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Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2011

10 Mar 2011 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Scotland Bill

Mitchell, Margaret Con Central Scotland Watch on SPTV

This is an amendment speech. With his political experience, Mr Rumbles should know that.

The Parliament has justifiably been proud that, since its inception, it has been much more user friendly than Westminster and that MSPs have been far more accessible to the public than their counterparts south of the border have been. However, in setting up the Calman commission, in the commission’s remit and in the subsequent consideration of the commission’s recommendations and of the Scotland Bill Committee’s report, MSPs have been guilty of talking largely to themselves or academics.

Politicians know that constitutional change is not a major issue for constituents. The Calman commission was convened not to respond to public clamour for change, to make Holyrood more accountable or even to mark the watershed of 10 years of devolved government; rather, as the December 2007 approval date indicates, the commission was the unionist parties’ reaction to the advent of a minority SNP Government in May 2007.

In the first instance, the commission’s remit was to recommend changes to the constitutional arrangements to enable the Scottish Parliament to serve the people better. In other words, Holyrood politicians decided on constitutional navel-gazing when, in the real world, it was widely recognised that the elephant in the room was the desperate need to reform how business in the Parliament is carried out. Insufficient debating time is allowed for important issues and inquiry reports, and committees are hard-pressed to undertake post-legislative scrutiny. Addressing that fundamental issue would without doubt serve the people of Scotland better.

The commission’s remit also focused on improving the Scottish Parliament’s financial accountability and continuing to secure Scotland’s position in the United Kingdom. That is where the main debate has remained.

Those who favour the commission’s proposals and what has been described as Calman plus—in the form of the recommendations in the Scotland Bill Committee’s report—cite the Calman consultation as the mandate for progressing the tax-raising provisions and other provisions that we are considering today.

I acknowledge whole-heartedly the commission’s aim to give

“prime importance to engaging with the public”,

but it is worth examining in detail how successful it was in achieving that objective. A questionnaire was available online and on paper and 921 responses to it were completed. The commission said that that was an important strand of its engagement strategy, but it also said:

“As respondents were entirely self-selecting the results, although interesting and valid for that group, constitute a non-random sample not necessarily representative of public opinion.”

The commission held 12 events in 2008 in 11 locations. The events were widely publicised, but only about 300 people attended them. The commission had 150,000 information leaflets distributed to about 7,000 premises. To put that in context, Scotland’s population is about 5.1 million, and more than 140,000 people live in Dundee alone. It is clearly impossible to claim that the consultation represented the views of the people of Scotland.

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Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2011

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