth."

There would be no place in the Scottish Parliament for the adversarial pattern of Westminster.

McLeish was the next speaker. "He complimented Winnie for speaking about co-operation and, unexpectedly, invited the SNP to join Labour in preparing a reform of Scottish education."

Evidently Ewing and McLeish were drawing the obvious conclusion from the system of election which would apply to the new Scottish Parliament.

It would have an element of proportionality, unlike Westminster. This would make it virtually impossible for a single party to have overall control, which is normal at Westminster. Labour had insisted on this, not to be more democratic, but to frustrate the SNP.

Even so, it should also mean, as Ewing and McLeish clearly understood, a more rational Parliament based more on co-operation than on automatic opposition.

Unfortunately it has not turned out like that. Certainly the Scottish Parliament has avoided the worst defects of Westminster, such as the undemocratic electoral system, the abuse of allowances, the unelected House of Lords and the absurd play-acting of the state openings.

James Douglas Hamilton was a Conservative MP for 23 years and an MSP for eight. He has had plenty of experience of both. In his recent book of memoirs, After You, Prime Minister, he gives several pages to a summary of ways in which Holyrood is superior to Westminster. He concludes that the Scottish Parliament is not only working, but working well.

Even so, in Holyrood the old adversarial system is still very much alive. This is especially true with Iain Gray as leader of the Labour opposition. His automatic rejection of everything that the Scottish Government says or proposes is like a caricature of a Victorian kirk minister denouncing sin.

He does this even to proposals (such as a ban on the sale of alcohol at very low prices) for which there is an obvious need and which are widely supported by experts.

These tactics are predictable, boring and absurd. This is the sort of behaviour that so disgusts many people with politics that they take no further interest and do not bother to vote.

Of course, opposition parties should oppose whenever they have a reasonable case; but the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have tended to follow the Labour lead and oppose for the sake of opposing, even on the alcohol question.

The Scottish electoral system gives the opposition the power to amend proposals for legislation. Bills adopted by the Parliament are therefore likely to represent a wide cross-section of opinion, not just that of a single party.

This has been happening with the SNP government. On the other hand, the atmosphere of the weekly session of questions to the First Minister and the tone of statements to the press by party spokesmen on virtually every issue give a very different impression.

There the Westminster pattern still applies. We must hope that the good example set by Winnie Ewing and Henry McLeish in 1997 will eventually prevail.

• Paul Henderson Scott is a writer, historian and literary critic.