‘I felt that we had to create a Scottish Parliament to take control of our education system and then drive it to be world class again’
POWER in Scotland has become too centralised over the last quarter century of devolution, Jack Mcconnell has said.
In a wide-ranging and exclusive interview with The Herald to mark the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, the former first minister said that while he thought the institution was an “accepted part of the Scottish architecture” reform was “long overdue”.
The Labour peer also called on the SNP to “admit that they’ve been getting it wrong” on education and commit to a “radical” review of the country’s schooling.
He said the Scottish Government was “neglecting a generation and doing them a serious disservice”.
The ex-maths teacher was elected to Holyrood in 1999 and became the country’s third first minister in 2001, serving until Alex Salmond’s narrow victory in 2007 saw the Labour-lib Dem Scottish Executive ousted and replaced by a minority SNP administration
He had long been a proponent of devolution, in part because of his work in the classroom.
“I felt that we had to create a Scottish Parliament to take control of our education system and then drive it to be world class again,” he said.
“We inherited in 1999 a system where teachers were demotivated, leaving the profession. Discipline was out of control in schools. The curriculum was out of date. The facilities were falling apart.”
Then there was the SQA exam scandal of 2000 where a series of administrative and computer blunders led to 17,000 pupils receiving inaccurate, late or incomplete results.
He replaced Sam Galbraith as education minister that year.
“We rebuilt the teaching profession and it’s morale and quality. We were building schools at pace, including joint campuses, new facilities for a new century.
“We were overhauling the standards of what was taught and how the head teachers managed their schools and dealing therefore with issues of discipline and so on. And at the same time looking after the most vulnerable, supporting kids who were fostered or in care to have a better chance of education. All of that seems to have slipped. And it was slipping before Covid.”
Lord Mcconnell believes the curriculum is “way off course” and that assessment has “fallen apart”.
“We are neglecting a generation and doing them a serious disservice and there needs to be a complete overhaul of the situation.
“I think for the current cabinet, to make that decision to be as radical and as determined and as focused to make this happen, they would have to, at least privately for themselves, admit that they’ve been getting it wrong.
“But I think if they were willing to do that, then those of us who cared about Scottish education would get in behind them and help them make the changes that are required. I think people would be queuing up to help.”
Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the first meeting of the new devolved legislature.
Lord Mcconnell said it was a “rocky start”. “That’s natural in any new institution and then Donald [Dewar] died [in October 2020]. The glue that held us together in many ways wasn’t there anymore. And you’re both grieving but also need to take up the challenge and step up. I think the Parliament did step up at that point.”
He said his two terms were “incredibly productive” and points to significant land reform legislation which saw the abolition of feudal tenure, wider access to the countryside and a right to community ownership.
“We’d never have found the parliamentary time at Westminster for it to happen, even if there’d been a political will,” he says.
The second term brought the ban on smoking in public places when the peer believes parliament “came of age”.
“People forget that at the start of that debate, the country was split 50/50,” Lord Mcconnell said.
The ban was one of the first pieces of major legislation to be passed by MSPS following their move into the controversial new parliament building at the bottom of the Royal Mile. There were disagreements over the design and the location.
It opened three years late and cost more than £400m, far more than the initial estimates of between £10m and £40m.
The building became a “bit of a problem for us all in those early years,” Lord Mcconnell admitted. “So I was very conscious that we finally moved into the new building we had to do something that was really significant and could be long lasting for the good of the country.”
The smoking ban came on the last Sunday in March 2006 when the clocks went forward, giving smokers one last cigarette.
“It was probably the first moment when the Parliament passed a law that a significant part of the population disagreed with,” he adds. “But they all accepted it. It was the law of the land. It was a law that had been made here in Scotland, that had been designed here in Scotland, had been implemented here in Scotland.
“It hadn’t been imposed on us. It wasn’t like the poll tax.
“Yes it was controversial. But it was our own elected representatives who were making the decision.”
Though he is proud of the smoking ban, he believes his greatest success in office was the introduction of the Fresh Talent initiative.
Under a landmark agreement with the Home Office, overseas graduates from Scottish universities were allowed to stay in the country for two years after finishing their course while seeking employment. It was subsumed into the UK immigration system in 2008 under then PM Gordon Brown.
But post-study work visas were scrapped altogether by the coalition government in 2012, under then home secretary Theresa May.
Lord Mcconnell said that lack of flexibility has become something of a pattern for the UK Government.
“We’ve got into entrenched division that has just stopped people being creative and willing to be flexible, and to want to be cooperative.
Despite Holyrood’s problems and the scandals and despite his disagreements with the current administration, the Scottish Parliament, Lord Mcconnell says, “holds solid”.
“I am critical and I have been critical and I’m being critical in this interview and I keep hoping for better days.
“But I do believe that the way that we constructed this parliament, the quality of the original Scotland Act legislation and the preparations for that through the [Scottish Constitutional] Convention, the intellectually robust nature of that decision, it wasn’t just about political principle but also about how does it work in practice, stands the test.
“I think that is a credit to everybody who was involved back then in the 90s, and indicates that it’ll still be in 25 years time.”
We are neglecting a generation and doing them a serious disservice