Devolution in the United Kingdom 9780748669714

Table of contents :
Contents
List of boxes
List of tables
Preface
1 The Background to Devolution
2 Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’ The Case of England
3 English Devolution: ‘London moves forward whilst England falls back’
4 The Evolution of Scottish Devolution
5 The Governance of Scotland
6 Political Parties and Politics in Scotland
7 The Government of Wales
8 The Continuing Evolution of Welsh Devolution
9 Northern Ireland: Historical Political Development
10 Northern Ireland and Devolution: Structures, Process and Government
11 Political Parties within Northern Ireland
12 Creeping Federalism or a Unitary State?
Index

Citation preview

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Books in the Politics Study Guides series

British Government and Politics: A Comparative Guide (2nd edition) Duncan Watts US Government and Politics (2nd edition) William Storey International Politics: An Introductory Guide Alasdair Blair and Steven Curtis Devolution in the United Kingdom (2nd edition) Russell Deacon Political Parties in Britain Matt Cole and Helen Deighan Democracy in Britain Matt Cole The Changing Constitution Kevin Harrison and Tony Boyd The Judiciary, Civil Liberties and Human Rights Steven Foster The Prime Minister and Cabinet Stephen Buckley Britain and the European Union Alistair Jones Pressure Groups Duncan Watts The Politics of Northern Ireland Joanne McEvoy The UK Parliament Moyra Grant The American Presidency Duncan Watts Electoral Systems and Voting in Britain Chris Robinson Political Communication Steven Foster euppublishing.com/series/posg

Devolution in the United Kingdom Second edition

Russell Deacon

This book is dedicated to my wife Tracey Deacon, my daughter Alexandra Deacon and goddaughter Emily Grace Kibble. Professor Russell Deacon © Russell Deacon, 2012 First edition published 2007 © Russell Deacon and Alan Sandry Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13pt Monotype by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4652 4 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 4651 7 (paperback) ISBN 978 0 7486 6971 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 6973 8 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 6972 1 (Amazon ebook)

The right of Russell Deacon to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Contents

List of boxes List of tables Preface

x xiii xiv

1

The Background to Devolution Introduction The development of devolution The rationale for and against devolution The major advantages of devolution The major drawbacks of devolution The road to devolution The political positions of the parties on devolution Tying devolution together British cultural identity and devolution The development of British culture Conclusion

1 2 2 2 2 4 5 9 12 15 15 19

2

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’ The Case of England The roots of English devolution English cultural identity The embryos of devolved government The emergence of English regionalism? The Labour government and English regionalism Local government and devolution Conclusion

23 24 24 26 30 32 35 36

English Devolution: ‘London moves forward whilst England falls back’ Introduction The evolution of English devolution The North-east says ‘No’ Westminster and English devolution The governance of London

39 40 40 42 45 46

3

vi

4

5

Devolution in the United Kingdom

The Livingstone administration Ken Livingstone rejoins Labour Boris Johnson The mayor and the London Authority The evolution of powers to the GLA Conclusion

48 49 50 51 53 54

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution Scottish political history: 1707 onwards Growing pressure The Labour Party and Scottish devolution Scotland’s first chance for devolution: 1979 The 1980s: devolution remains on the agenda The Scottish Constitutional Convention Yes or No: the campaigns for and against devolution in Scotland The Yes campaigns The No campaigns The push for devolution: ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’? Devolution arrives: 1997 Devolution at last!

57 58 59 61 63 65 66

The Governance of Scotland The Scottish Parliament: its role and functions The committee system The passage of bills The Scottish Parliament and the issue of tax The Calman Commission Scotland Bill 2012 Westminster Scottish Veto Building a new institution The Scottish Government How Scotland votes for its MSPs Membership of the Scottish Government The Scottish Parliament and Europe Parliamentary business Sewell motions Subnational Scotland: local government

75 76 77 79 80 81 82 82 84 84 87 89 91 94 95 96

67 68 68 70 71 71

Contents

6

7

vii

Political Parties and Politics in Scotland The unique nature of Scottish politics Scottish Labour Party The Scottish Labour Party since devolution Scottish Liberal Democrats Scottish Liberal Democrats: with devolution comes power but also rejection! Scottish National Party (SNP) Alex Salmond and the SNP’s push for devolution The fundamentalist/gradualist debate The SNP: from opposition to government Scottish Conservative Party Scottish Conservative party: devotional, renewal and evolution The other political parties Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) Scottish Green Party Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP) Scottish political parties: the future

102 103 103 105 108

The Government of Wales The road to devolution in Wales The development of the Welsh Office Wales at Westminster The Welsh political parties at Westminster Westminster and the Welsh Assembly The National Assembly for Wales – Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru The Welsh general election The first minister The cabinet of the Welsh Assembly government (Welsh Executive) The committees The similarities between Westminster and the Welsh Assembly Wales and the European Union Conclusion

128 129 130 133 133 137

109 112 113 113 115 118 119 121 121 123 124 124

140 141 142 142 145 145 146 149

viii

8

9

10

Devolution in the United Kingdom

The Continuing Evolution of Welsh Devolution Consensus politics: the early years Examining the funding of the Welsh government The end of the Red–Green alliance Creating the Welsh Assembly’s future: the Richard Commission The Government of Wales Act 2006: a Welsh parliament at last? Enhanced legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly The Welsh Assembly and the coalition government The Welsh language Welshness (Cymreictod) and cultural distinctiveness Threats to Welsh cultural identity Conclusion Northern Ireland: Historical Political Development The long history of a troubled nation The thousand troubled years of history Ireland in the Victorian era The Unionists become politicised The Treaty of Ireland, 1922 The Protestant state takes shape The British and Irish governments and the road to a peaceful solution to Northern Ireland’s troubles Conclusion Northern Ireland and Devolution: Structures, Process and Government The Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement and respect for all The devolved assembly in Northern Ireland The assembly’s powers Executive powers The d’Hondt route to consensus politics Up and running! The assembly after devolution Decommissioning and David Trimble Open again for business!

154 155 161 162 164 169 171 174 176 178 179 181

185 186 186 187 190 190 192 195 198

202 203 204 205 206 207 209 211 212 212

Contents

ix

Communication breakdown: devolution in trouble The stalemate continues – 2005 Time for action – the St Andrews Agreement The DUP–Sinn Fein-led administration Robinson’s stable instability Post-St Andrews Agreement politics

213 213 214 216 217 219

11

Political Parties within Northern Ireland The genealogy of political parties in Northern Ireland The two main Unionist political parties Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) The other Unionist parties Nationalist political parties The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Sinn Fein (SF) Non-aligned, or non-sectarian, political parties The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (Alliance) Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) The Green Party Conclusion

223 224 224 224 226 229 230 230 233 236 236 237 238 239

12

Creeping Federalism or a Unitary State? What has devolution achieved? What exactly is federalism? The background to desiring federalism in Britain Does devolution mean the same as federalism? Indications that Britain is not turning into a federal state Independence: an alternative to devolution or federalism? Conclusion

243 244 245 247 248 249

Index

251 252 256

Boxes

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8

Constitutional acts establishing or developing a devolved Britain Devolution making a difference – university tuition fees from 2012/13 Ministry of Justice – the government department for devolution What shapes our culture and values? The end of Britishness? How do the English like to view their cultural values? How are notions of English culture viewed by others? The arguments against English regional development agencies Responsibilities and problems of the former English regional assemblies The lessons learnt from the North-east referendum for pro-English devolutionists The Greater London Authority (Assembly) Role and powers of the Greater London Authority Why devolution? What was wrong with the Scottish Office? Who was involved in the Scottish Constitutional Convention? Important events on the road to a Scottish Parliament Devolved government in Scotland Mandatory and subject committees of the Scottish Parliament, 2012 New powers for the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government Pressure groups and devolution in Scotland The Scottish Government, 2012 Duties of the First Minister for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Scotland Scottish Parliament Business Programme (example) Scottish local government functions (since devolution)

8 9 10 18 19 27 28 41 42 44 52 53 64 69 72 77 80 83 86 90 91 95 97

Boxes

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 9.1 9.2 9.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 11.1 11.2 11.3

The review of the Labour Party in Scotland Alex Salmond: First Minister of the Scottish Parliament The ‘National Conversation’ on Scottish independence Gradualism versus fundamentalism What is wrong with the Conservatives’ brand in Scotland? Who was Tommy Sheridan? What was wrong with the Welsh Office? Important events on the road to a Welsh assembly The role of the Welsh Secretary The role of the first minister Plaid Cymru loses the ‘Cymru’ Problems in building an assembly chamber (Senedd) Welsh pressure groups and lobbyists The Welsh Labour government’s (2011–16) first legislative programme The names of the Welsh government Welsh quangos go on the bonfire The drawbacks of Welsh devolution (1999–2011) The Welsh Assembly’s evolved role How the Welsh primary legislation process works Examples of difference in Welsh and English policy The benefits of Welsh devolution What shapes Welsh cultural identity? The Orange Order Bloody Sunday and the Saville Inquiry Why did it take so long to come to a peaceful solution? The Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland Assembly: meeting and committee structure Reform of the RUC and introduction of the PSNI Formation and ideology of political parties in Northern Ireland Key figures: Reverend Ian Paisley (Baron Bannside of North Antrim) Key figures: Alasdair McDonnell

xi

108 114 115 117 121 122 131 131 139 143 149 156 158 163 164 165 167 170 173 173 175 180 191 194 197 203 210 218 225 227 233

xii

11.4 11.5 12.1 12.2

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Key figures: Martin McGuinness Key figures: David Ford The components of federalism What could independence mean in practice?

