Tavish Scott: Exaggerated reports of Lib Dem demise

Any connection to the Tories in London is impossible to sell north of the Border because Scotland always votes Labour. I've listened to more soothsayers of doom predicting the end of liberal democracy in Scotland than I've had fish suppers in Lerwick over these past ten years. This new version, just like the others, will come to nothing.

I can see to this day the press cuttings, the abuse and the ridicule heaped on Jim Wallace after signing the coalition agreement with Donald Dewar in the National Museum of Scotland in 1999. We were told it was all over – we would be subsumed. Yet at subsequent elections our votes and Lib-Dem representation rose. Now with a Lib Dem/Conservative UK government what has been the reaction? Very different from 1999. Why?

I believe that Scots get this about the 2010 General Election – no party won an outright mandate to govern. Voters created a hung UK parliament. After polling day, Labour's big beasts, John Reid and David Blunkett, said it was time for opposition and kick-started the leadership contest between the brothers Miliband. Scotland then faced either an untrammelled minority Tory government or Liberal Democrats in the UK government.

So we have a new UK government, with Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister, 20 Lib-Dem colleagues in departments across Whitehall and a Highland MP as Scottish Secretary. A programme for government has been published and a Queen's speech read last week. It contains lots that will help Scotland, help the Scottish economy and create Scottish jobs. It's a government built on the Scottish experience from 1999 and 2003. Build an agreed policy programme and then get it done.

The programme for government is built on solid ground. Nick Clegg wants political reform – Labour's ID cards will be gone in 100 days and we will see the first steps towards a more proportional voting system for Westminster elections. The worst, authoritarian elements of Labour's years are set to be swept away – the equation rebalanced between the rights of the citizen and the power of the state.

We are proposing the steps needed to create a fairer Britain. Labour and the SNP voted against our proposed 10,000 tax allowance helping 500,000 Scots in Holyrood just this past week. And I'm meant to be frightened of the coming election?

Vince Cable the new UK Business Secretary, visiting Scotland this coming week, will drive banking reform and the need for lending to Scottish businesses. Chris Huhne, a shrewd and tough politician now in charge of energy policy, will deliver where the Scottish Government have been uncharacteristically silent – on support for marine renewable energy. And Danny Alexander, the new Scottish Secretary, will sort the fossil fuel levy available for use in Scotland – something Labour did nothing about when in government. Danny will secure action on rural fuel prices and initiate the legislation to bring more powers to the Scottish Parliament.

So it's about getting things done – delivering the policy changes needed for Scotland. But in these tough financial and economic circumstances, where sensible economists are really worried by a double-dip recession across Europe, people care less about party politics and more about the real changes that happen. And they want politicians to work constructively for the future; they want politicians to put the country first – not party.

The policy area that has the chattering classes in ferment will be the powers and taxation responsibilities that Holyrood should gain through the implementation of Sir Kenneth Calman's cross-party report. Labour has executed an impressive volte face from the party resisting any change, any further devolution of power to one that now demands their immediate implementation. Yet it was the previous Labour government in London which rejected nine of the 23 specific Calman recommendations. And be under no illusion: the Tories alone would not have made strengthening our parliament in Holyrood the priority that it is for the new UK coalition. Once again, it's Liberal Democrats in government driving forward the case for more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

But as a federal party, we strive towards a new settlement for the entire UK. Calman's vision of a stronger Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom does not represent the finishing line for Liberal Democrats. David Steel's Commission argued for greater change in 2007. So I want to see Calman Plus emerge from the work the Scottish Secretary started this week. And unlike Labour, the new UK government should include the Scottish Government in Danny Alexander's working group.

That lays this responsibility on Alex Salmond. He has to decide whether he wants to be constructive, to be the First Minister and work with the UK government and the others. That is what most Scots want. If Mr Salmond recognises that his primary responsibility is as First Minister and not as the leader of the SNP, then we can all achieve a better outcome for Scotland. The ball is firmly in Mr Salmond's court. If he plays on the pitch which strengthens Scotland's Parliament, then much can be done. After all, he has thousands of civil servants to call on. But the Scottish Government must play a full part in this work – a full and constructive part.

So to our critics who predict doom and gloom because of the coalition at Westminster, I have this to say: coalition is not new to Scottish Liberal Democrats. We know that voters will judge us on our record, on what we have delivered for them and what we will do as the UK government. 2010 was an extraordinary campaign with an outcome few would have predicted. Politics matters to people again. So guessing what May 2011 will produce for any party is a step into the political unknown. Devolution has matured since 1999. Scotland has had coalition government and now a minority. The UK is now a very different place. So campaigning in an election so different from anything we've had before will be just that – different. And I can't wait.

• Tavish Scott is MSP for Shetland and leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats