Mcleish says reform needed to end SNP domination
Henry Mcleish has urged reform of Holyrood after 14 years of government by one party.
The former first minister said he could not think of a “worse time” for Alex Salmond and his successor to be in conflict but said unbroken years in office brought problems.
He said: “The SNP has been in power for 14 years. I think there is more than a hint of complacency, more than a hint of them overstepping themselves in parliament and a failure to recognise the government is accountable to the parliament and not the other way around. Because of the dominance of the SNP, the parliament at times looks as if it is serving the SNP and not the country.
“We need the parliamentary committee to finish its evidence quickly and make a judgment where the truth lies. My concern is that if there is no conclusion then this may rumble on. I cannot think of a worse time for such an issue to arise.
“We are facing a pandemic, Brexit was catastrophic and is now having consequences for Scottish fishermen, and we have Boris Johnson throwing grenades into Scotland to try to undermine devolution. We are also only a few weeks away from a Scottish Parliament election.”
He added: “In 1998 I chaired the constitutional steering group that set down the powers and procedures of the parliament. We didn’t anticipate that we would have a government in power for 14 years. We also over-estimated the goodwill, respect and trust there would be in the parliament.
“It may be time for a rethink.
We have an election soon that is part first-past-the-post and part proportional representation. I would move in the future to the whole of the Scottish Parliament being elected by proportional representation, thus adopting a more European parliament of consensus, conciliation and coalition to the extent no one party can dominate in the way the SNP has.”
Constitution law expert Alan Page, professor of public law at Dundee University, said: “I think, and this is not a criticism of anyone, that it is undesirable and unhealthy for one party to be in power for such a long time. It means one of the checks and balances is no longer there and the system atrophies.
“Part of the problem is Holyrood is a single-chamber parliament. It doesn’t have the second house check there is at Westminster with the House of Lords.”