235 238 246 253

Tables

3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 7.1 8.1 10.1 10.2 10.3

London Authority election results, 2000–12 The West Lothian Question MORI opinion polls on constitutional change, 1979–87 Scottish Parliament referendum results, 1997 Elections for the Scottish Parliament, May 2011 Common terms: how the Welsh Assembly translates to Westminster Elections for the Welsh Assembly, May 2011 The Good Friday Agreement referendums, 1998 Northern Ireland first Assembly election, 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, 2003–11

48 63 67 71 87 147 162 206 207 215

Preface

Since political devolution came on to the mainstream agenda in 1997, it has been a subject that has fascinated academics and students of politics alike. Students are now learning that many aspects of their own lives, which in the past were almost identical with those of their contemporaries across the United Kingdom, can now been radically different. On issues ranging from health and education to the attempts to deal with global warming, the devolved governments often deal with them in many differing ways. It is therefore unsurprising that political devolution is, and will remain, a key topic on any politics syllabus for as far as anyone can see. Devolution may now also result in independence for Scotland in a much shorter period that the politicians’ thought would occur. Initially, devolution was meant to take the steam out of nationalism but in Scotland they opposite has occurred. Whether or not Scotland does become independent, the debate engendered from this topic is likely to dominate the discussion on devolution in the United Kingdom until the referendum is over. Students therefore need to be aware that the independence issue is not the only issue connected with devolution. They should understand that, while this is occurring, all the devolved bodies are continuing to evolve and therefore students need to have an understanding of how and why this occurs. I enjoyed the opportunity to write and update this text. I trust the reader will be able to gain as much from it as I have been able to. Thanks to Neil Curtis for the copy-editing, Dr Jeremy Clarke for advice on Northern Ireland, and Nicola Ramsey, Michelle Houston, Isbel James and Eddie Clark at Edinburgh University Press for their help in the production of this book. Also thanks to my wife Tracey Deacon and daughter Alex Deacon for their support during the writing of this book.

CHAPTER 1

The Background to Devolution Contents Introduction The development of devolution The rationale for and against devolution The major advantages of devolution The major drawbacks of devolution The road to devolution The political positions of the parties on devolution Tying devolution together British cultural identity and devolution The development of British culture Conclusion

2 2 2 2 4 5 9 12 15 15 19

Overview Since the election of the Labour government in 1997, the semi-codified ‘British constitution’ has undergone one of the biggest changes in its history. The creation of a Scottish Parliament and assemblies in London, Northern Ireland and Wales has established major alternative centres of power to the Westminster Parliament. This first chapter defines the concept of devolution and examines the rationale behind it. The problems and drawbacks of devolution are also examined. The notion and importance of ‘culture’, and its influence on national identity, are also explored.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • •

What is devolution? And its arrival on the United Kingdom’s general political agenda How the political parties in Britain view devolution The rationale behind devolution and its drawbacks The main constitutional organisations or agreements that bind together the new devolved bodies What culture has to do with the concept of devolution

2

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Introduction The twenty-first century has started with a decade in which devolution on a Britain-wide level sought to prove that it could successfully evolve alternative models of democratic institutions to that at Westminster. As these new devolved institutions have bedded in and have come into their fourth elected terms, British governmental processes have evolved to take them into account. The opportunity for policy, laws and institutions to develop independently of the government in Westminster has increased significantly, and the traditional centralism of the British unitary state has began to be substantially watered down.

The development of devolution The Penguin Dictionary of Politics defines devolution as the ‘process of transferring power from central government to a lower or regional level’. Over the course of the last century, various governments established widespread administrative devolution. This involved the establishment of governmental departments such as the former Scottish and Welsh Offices. With the exception of Northern Ireland, however, political devolution at a regional or national level did not arrive until the end of the last century (1999).

The rationale for and against devolution One of the most common questions asked about political devolution is: why is it necessary? During the various referendum campaigns on devolution in Britain between 1997 and 2011, the rationale for and against it was made clear. The short answers to the rationale for devolution are that it is for functional, democratic and nationalist reasons. The more detailed rationale, however, is given below.

The major advantages of devolution It is the wish of the majority. In the referendums held in London, Northern Ireland Scotland and Wales, devolution was seen to be the will of the majority who voted. Subsequent opinion polls and refer-

The Background to Devolution

3

endums have shown that the majority of the population still desires a form of devolved government in these nations/regions. Maintaining the Union. In 1922, the failure to allow (Home Rule) devolution for Ireland earlier, despite constant demands, led to the separation of Southern Ireland (Eire) from the rest of the United Kingdom. These separatist pressures in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales can be relieved by allowing a greater degree of devolution within each nation. It acknowledges distinct identity. Devolution acknowledges that nations and regions of the British Isles have differences and allows them to be developed. It also encourages the media to examine and to report on the world of politics outside of London and be aware that London is not always the centre of the political world. It allows for fairer political representation. Over the last fifty years the people in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have never elected a Conservative majority in a general election. Yet, for much of this period, they were governed by Conservative governments, elected by the majority in England. Devolution avoids this misrepresentation to a degree by allowing the majority party or parties elected in each devolved country’s body to govern that country. It also provides a more proportional form of electoral system which better represents the way people vote. The growing importance of the regional voice in the European Union. Most of the regions within the European Union already have their own devolved assemblies or parliaments. The European Union has evolved to allow these regional bodies to take part in the decisionmaking process, in such bodies as the Committee of the Regions. Devolution allows the various nations and regions within the United Kingdom to develop their own voices in a ‘Europe of the Regions’. Strategic planning. Certain functions, such as economic development and tourism, are too large for local government to deal with effectively by themselves. Devolution allows these to be carried out at a regional level. A regional tier of administration already existed. Prior to devolution there were already government departments for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Their public administration had largely been devolved, and devolution provides greater democratic accountability.

4

Devolution in the United Kingdom

It lifts some of the burden from Westminster. The Houses of Parliament are already overcongested with legislation. There is little time for effective scrutiny of primary or secondary legislation there. Devolution allows the nations to spend greater time creating, scrutinising or shaping legislation to suit their own circumstances.

The major drawbacks of devolution During the devolution campaigns a number of drawbacks with the process of devolution were also highlighted. Devolution was not the will of the majority but only the will of the majority of those who voted. In Scotland, Wales and London less that half of the population endorsed devolution. The combined majority either voted ‘no’ or did not vote at all. It adds more fuel to the separatist flames. While devolution can be used to ease the demands for separatism, it is as far as most people want to go, and it may still encourage others to call for full independence. In Scotland the Scottish National Party (SNP), committed to independence, has become the majority party at Holyrood. The SNP is now pursuing a path towards an independent Scotland. In Wales, too, the national assembly has strengthened the political representation of Plaid Cymru, also committed to Welsh independence. The devolved national assemblies and parliament allow separatists to enjoy a stronger voice politically. Devolution could lead to a greater variation in standards of public-service delivery. To guarantee equal provision of services, such as welfare or health provision, across the United Kingdom it is sometimes better that all services are provided nationally. Allowing devolution for these could lead to inequity in overall provision within Britain. This has become most evident in the area of student fees; see Box 1.2. Devolution costs money. The cost of the new buildings of government, together with salaries and with the running costs of the new devolved bodies, amount to hundreds of millions of pounds. The new buildings for the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish parliament chambers were both mired in controversy with respect to their overspends when they were built. There are too many politicians. People living in the areas with devolved government are now represented by as many as five different layers

The Background to Devolution

5

of government (town council, county council, regional assembly or parliament, Westminster Parliament and European Parliament). There is a danger that there will be: • • • •

confusion over who deals with what, both inside and outside the layers of government; ‘buck-passing’ of responsibility between the different layers; ‘turf wars’ over who has responsibility for different layers of government; conflict between the layers of government resulting in chaos over the provision of services.

