Holyrood is far from perfect but the alternatives would be much worse

SINCE inception, the Scottish Parliament has experienced regular sniping and spasmodic calls for abolition. An Abolish the Scottish Parliament Party is standing candidates in next month’s election. The party’s website suggests the “£100 million saved annually” could be spent on the “NHS and education” and transforming “Holyrood’s grounds into homes for veterans”. A claim strangely reminiscent of the fabled weekly £100m for the NHS that once appeared on the side of a big red bus.

Some will ask if the Abolition Party’s leading lights should be out on their own, but most reasonable observers would agree Holyrood is far from perfect. The predominance of a single party for so long is a moot point. Inevitably, all parties and leaders run out of energy and ideas.

Disraeli famously described

Gladstone’s cabinet as “a range of exhausted volcanoes”. He also suggested, “upon the education of the people the fate of this country depends”, a reminder that some of the Scottish Government’s key policies have fallen short. Time and energy have been expended on half thought through policies and legislation that mystify the majority of Scottish voters. Incompetence is no longer a reason for party and government officers to accept responsibility and resign. That said, it’s hardly Holyrood’s fault that for the past 14 years, opposition leadership has resembled a Chuckle Brothers’ tribute act. Indeed, at times, most dissent has emanated from within the governing party’s own ranks.

Yet, even the Parliament’s most strident critics struggle to identify credible alternatives. Bringing government closer to the governed is a sound principle that underpins devolution. A case can be made for greater local autonomy, with councils handed enhanced responsibility and powers for funding and delivering local services such as education and health. Past experience suggests however, that the pool of local political talent is nowhere deep enough to assume that level of responsibility. Private Eye magazine’s Rotten Boroughs feature, is a litany of local government cronyism and incompetence that questions the capacity of most councils to run the proverbial whelk stall, let alone assume full responsibility for vital services.

The presence of the Union flag on the Abolish the Scottish Parliament Party’s website leaves the visitor in no doubt what its answer would be. It’s touching that even the more rational critics of devolution believe Westminster is free of the failings they lay at Holyrood’s door. They suffer from both selective amnesia and an irony bypass. They may well have been desensitised by the greed, incompetence and downright sleaze that currently engulfs Westminster. In 1994 John Major established the Committee on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. The committee’s first report established seven principles that should underpin public life and office. The Nolan principles included selflessness, integrity, honesty and accountability. It’s difficult to imagine a UK government that has strayed so far from those principles. The Prime Minister’s regard for standards in public life were summed up when he “quipped” that he supported not only the Nolan principles but also “the Nolan Sisters”.

It’s Westminster, not Holyrood that has been side-lined, as demonstrated by Mr Johnson’s unlawful proroguing of Parliament at the height of the Brexit debate. He may even have misled the Queen, but hey, he’s probably misled a lot of women in his time. The principle of accountability is held in greater contempt at Westminster than at Holyrood. It’s difficult to imagine Mr Johnson or Ms Patel laying themselves open to the type of scrutiny experienced by the First Minister over the past month or so.

Mr Johnson treats Prime Minister’s Questions as a joke. Why for example, has the spotlight not shone more brightly on the possible conflict of interest arising from Mr Johnson’s relationship with Jennifer Arcuri and only belatedly on former prime minister David Cameron’s connections to Greensill Capital? Why is there such lax enforcement of rules governing the gravy train boarded by politicians and officials moving seamlessly from public to private sector? Would those major failings have been glossed over at Holyrood? It’s not that long ago that a Scottish first minister resigned over the relatively minor “Officegate scandal”. A Scottish Tories’ leader stood down over a small discrepancy in taxi use. The past may indeed be a foreign country, but it’s at Westminster that standards have been eroded most markedly.

Ms Sturgeon and her government have, with some justification, been accused of authoritarian tendencies and control freakery. At no time however, has the Scottish Parliament been treated with the contempt its Westminster counterpart currently experiences. Covid has provided a convenient smokescreen for the introduction, without proper scrutiny, of authoritarian and some would argue, oppressive, legislation. The Home Secretary makes a predecessor, the hardly liberal Theresa May, seem more like Mother Theresa. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, parts of which would pertain in Scotland, places unprecedented restrictions on the right to protest. Legislation dealing with illegal encampments is clearly aimed at the travelling community. It would only apply in England, but it’s not long since Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, apologised after revealing his top priority if Prime Minister, would be “tougher enforcement against Gypsy travellers”. Covid “passports” raise further concerns about social and economic disadvantage.

No legislature in the world is perfect or immune from criticism and Holyrood is no exception. Nevertheless, ill-judged criticism and calls for abolition reflect Unionist desperation rather than widespread national dissatisfaction. No matter who holds sway after 6 May, they will have no cause to be defensive about Holyrood’s place or record. If the Nolan principles were to be used as the benchmark for probity and transparency in public office, it’s more likely that Westminster, not Holyrood, would be found wanting.