Devolved government has resulted in new political elites being formed who use the system to further the aims of their group at the expense of others. The failure to give the devolved bodies sufficient tax-raising powers has resulted in a lack of accountability. Currently none of the devolved bodies raises its taxes as their finance is provided directly from Westminster. This has led to the accusation that they avoid direct accountability to the taxpayers for the spending decisions. These arguments for and against devolution regularly resurface as the United Kingdom continues to evolve its political structures.

The road to devolution Towards the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the issue of devolution was referred to as ‘Home Rule’. The Liberal support for ‘Home Rule’ in Ireland led to interest in the same for Scotland and Wales. In 1885 the government established a Scottish Office. From then on there was a steady move towards further devolution, and this is explored in the following chapters of this book. Modern devolution can be linked mainly to that period, beginning with the rising tide of nationalism in the 1960s, which led the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, to set up in 1968 under Lord Kilbrandon the Royal Commission on the Constitution. Its remit was to ‘examine the present functions of the central legislature and government in relation to the several countries and regions of the UK’. In the event, however, the commission failed to reach a

6

Devolution in the United Kingdom

consensus, and came up with six alternative schemes and a minority Memorandum of Dissent. This might have ended matters were it not for the fact that, to stay in power, the Wilson–Callaghan Labour government (1974–9) was dependent upon support from Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Liberals. The price of their support was the legislation on devolution. Both of the devolution referendums in Scotland and Wales failed (see Chapters 5 and 7) and devolution did not therefore arise in this period. Devolution remained subdued in Scotland and Wales for most of the 1980s. At a local level, the Conservatives began to reduce devolution, in areas such as housing and education, by taking away powers from local government. Their powers were transferred either to central government or to new quangos. The Conservatives also abolished some tiers of local government entirely, such as the Greater London Council and the metropolitan counties in 1985. The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher, who had always rejected devolution, dismissed calls for political devolution as ‘the slippery slope to the break-up of the United Kingdom’. A similar position was taken by John Major. Only a few minor steps were taken to appease nationalist sentiment in Scotland and Wales. The setting up of the Scottish and Welsh Select Affairs Committees  and the strengthening of the role of the Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees were the major elements of enhancing those nations roles at Westminster. The Conservatives, however, remained committed to allowing devolution for Northern Ireland which they regarded as having ‘special circumstances’ owing to the troubles, both violent and political, which occurred then. As the Conservative Party always remained against devolution, it meant that any breakthrough on this issue would have to involve the Labour Party. The other political parties, such as the Liberal Party and nationalist parties, remained too politically weak at Westminster to affect this issue in their own right. After the defeat of the referendums on devolution in 1979, which split the Labour Party in Scotland and in Wales into for and against camps, devolution became something of a non-issue while the party was led first by Michael Foot and then by Neil Kinnock. Although Kinnock did advance the cause in Scotland, it proceeded at a snail’s pace in Wales. Neil Kinnock had been one of those most opposed to devolution in Wales. It was under

The Background to Devolution

7

John Smith, a long-standing supporter of devolution, who succeeded Kinnock in the summer of 1992, that the devolutionary cause was given a massive boost. Smith put the issue of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly firmly in the forefront of government policy. After his death, he was succeeded by Tony Blair who then altered devolution policy by: •

• •

•

ensuring that the world of business had a far greater say in the devolution proposals: for instance, the power of the Scottish Parliament to ‘initiate some form of public ownership’ was removed from the Scottish Conventions 1990 scheme; a commitment to hold referendums on the devolution proposals in Scotland and in Wales – this caused great anger in Scotland; forcing the Welsh Labour Party to include an element of proportionality in the elections to the Assembly, something that upset ‘old’ Labour elements within Wales; eliminating most of the dissent within the Labour Party concerning the devolution proposals and subsequent referendums.

Shortly before the 1997 General Election, Robin Cook (Labour) and Bob Maclennan (Liberal Democrats) signed the Partnership For Britain’s Future document; it became known as the Cook–Maclennan pact on constitutional reform. It was a document that stated that the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties agreed constitutional principles for the forthcoming elections. Both political parties agreed to support the Labour Party’s devolution proposals should Labour win the general election. This meant that, for the first time, both parties were united behind devolution for Scotland and Wales. The Blair government, therefore, went into the election with an ambitious programme of constitutional reform. Once in power, to the surprise of many of their critics who doubted their devolutionist credentials, New Labour set about a radical programme of devolution within the United Kingdom (see Box 1.1). Within months of New Labour coming into power, two referendums were held to determine whether or not the peoples of Scotland and Wales wished to see political devolution within their respective countries? Though both countries voted ‘yes’, the result in Wales was on a knife edge, with a majority of just 0.6 per cent in favour of devolution. The Westminster-initiated Neill Commission

8

Devolution in the United Kingdom

on the Funding of Political Parties (1998) expressed some concern over the British referendum campaigns on devolution. In particular, it was concerned at the backing that the pro-devolution (yes) camps received from the government while the anti-devolution (no) organisations struggled to generate the finance to support their campaigns. It was felt, particularly in Wales, that if the ‘no’ camp had had more resources, the outcome of the eventual ballot would have been affected in their favour. As a result of this concern, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 allows state funding for both ‘official’ sides in devolution referendums. The act did not take into account what would happen, however, if one side refused to take up state funding, as the No campaign did in the 2011 primary powers referendum in Wales.

Box 1.1 Constitutional acts establishing or developing a devolved Britain Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Act 1997 Government of Wales Act 1998 Scotland Act 1998 Northern Ireland (Elections) Act 1998 Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 Greater London Authority Referendum Act 1998 Greater London Authority Act 1999 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 The Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003 Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 Government of Wales Act 2006 The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 Greater London Authorities Act 2007 •

strengthened planning powers of the English regional assemblies

Localism Act 2011 •

Abolished the regional development agencies while also transferring those powers relating to the London area to the Greater London Authority

Scotland Bill 2012

The Background to Devolution

9

Box 1.2 Devolution making a difference – university tuition fees from 2012/13 In April 2011 there were four different sets of fees set for 2012/13 depending on where you lived in the United Kingdom: England – up to a maximum of £9,000 Scotland – home students were to pay no fees; other UK students to pay £9,000 per annum even though Scotland runs four-year degree programmes, which means that Scotland has one of the world’s most expensive university systems Wales – £9,000 max in 2012 but the Welsh Assembly will pay everything above £3,375 for Welsh students studying anywhere in the United Kingdom Northern Ireland: £3,375 for home and other UK students

The political positions of the parties on devolution How devolution develops in the future depends very much on how the winning political party (or parties) at Westminster wishes to develop constitutional reform in conjunction with the devolved bodies. The relationship between Westminster and the devolved bodies changed after the 2007 Scottish Parliament election and the 2010 Westminster General Election. All mainstream political parties now support devolution. Prior to this they had different opinions as to the nature and extent of devolution. Their views are described below. From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, the Conservatives were totally opposed to political devolution outside of Northern Ireland. They were united against devolution in their 1979 and 1997 Scottish and Welsh devolution referendum campaigns. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Conservatives concentrated power in Whitehall and Westminster, taking it away from local government. With the exception of an assembly for Northern Ireland, they consistently rejected calls for devolution within the United Kingdom. John Major described it as the ‘break-up of the United Kingdom’. In the Welsh and Scottish referendums on devolution in 1997 their members supported the No campaigns. After the referendums on

10

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 1.3 Ministry of Justice – the government department for devolution On 12 June 2003 the Labour government established the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) to co-ordinate its modernisation of the British constitution, including those areas connected with devolution. The department’s aim was ‘to provide for effective and accessible justice for all, to ensure the rights and responsibilities of the citizen, and to modernise the law and constitution’. On 28 March 2007 the department, which also covered much of the English and Welsh justice system, was renamed the Ministry of Justice. The DCA had control over the Scotland and Wales Offices in terms of the pay and administrative support for each. It had been expected that, over time, both these offices will have been drawn more fully into the DCA with their respective cabinet secretaries’ roles being combined into a Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. This did not occur within the DCA or within the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice has its own Constitutional Settlement Division but most of its relations with the devolved bodies are dealt with through the Scotland and Wales Offices. Despite being within the Ministry of Justice, these office’s cabinet secretaries and their ministers are not regarded as justice ministers. To add to the confusion the Northern Ireland Office remains a separate department outside the Ministry of Justice. In addition, the deputy prime minister, through the Cabinet Office, also plays a role in devolved governments’ affairs if they relate to issues of constitutional reform or chairing meetings of the British–Irish Council. This therefore continues the impression that the devolved offices are of a temporary nature and, to support this view, there has been a number calls for the offices to be scrapped, as the devolved legislatures have gained more powers and responsibilities.

devolution resulted in ‘yes’ votes, the Conservatives accepted it and have now committed themselves to making devolution work. They participate in the new forms of devolved British government. Some Conservatives’ enthusiasm for devolution is now greater than that of the Labour Party. In Scotland, for instance, the party supports considerable tax-raising powers for the Scottish Parliament and, in Wales, all Conservative members of the Welsh Assembly campaigned for a Yes vote in the 2011 referendum on increasing the law-

The Background to Devolution

11

making powers of the Welsh Assembly. In England, however, the party remains deeply sceptical and mainly opposed to any concept of regional devolution outside of London. Officially, the Labour Party has been in favour of devolution for much of its recent history though, in the 1979 devolution referendum, the party was split over the issue. At that time, many powerful Labour voices, including future Labour leader Neil Kinnock, campaigned against the concept of devolution. During the late 1980s, however, the party as a whole became more pro-devolution. By the time of the 1992 General Election, the party was committed to the restoration of a regional tier of government for London, and to the establishment of a parliament for Scotland and an assembly for Wales. Under John Smith, the plans for devolution became more cogent and part of Labour’s manifesto for the 1997 General Election, and they were then implemented under Tony Blair. Since the 2001 General Election, the Labour Party has publicly supported the new devolutionary developments. In the English regions there were further attempts by the Labour Party to allow more devolution but, here, the concept of democratically elected assemblies was rejected by the electorate. The party remains opposed to the establishment of any more law-making or tax-raising parliaments such as the one in Scotland. Under Gordon Brown’s leadership there were also attempts to emphasise the concept of Britishness to a much greater extent than that of the individual national identities. Like the other three main British political parties, Labour remains firmly against independence for any of the nations within the United Kingdom. The Liberal Democrats have been advocating devolution within the United Kingdom for longer than any other party. They have been committed to devolution for more than a century, and they were enthusiastic backers of it in the 1979, 1997–8 and 2011 referendums. They would like to see a law-making and tax-raising Welsh Parliament equal to that of Scotland, as well as regional governments with provision for their own primary law-making powers throughout England. The Liberal Democrats’ policy has been for the establishment of a federal state within the United Kingdom, with state and regional parliaments, and a federal parliament in Westminster, similar to the structures of government in Germany, Spain and the United States. Their 2010 General Election manifesto, however,

12

Devolution in the United Kingdom

committed the party to scrap the regional offices and ministries for England. The party still has to determine what, if anything, it will do to integrate England into the devolved set-up to balance it with what has occurred elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The nationalist parties in Britain (Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party) see devolution as a way to ‘self-government’ in Wales and independence in Scotland. Though, in the referendums, they supported the proposals for devolved bodies in their own countries, they would like to see further referendums through which they could achieve their own separatist agendas. In Northern Ireland, however, the nationalist parties either support the union with the rest of the British mainland or one with Southern Ireland. They therefore see devolution as a compromise between their separate aspirations.

Tying devolution together Both the Labour Westminster government (1997–2010) and the coalition Conservative–Liberal Democrat government (2010 onwards) have been committed to seeking to keep good relations with the devolved governments. This was at first easier for Labour as it controlled Westminster and also led the governments in Scotland and Wales. By 2010, however, the Westminster government was not of the same political make-up of any of the other devolved governments, with the exception of the Conservative London Mayor, Boris Johnson. David Cameron, the new prime minister, came in with what he called his ‘Respect Agenda’ on consultation and cooperation with the devolved governments. Generally this appeared to work fairly well. There has, however, been much stronger criticism of central government by the devolved administrations than there was when they came from the same party. They have criticised the coalition government over many issues, such as holding the referendum on the Alternative Vote for Westminster on the same day as elections for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, the level and types of cuts to their funding from Westminster, and the very nature of the constitutional settlement. Across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland national political institutions have altered their structures to take account of devolution. In Westminster, some of the select committees and

The Background to Devolution

13

parliamentary question times have been changed so that they no longer concern themselves with the activities of the devolved bodies. Members of Parliament have also had to get used to the fact they can no longer deal with issues, such as health and education, which are under the remit of the assemblies and the Scottish Parliament. The Ministry of Justice has drawn up guidance for all government departments to seek to ensure good relations between the government in Westminster and that of the devolved nations. As well as the once- or twice-yearly meetings between ministers from the devolved executives and the government in Westminster, there are two further key elements that are involved in the working relationship between Westminster and the devolved governments. These are described below. The Memorandum of Understanding. This defines the relationship between the devolved bodies and the Westminster government within a formal, but not legally binding, framework. It deals with matters such as confidentiality, exchange of statistics, European policy and international relations. The original memorandum was drawn up in December 2001 under a Labour government but was revised in June 2011 under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government. There are also concordats between the devolved bodies and Westminster and Whitehall. Though they are not legally binding, they set out the main principles and expectations that lie beneath the relationship between the devolved body and the government department/body in question. Joint Ministerial Committees ( JMC) are meetings of ministers from the devolved governments and Westminster to discuss matters of common interest and to review the way in which devolution is working. Since 2010, the JMC has also had a ‘dispute-solving role’ between the Westminster government and the devolved governments. The JMC doesn’t have any formal power to bind its members and therefore seeks to work through consensus and discussion. The JMC meets in three different formats: JMC (Plenary) – this is an annual meeting between the leaders of each devolved body and Westminster, which is chaired by the prime minister;

14

Devolution in the United Kingdom

JMC (Europe) – there is also a JMC (Europe) meeting, chaired by the foreign secretary, prior to each European Council meeting; JMC (Domestic) – this format was introduced in 2008. It was designed to allow ministers to address issues that they felt were relevant to them all. It meets about three times a year. After the arrival of the coalition government at Westminster in June 2010, a new collective political approach on some issues was taken by the devolved governments. In October 2010, the first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland signed a joint declaration opposing the British government’s approach to the economy. A further declaration on the economy was also issued prior to the JMC meeting of February 2011. This was the first time that first ministers from different political parties and the non-English nations had collectively opposed publically the UK government. The British–Irish Council (BIC) or Council of the Isles. This was established under Strand 3 of the Belfast Agreement 1998 (also known as the Good Friday Agreement). This agreement defined the purpose of the BIC as being: ‘to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of [the British Isles]’. Membership of the BIC consists of representatives of the British and Irish governments, the devolved institutions, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Its main task is to ‘exchange information, discuss, consult and use best endeavours to reach agreement on co-operation on matters of mutual interest within the competence of the relevant administrations’. The council meets for plenary sessions twice a year, a regular programme of sectoral meetings and ad hoc meetings as required. The first meeting of the British–Irish Council took place in London on 17 December 1999, and the council has been meeting regularly ever since. From 2010 the meetings have been chaired by the deputy prime minister. Since 2012 it has also had a permanent secretariat, based in Edinburgh, to serve it. Though it does issue formal statements on areas such as the economy, its most effective role seems to be that of a means of informal communication between Westminster and the devolved governments.

The Background to Devolution

15

British cultural identity and devolution The notion of culture is deemed to be important in the context of devolution because it is at the very backbone of the nation state. In November 2000 the Welsh Assembly’s Post-16 Education Committee affirmed the first definition of cultural identity. It stated that culture consists of all distinctiveness spiritual and material, intellectual and emotional features which characterise a society or a group . . . Culture is about identity, history, diversity, education, traditions, symbols, language, innovation and shared experiences . . . A definition of culture as synonymous with the arts is inadequate and can lead to an exclusive interpretation of culture and create barriers in achieving a creative society for the many as opposed to the few.

British culture, therefore, can be seen in the wider context described above. That other definition of culture, concerning an appreciation of  the arts and associated with those people or organisations connected with art, music, literature, libraries, broadcasting, film, museums and galleries, is a more tangible representation of culture and informs and supports the first. Each government within the United Kingdom has a minister (secretary) who is responsible for supporting this area of ‘culture’ within his or her respective nation.

The development of British culture The Romans referred to the British mainland as a Britannia. After they left the island in ad 410, the terms ‘Britannia’ and ‘Britain’ were seen as of historical importance for more than a millennium. When, upon the death of the heirless Queen Elizabeth I, the Scottish king, James VI, gained the throne of England and Wales in 1603, he was proclaimed ‘King of Great Britain’. With the union of the parliaments of England and Scotland in 1707, the new nation became officially known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. It already had a new flag, the Union flag. The flag had been ordered by the Admiralty in order to end the practice of flying the flags of St Andrew and St George from the mast. To fly two flags also signalled a military engagement and the Admiralty wanted to end this confusion.

16

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Scotland and England each wanted its flag to take precedence and, until Victoria’s reign, each nation flew different versions of the flag, with their respective cross at the front. The Irish were still not in the union but the flag would be adapted for them (to include the cross of St Patrick) when they joined a century later. The Welsh, as a ‘mere principality’, had no part in the new flag. To this day, the flag remains the most potent symbol of British identity but it has become associated with the political Far Right despite attempts by the mainstream parties to ‘claim it back’. From the sixteenth century onwards, the ‘culture and values’ from the British Isles have spread widely as Britain started colonising various places across the world. Many of these ‘culture and values’ have been shaped by Anglican Christian tradition. At the same time, the ruling monarchs from James I onwards were keen to use the ‘glue of Britishness’ to keep their kingdom together. During this early sixteenth- and seventeenth-century colonial period, the ‘culture’ of Britain, as opposed to its constituent nations, was also defined. Surprisingly, these definitions of Britishness came, not from England, but from Scotland. In 1740, for instance, the Scots were so keen to be seen as part of the growing British Empire that the Scottish poet, James Thomson (1700–48), wrote the song Rule, Britannia! The song expressed Britain’s desire to rule the waves, and the notion of a united Britain. Britannia and its form were initially most vigorously encapsulated in Scotland but, later on in the nineteenth century, it was promoted by the English ruling classes seeking to use its image as a counterbalance in international trade to the strength of France. At the same time as this was happening in Scotland, Ireland’s and Wales’s cultural identities and nationalism were developing into their modern-day forms. Britain, it has been argued by the historian Linda Colley, was therefore a multination state that was bound together during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in three main areas: 1. in defence against other nations such as ‘Catholic’ France; 2. the common project of the British Empire; 3. its shared Protestant religious and cultural traditions. Well over a century before the arrival of the European Union, this new United Kingdom of Great Britain had created in the British

The Background to Devolution

17

Isles a borderless free-trade area, run by a single government and with a single currency. The vision of a Great Britain and Empire as a trading block, promoting its own version of the Protestant work ethic across the world, was not always seen by many political theorists, particularly those on the ideological Left, as a benign entity. Marxist theorists saw it as being merely a smokescreen used by operation of capital (business) to pursue the economic objectives of Empire. The peoples of the separate nations across the United Kingdom were caught up in the Marxist notion of ‘false consciousnesses’. This meant that the subjects of these nations were, in fact, the subjects of colonialism but believed themselves (falsely) to be among the colonisers. As part of this ‘false consciousness’, British subjects endorsed the symbols and cultural aspects of Britain and Empire, such as monarchy, music, literature and theatre. They saw that, in the late nineteenth century, this nationalistic British cultural identity was being channelled into the maintenance of a cohesive British imperial cultural identity rather than enabling the development of a cultural distinctiveness for the individual nations that made up the British Empire. The main flaw in the notion of ‘false consciousness’ with respect to culture is that it ignores the possibility of people sharing two or more cultures where they are not in conflict with one another. Thus, many of the population in Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, or in English regions, such as Yorkshire and Cornwall, are happy to share British culture with their own more local cultures provided it does not suppress them. This duality of culture is at the heart of ‘Britishness’. Whether or not the Marxist notion of cultural identity has any true validity, it was evident that, in many areas of cultural life, the various nations within Britain had also absorbed culture and values from each other, from one of the many nations they had colonised, or from the home nations of the various monarchs and their consorts that ruled them. With the end of the British Empire, the nationalism and the cultural identity associated with it, severely weakened British cultural identity, thereby allowing the Celtic fringe and the regions of England to emerge from the shadow of Britannia and develop once more their own cultural identities. This cultural development meant that, as well as their own deep-rooted cultures, each nation within the United Kingdom also developed an

18

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 1.4 What shapes our culture and values? There are many factors that shape our culture and values. The foremost are: education and academia, from nurseries to universities; music, from rock music to folk music; art, from sculpture to oil painting; sport, from rugby to netball; politics and ideology, from village hall to European Parliament and sharing the same monarch; literature, from biography to novel; language, from dialect to non-English mother tongues; the media, particularly institutions like the BBC and the national press; shared history, from opposing the Romans to supporting the European Union; religion, from the Scottish Kirk to the Muslim Council of Britain; heritage tourism, as different nations and regions seek to distinguish their historic monuments, often in a nationalistic context reinforcing the notions of common history or differences across the United Kingdom.

eclectic mix of other nations’ cultures. These cultures are still being shaped today (see Box 1.4). Despite the fact that academics, historians and politicians often find it difficult to agree on what a specific nation’s or region’s culture and values can be defined as, what is generally agreed is that few people outside of England feel any real sense of British identity, feeling instead to be closer to the constituent nationalities they live among! Even within England, however, with the rise of minor political parties, such as the English Democrats, there is an electoral force that supports English nationalism. Polls regularly suggest that, when asked, people feel themselves more often to be ‘More Scottish or Welsh than British’. These nations, in turn, seek to define their own cultures and values. There has, therefore, been much written about what has happened to culture in Britain after the end of ‘Britishness’ (see Box 1.5). In the following chapter we will examine what they believe the old and the new notions of culture to be in devolved Britain.

The Background to Devolution

19

Box 1.5 The end of Britishness? Britishness was shaped from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century values of Empire, war and religion, detailed earlier by Colley. Since the start of the twentieth century, however, Britishness as a cultural identity has been undermined by many events and cultural changes. The academic, Anthony Heath, noted that this was for a number of reasons: 1. the loss of Empire accompanied by a loss of influence as Britain ceased to be a global power; 2. the decline in the role and status of the Protestant religion in daily life; 3. the end of World Wars I and II which both brought the British nation together against a common foe; 4. the post-war economic decline that saw the end of Britain as a major manufacturing nation; 5. the end of British uniqueness in some areas, as parliamentary democracy, civil liberties and welfare states spread across the Western world and then further afield; 6. the rise of English, Welsh and Scottish nationalism which weakened the general sense of Britishness; 7. the move towards further European integration and Britain becoming a European nation with a focus on becoming Europeans; 8. the globalisation of the media with the subsequent dominance of American ‘culture and values’ diluting those of the British; 9. the decline of the role of the monarchy as an institution that binds the nations together, and the patriotism associated with this.

Conclusion The arguments behind political devolution ran hot and cold throughout much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They divided not only political parties from one another but also caused divisions within the parties themselves. Sometimes, this caused parties to split, as it did with the Liberals over Home Rule in Ireland; at other times, it just meant that factions within each party supported different outcomes in any referendums held on this issue. Although political and administrative devolution did occur before

20

Devolution in the United Kingdom

the election of a Labour government in 1997, it was limited to events in Northern Ireland and local government. It was the New Labour government that started a radical process of devolution within the United Kingdom. The evolution of devolution has been continued by the coalition government at Westminster as it seeks to increase the devolved bodies’ tax-raising powers. At the same time, the cultures and values of these nations are also being reshaped. It is this process of continued devolution in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and its subsequent development, which are explored in the following chapters.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

That devolution is both a contemporary and an historical political concept. Administrative devolution covers all British regions; political devolution is limited to the Celtic nations and to London.

•

There are a number of clear democratic and cultural reasons for political devolution.

•

Devolution currently also has a number of potential flaws concerning a lack of effective accountability when things go wrong or being responsible for raising the income that they spend.

•

The events that have led up to political devolution, post-1997, began in the nineteenth century but it was not until 1997 that political devolution finally came to be widespread across the United Kingdom.

•

Devolution continues to evolve with the devolved bodies all gaining greater powers and responsibilities since their foundation.

•

The three main British political parties have traditionally had differing stances on political devolution. The Conservatives opposed devolution; the Labour Party opposed, then supported it to a limited degree; while the Liberal Democrats were the most supportive. Now all three political parties support it.

•

The nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland support independence for their respective nations. Those in Northern Ireland either support joining the Irish Republic or staying within the United Kingdom.

•

Cultures and values form the backbone of political devolution. Identifying cultures and values, however, is not always a straightforward process.

The Background to Devolution

/ ?

21

Glossary of key terms Celtic fringe Those nations within the United Kingdom who are direct descendants of the Celtic tribes of northern Europe and who consider that Gaelic is, to a greater or lesser degree, their native spoken language. Devolution The process of transferring (devolving) power from central government to a lower or regional level. Home Rule The term given to political devolution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Quango An acronym standing for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, also known as non-departmental public body (NDPB). Referendum A vote given to the people on a set question; for example, do they wish to ‘establish a law-making and tax-raising parliament’. If the majority of voters votes ‘yes’; or if the vote exceeds the specified threshold (for example, 40 per cent of the total electorate) then the institution will be established. Respect Agenda The name given by the Westminster coalition government to its relationship and consultation with the devolved governments seriously and at the same time seeking to avoid rifts between the two bodies. Union The name given the ‘union of nations’ that makes up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Westminster The location of the British Houses of Parliament in London, and the generic name often used to refer to the British Parliament or government.

Likely examination questions You may not feel ready to answer these questions fully at this stage in the book but these are some examples of questions that may be asked: Discuss the extent to which the three main political parties have achieved consensus on devolution policy. To what extent is it true to say that devolution will soon lead to the ‘breakup’ of the United Kingdom? Illustrate the key political events that led to the establishment of political devolution under the New Labour government of 1997.

¡

Helpful websites http://devolutionmatters.wordpress.com/ Devolution Matters – a blog posting by Dr Alan Trench that gives regular summaries of and comment on the latest events in devolution across the United Kingdom.

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

http://www.britishirishcouncil.org/ Details on the current and previous work of the British–Irish Council. http://constitution-unit.com/about/ University College London’s Constitution Unit’s devolution programme, which is suitable for most chapters in this book. http://www.lifeintheuktest.gov.uk/ The Home Office’s ‘Britishness Test’ (Life in the UK Test). http://www.devolution.ac.uk/ The Economic and Social Research Council ran a large-scale research project from 2000 to March 2006 on ‘Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme’ which covers all of the areas within this book.

Š

Suggestions for further reading V. Bogdanor, The New British Constitution, Hart Publishing, 2009. L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, Vintage, 1996. J. Curtice and B. Seyd, Has Devolution Worked? The Verdict from Policy Makers and the Public, Manchester University Press, 2009. R. Deacon, Devolution in Britain Today, Manchester University Press, 2006. A. Gamble and T. Wright (eds), Britishness: Perspectives on the British Question (Political Quarterly Special Issues), Wiley Blackwell, 2009. T. Gardiner, The Cultural Roots of British Devolution, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. N. Groom, Union Jack, Atlantic Books, 2006. B. Jones and P. Norton (eds), Politics UK, 7th edition, Pearson Education, 2010. D. Robertson, The Penguin Dictionary of Politics, 2nd edition, Penguin, 1993.

CHAPTER 2

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’ The Case of England Contents The roots of English devolution English cultural identity The embryos of devolved government The emergence of English regionalism? The Labour government and English regionalism Local government and devolution Conclusion

24 24 26 30 32 35 36

Overview In terms of land size, population, economic and political power, England is the largest country within the British Isles. Devolution within the British Isles has therefore been possible only with the will of the English politicians. Yet England itself is not one homogeneous nation. Most towns, cities and county councils have developed their own cultural and geographical identities. At the same time, regional identities have developed, sometimes to the extent that people’s loyalty and identity are more closely associated with their locality’s identity than with that of the English nation state. In this chapter we will examine the development of English devolution. We will also assess the cultural significance of English nationalism.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • • •

The origins of the concept of political devolution in England The extent to which the political parties have adapted to regional devolution in England How perceived cultural values are connected to concepts of ‘Englishness’ The other British nations’ views of English cultural values The origins of modern devolution in England The emergence of English regionalism The evolving attitude to English devolution

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

The roots of English devolution English regionalism was called the ‘dog that didn’t bark’. This meant that, unlike the other movements for political devolution in the British Isles, the movement for devolution in England was deemed to be present but not very vocal. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the creation of a parliament for England or separate parliaments for the English regions was considered as a partial solution to demands for Irish Home Rule. At the Speaker’s Conference in 1920 this ‘Home Rule all round’ was considered but rejected. Viscount Ullswater, the Westminster speaker at the conference, stated that is was felt to be impossible to treat England as one unit because it had a much larger population than the other nations of the United Kingdom. It was also felt that the position of the prime minister of England’s parliament could undermine and challenge the authority of that of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Almost a century later these problems remain the same when considering English devolution. Thus, English devolution remained unresolved, and Lloyd George tackled the demands for Irish Home Rule, referred to as the ‘Irish problem’, separately. He created parliaments in Dublin and Belfast, and, with the disappearance of the Irish problem from British politics, the proposals for further Home Rule would remain off the mainstream political agenda for the next half century.

English cultural identity Of all of the nations that make up the United Kingdom, it is the English who are happiest to see themselves as British. Even here, however, those perceiving an English, as opposed to a British, identity have increased significantly in the last two decades. In 2008 the British Social Attitudes Report indicated that some 39 per cent of those in England felt themselves to be ‘British’, while 47 per cent felt themselves to the ‘English’. When the same question was asked in 1992, 63 per cent felt themselves to be ‘British’ as opposed 31 per cent who felt themselves to be ‘English’. The substantial shift in opinion had taken place only after devolution occurred in Scotland and Wales in 1999. To reflect this change in national identity the

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

25

2011 national census included questions of identity for the first time on a devolved national level rather than simply stating ‘British or Irish’. This will now allow the English to identify themselves in a category other than British. With this new determination of being English officially recognised on the census we must ask the question, what is Englishness? What does it mean to be English? The answers would appear to be both varied and numerous. The former Conservative government minister, Lord Tebbit, once defined the notion of Englishness as being down to which cricket team one supports. Those who supported England were, as a result, ‘English’. This simplistic ‘Cricket Test’ was not widely endorsed. This is not only because the ‘England’ cricket team is actually an ‘England and Wales’ cricket team but also because the test ignores multiculturalism in England. Here, many nationalities are quite happy to integrate into English life in other ways but wish to continue to support the cricketing team of their birth or ethnic origin. They therefore have the same duality of nationality as those who consider themselves to be both English and British. It is therefore not surprising that the English often look enviously upon the Scottish and the Welsh for being able to demonstrate their cultural identities so overtly through flags, national dress, anthems, and patron saints. For the English the most obvious symbol of nationality is the flag of St George. This is a red cross on a white background and has become associated with the English football fan, the far right British National Party (BNP) and the anti-European, right-wing party, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). This has meant that the mainstream political parties have tended to be wary of making overt use of the flag of St George and have been reluctant to embrace English nationalism in most respects. England’s success in sporting events, such as the winning of the 2003 Rugby World Cup and getting to the final in 2007 or the winning of the Ashes (cricket, though this was also technically shared with Wales) in 2009 and 2011, or even the run-up to the 2006 and 2010 football World Cups, have resulted in the widespread benign use of the flag of St George. These are sporting occasions during which politicians were also glad to wrap themselves in the English flag. There are also a number of fringe political parties that now

26

Devolution in the United Kingdom

identify themselves either directly with English or with regional identities. Meibion Kernow (Sons of Cornwall) is perhaps the most successful regional political party. Supporting independence for Cornwall and the strengthening of the Cornish language and cultural identity, it has been able to gain elected members to the county council, and has been in operation for a number of years. On a national scale, the English Democrats Party has built upon the desire for a separate English identity as, through devolution, the Celtic nations have re-established theirs. The party not only campaigns for an English parliament and a national holiday on St George’s Day but also seeks to ensure that English culture remains dominant over the ‘multiculturalism’ that has resulted from immigration (see Box 2.1.). The English Democrats Party, outside of winning the contest for the elected mayor of Doncaster in 2009, have not been that successful electorally. At most British and Welsh general elections, they have achieved well below the 5 per cent level needed to save their electoral deposits. At a local government level, they have failed to gain more than a handful of council seats. Thus it would appear, from the ballot box at least, that English nationalism in its purest political form still does not have the electoral appeal of that in Scotland or Wales. English culture has also been challenged, and to some extent altered, by large-scale post-war immigration. This is true to a much larger extent than is the case in any of the Celtic nations. In some parts of England, such as the city of Leicester or a number of London boroughs, the immigrant population is now larger than the native ‘English’ one. In some cultural areas, such as English cuisine, there has been a remarkable shift towards the new cultures. Chicken tikka masala is now the most popular dish in England, outperforming English culinary traditions such as fish and chips and roast beef. The contradictions of defining English culture mean that the English are not always viewed in the same light by others as they see themselves (see Box 2.2).

The embryos of devolved government The Great Depression of the 1920s led to the Special Areas Act and the first steps towards regional policy. It was administered in

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

27

Box 2.1 How do the English like to view their cultural values? English culture tends (where it is defined) to be: • •

•

• •

•

• •

•

based on Christian heritage and virtues, particularly those associated with the Church of England; based on the landscape and evolution of its countryside: the village green-church-pub image portrayed in literature and in the idealised views of politicians; based on respect for the traditions of England and an avoidance of sudden change. The support for the monarchy, the continuance of the class system and the peculiarities that go with the Houses of Parliament are evidence of these; based on honesty and a respect for the law – ‘an Englishman’s word is his bond’; based on a belief in ‘fair play’, ‘playing the game’, ‘good sportsmanship’ and many other attributes that come from the national summer sport of cricket; based on fairness and tolerance, that other cultures can be tolerated or even shared provided they do not conflict too severely with English culture; the provider of wealth for the less fortunate nations whether these be overseas or within the United Kingdom; the centre of, and trendsetter in, world culture such as music and the arts, from Punk to the miniskirt, and from the composer Edward Elgar to the artist John Constable; built in part from the varying English regions with their more clearly defined cultural values going to create a ‘greater whole’.

a top-down fashion with policy coming from Whitehall and being delivered locally. A comprehensive system of regional government for the United Kingdom, including England, came during World War II. Britain was divided into twelve regions under the direction of regional commissioners of civil defence. At the war’s end, these regions formed the basis of the eleven Treasury standard regions used for the collection of statistical data. Other government departments, however, did not use them and, therefore, the use of these areas remained limited.

28

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 2.2 How are notions of English culture viewed by others? • •

•

• •

•

• •

•

Intolerant of other cultures and values, wishing to remain the dominant player who calls all the shots. Not one nation but a collection of ‘warring tribes’ – those in the north disliking those in the south; those in one county or area disagreeing with, and not trusting, those in another. Jealous of the political devolution occurring throughout the United Kingdom but at the same time not having the self-confidence to establish it for itself. Failing to find its post-imperial values. The English have lost an empire but failed so far to find a new role. ‘Little Englanders’ who are conservative, xenophobic, antiimmigrant and stubborn when dealing with other nations or new things, such as introducing European laws or even embracing the concept of a European Union. Dominated by class – a nation where who your parents are or where you went to school or university counts for more that what you studied and your own personal achievement. Lacking any real examples of cultural identity, with the possible exceptions of morris dancing and the maypole. To be hypocritical in their own demands for the preservation of ‘English culture’, complaining about cultural dilution while frequenting Indian and Chinese restaurants, indulging in salsa dancing, and taking their vacations abroad. Wishing to be English when things are going well but British when things go badly. The city riots of the summer of 2011, for instance, were referred to throughout by the London-based media as being British, despite the fact that they only occurred in English cities.

In the 1960s the Labour government under Harold Wilson set up, under their National Plan, the regional economic planning councils and regional economic planning boards in the English regions. These were nominated bodies composed of local government leaders, local business and trade union representatives, and other people such as academics. They had no resources of their own and their role was limited to advising on planning and economic issues. Margaret Thatcher scrapped them in 1979 and few people seemed to even notice or care about their demise.

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

29

The 1980s was a comparatively barren time for English regionalism and devolutionary politics in Britain generally. The Labour governments of the 1970s had passed devolution acts for Scotland and Wales, and had considered the possible implications for England in a White Paper. The defeat of the devolution proposals in referendums in Scotland and Wales in 1979, however, and the defeat of the Labour government in the same year buried regionalism and devolution in Britain for almost two decades. The Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher were opposed to government intervention in the economy, and this opposition extended to regional policy which declined during the 1980s and 1990s. They also deeply resented the fact that the largest units of local government, the Greater London Council (GLC) and the six English metropolitan authorities, were controlled by the Labour Party and functioned as regional platforms from which to campaign against their own policy agenda. As a result of these clashes, the GLC and the metropolitan counties were abolished in 1986, and the powers of local government were curtailed in a series of measures and parliamentary acts during the Conservatives’ period in office. Increasingly, the government bypassed democratic local government altogether, establishing special centrally controlled and funded bodies to perform important tasks such as the private-sector-led urban development corporations for urban regeneration. From the late 1980s onwards, there was renewed interest in the regional level of government. The European Union’s reforms to its structural funds (financial support to encourage economic development) emphasised the role of partnership and co-operation with local partners in drawing up bids for European funds, and it was argued that Britain, lacking a strong regional tier of government, was at a disadvantage in applying for European structural funds. Local authorities addressed these issues by combining into regional associations to discuss issues of common interest. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Conservative manifesto in 1992 contained a pledge to create integrated regional offices in the English regions, combining the staffs and co-ordinating the work of four government departments – Trade and Industry, Transport, Environment and the Training, Enterprise and Employment Division of the Department of Employment – under one regional director. In 1994 the ten government offices of

30

Devolution in the United Kingdom

the regions or integrated regional offices (IROs) were established, with important functions of allocating the Single Regeneration Budget to local authorities and co-ordinating bids for EU funds and planning issues. To a limited degree, even the devolution-sceptical Conservatives had been persuaded of the practical merits of devolution for the English regions, though this was top-down ‘executive regionalism’ rather than the bottom-up ‘local authority regionalism’ which had been emerging through the growth of regional local authority associations based on a different eight standard regions. The IROs covered the ten regions of South-west, Southeast, London, Eastern, West Midlands, East Midlands, Merseyside, Yorkshire and Humberside, North-west and North-east.

The emergence of English regionalism? For much of the twentieth century the issue of devolution of power to the English regions remained something of a non-issue. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, the issue began to emerge. There was a number of reasons for this, as explained below. Firstly, politicians from all parties and from local and central government have realised that a regional tier has functional advantages. Lobbying the European Union for more funding, for instance, is done more effectively if there are bodies to co-ordinate and represent the interests of local government, business and others at the European Union level. Increasingly, the European Union has come to favour a partnership approach to economic regeneration, and this is facilitated by regional structures where different interests can come together and reach a consensus on issues of common concern. Secondly, other countries that were formerly unitary states, as the United Kingdom was, had previously undergone a process of regionalisation and the formation of regional structures. The record of regional government in other countries shows that it can confer benefits. Countries such as France or Spain, which followed this process, have claimed to have improved policy-making at the regional level by introducing devolved decision-making and have not sought to reverse the changes they have made. Thirdly, during the 1990s, the first stirrings of regional movements in the English regions could be detected. There was some

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

31

disquiet, however, that, though a regional tier of administration had emerged in the English regions since 1979, little of it was democratically accountable. There was pressure building to make these regional quangos more democratically accountable. A Campaign for a Northern Assembly in the north-east of England was established which conducted a ‘constitutional convention’ in that region, a similar body in the north-west and a campaign for a Yorkshire parliament were also started. In Yorkshire the cultural identity was much stronger than in many other areas; already, for instance, there is a Yorkshire Day (1 August). These movements are small but have helped develop a debate on regional government and, initially, had some regional success within the Labour Party. This may be partly because, during its long period in opposition nationally (1979–97), often the only level at which the Labour Party remained successful and able to wield power was in local government, and a localist bias has now permeated some within the Labour Party. Fourthly, some powerful figures within New Labour were personally committed to devolution. Key among these was John Prescott, deputy prime minister. He had become aware of these regionalist feelings among some Labour members and had wanted some measures for the English regions alongside the party’s more ambitious proposals for Scotland and Wales. During the 1970s’ devolution debates, some of the fiercest opponents of Scottish devolution in Westminster came from Labour’s northern English backbenchers. They feared that a Scottish assembly would divert resources away from the north of England. Labour certainly did not want those damaging splits to reoccur after their 1997 election victory, and so the party allowed some devolution for the English regions to creep on to its own political agenda. The final reason that it was believed that the regions wanted more autonomy was the perceived success of administrative devolution in London, Scotland and Wales. The political elites within the regions across England became aware of the benefits of having a cabinet minister ‘right at the heart of government to represent your interests’ (as did Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). The English regions also perceived that, through the Barnett Formula, the Celtic countries had received a greater share of public spending than they could have been getting. The regions were similarly impressed

32

Devolution in the United Kingdom

by the power of the economic quangos that represented these states, such as the former Welsh Development Agency, which became very successful in attracting inward investment. The English regions therefore wanted to share in these benefits. We should also note that the development of regionalism sometimes has the affect of undermining politicians’ attempts to create a wider sense of English identity. What takes precedence, for example, being a Londoner or Yorkshire man/woman or being English?

The Labour government and English regionalism The Labour Party has been regarded as the party of the geographical periphery because of its overwhelming political strength in Scotland and Wales. As such, it was thought to favour the interests of Scotland, Wales and the northern English regions. Historically, however, Labour sought to promote the interests of these regions by interventionist regional policy, not by creating regional parliaments or assemblies. It was committed to fulfilling socialist policies, such as the development of the NHS and the welfare state, on a national rather than regional scale. At the same time, the trade unions, working within the Labour Party, sought to continue with national negotiations concerning pay and conditions for the public sector rather than looking for any regional variations. Regional government would encourage the opportunity for disparities over wages and working conditions to occur within the public sector, and the trade unions were determined to prevent this. During the 1960s and 1970s, Labour governments developed, and then expanded, regional development grants to encourage firms to locate in more depressed regions and create employment in those places. Such regional policy was top down and directed money from the centre to the regions. More locally based strategies were adopted in Wales and Scotland in the 1970s with the creation of the Welsh Development Agency and the Scottish Development Agency in response to challenges by nationalist parties in those countries. In England, Labour’s thinking was less well developed. In opposition, John Prescott had established a Regional Policy Commission which recommended the establishment of a regional development agency (RDA) in every region on the lines of the successful Scottish

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

33

and Welsh Development Agencies. It also suggested that they should be made accountable to the elected regional chamber. The regional chambers would be indirectly elected bodies bringing together regional stakeholders such as local government, business and environmental groups. It was also envisaged that these indirectly elected chambers might, in time, become directly elected regional assemblies. This proposal was enthusiastically adopted by John Prescott, then shadow minister for the environment and became party policy. Jack Straw, as shadow Home Secretary, developed the proposals for regional chambers in the New Labour Party document A Choice for England. The regional chambers would initially be indirectly elected bodies composed of local government and regional business representatives, and possibly drawing in figures from other areas, such as further or higher education. They would be responsible for planning issues, preparing and co-ordinating bids for European regional funds and other economic matters. In office, Labour implemented devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with energy, dedication and persistence. In the shape of the former superministry the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DER), it created for the first time a minister responsible for the English regions. Its approach to the English regions was somewhat more leisurely. After the 1997 General Election there was a lot of discussion about how regionalism would develop within England. Would it have a number of miniassemblies like the assembly planned for Wales? When the Labour government came into power, it decided after only six weeks to legislate for regional development agencies (RDAs) and not regional chambers. By April 1999 the RDAs were established, accountable to government ministers. These brought together the economic ‘stakeholders’ in the region to develop and direct European structural fund bids and other industrial and training policies. They had the status of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) – popularly known as quangos. These NDPBs were answerable only to the Secretary of State and not to local government. Former Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, set a number of tests for the RDAs to move to elected chambers. They would have to petition to become directly elected assemblies. Parliament would have to legislate for this, and the electorate in the region would have to

34

Devolution in the United Kingdom

approve these measures in a referendum. These steps were described as a ‘triple lock’ on English devolution to ensure that unnecessary and unwanted tiers of government could not be imposed on unwilling regional electorates. A fourth hurdle complicated the process of English devolution still further, however. Jack Straw maintained that, before regional chambers could be established, the two-tier system of local government across much of England (counties and district/borough councils) was turned into a system of unitary authorities (single-tier principal councils). This was because, when introducing another new layer of government, the central government wished to get rid of an existing one at the same time so as to not to overwhelm the public with too many layers. As there were only a few areas in England without both county and district councils, this was a very high hurdle to jump, and the unpopularity of further local government reform (not least with local authorities themselves) made this hurdle higher still. Paradoxically, the imposition of a unitary structure of local government in both Scotland and Wales by the antidevolutionist Conservatives enabled a smoother transition to devolution because the political complexities of altering local government structures could be avoided by the Labour government. With all these checks in place, it was clear that, whereas Scottish and Welsh devolution were priorities for a future Labour government (and were among its first legislative acts after May 1997), English regionalism, outside of the capital, was placed firmly down the agenda. While the elected Greater London Authority was established in 2000 the other eight English regions still did not have elected regional chambers. In May 2002, the government unveiled its policy on regional assemblies in the White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice and, in November 2002, the government introduced the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill into Parliament. The bill enabled regional referendums to be held but did not define the powers or functions of regional assemblies, which were defined later. The ministry charged with undertaking English devolution was also going through a series of changes. The Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) was split up in 2001, after the general election, to form the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR). In 2002,

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

35

the DTLR was itself broken up, with the ‘Transport’ part going to form its own Ministry of Transport. The remaining sections were to be brought into the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), John Prescott, and put together with his existing related responsibilities for social exclusion and the regions (including the government offices in the regions). Later on, after a scandal involving an extramarital affair with one from his own civil servants, John Prescott had most of his powers stripped from him and, on 5 May 2006, under Ruth Kelly’s leadership, most of his responsibilities went into the new Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government, eight of the nine RDAs reported to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) under Vince Cable. The exception was the London Development Agency (LDA) which reported directly to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The coalition government, however, was committed to scrapping the RDAs which it saw as being overbureaucratic, wasteful of public expenditure and undemocratic. From March 2012, it replaced them with a series of local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) which were aimed at carrying out the RDAs’ functions at a local government level.

Local government and devolution When the New Labour government established regional development agencies and regional chambers in the English regions, local government was brought on to the executives of these bodies. Unlike the regional economic planning councils of the 1960s, the RDAs had clearer functions and the resources to fulfil them. Yet, at the same time, it was apparent that these bodies would take the functions of local government if they were to evolve into elected regional chambers. In addition, as we stated earlier, for elected regional chambers to come into being, one layer of local government (either county or borough council) would have to be abolished to introduce a single tier of local government. Few local councils looked forward with any eagerness to the possibility of being scrapped. This made the notion of elected regional councils an unpopular option among most local authorities in England. As we noted above, the coalition government has now replaced the RDAs with the much more localised local

36

Devolution in the United Kingdom

enterprise partnerships (LEPs). This policy should bring local authorities directly together with government on a much smaller level than the RDAs (county or bi-county level). The emphasis is on creating local, rather than regional, development strategies and economic growth but the LEPs in the first stage did not cover large sections of England. This meant that they no longer had a body to act on their behalf and faced the possibility of losing out in economic growth.

Conclusion For most of the twentieth century, the idea of political devolution for the regions in England was overshadowed by the devolution occurring elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Then, in 1997, the Labour Party created regional development agencies and regional chambers in the English regions that have revitalised the nature of government in Britain. The establishment of the RDAs was seen by some as the start of a process of English devolution that would eventually match that occurring in the rest of Britain. Others, however, wanted the establishment of the RDAs to be an end in itself. The RDAs were not seen to be effective by the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats and, when they came into power, they were therefore scrapped and were replaced by LEPs. English devolution took a step backwards, therefore, and, while the rest of the United Kingdom was becoming more devolved, England has gone in the opposite direction and become more unitary.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

England is the dominant partner of the nations that make up the United Kingdom but is the weakest in terms of its own devolved governmental development.

•

English devolution has a history stretching back almost a century.

•

English cultural identity is a difficult concept to define; it has also often been associated with racism and far-right political nationalism.

•

English regionalism has been developing over the last fifty years and, to some extent, undermines English culturalism and national identity. This regionalism has become a central plank in Labour’s own devolution policy.

Not Quite ‘Devolution All Round?’

•

/ ?

37

Under the coalition government there has been a drive towards local, rather than regional, governance and economic development in England.

Glossary of key terms Barnett Formula Set up in 1978 in preparation for devolution, it is used to share out public expenditure between the countries of the United Kingdom based on relative population size. The government updates the Barnett Formula annually using mid-year population estimates. Local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) Public–private partnership bodies that are engaged in economic develop at a county(ies)/city(ies) level that replaced the regional development agencies. They are designed to allow local government to work more directly with business. Political elites Those politicians or administrators who are at the heart of the policy-making and/or power process. Speaker’s Conference A conference involving all the parliamentary speakers of the British Empire and Commonwealth, held to discuss matters of international importance.

Likely examination questions Illustrate the extent to which regional devolution in England is being replaced by the concept of decentralised localism. To what extent does English culture define English political identity? In your answer examine the key constituents of English culture.

¡

Helpful websites www.englishdemocrats.org.uk English Democrats Party: a political party that campaigns for an ‘English Parliament and the restoration of English cultural values’. www.englishindependenceparty.com English Independence Party: details publications which examine English culturalism. www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit The Constitution Unit, University College, London produces regular reports on devolution in England. http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/local/ localenterprisepartnerships/ The Department of Local Government and Communities website detailing the role of local enterprise partnerships.

38

Š

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Suggestions for further reading A. Aughey, The Politics of Englishness, Manchester University Press, 2007. A. Aughey and C. Berberich These Englands: A Conversation of National Identity, Manchester University Press, 2011. R. Deacon, Devolution in Britain Today, Manchester University Press, 2006.

CHAPTER 3

English Devolution: ‘London moves forward whilst England falls back’ Contents Introduction The evolution of English devolution The North-east says ‘No’ Westminster and English devolution The governance of London The Livingstone administration Ken Livingstone rejoins Labour Boris Johnson The mayor and the London Authority The evolution of powers to the GLA Conclusion

40 40 42 45 46 48 49 50 51 53 54

Overview The major developments in English devolution took place between 1998 and 2004. It was during this period that the Greater London Authority and London mayor came into existence, as did regional development agencies (RDAs) and the English regional assemblies (RAs). These developments were, in part, aimed at redressing the imbalance caused in the English regions by devolution occurring elsewhere in the UK. English devolution outside of London, however, has since fallen back from the progress it made during this period. This chapter, therefore, examines how English devolution could have helped fill some of the devolutionary gaps occurring across the UK and how, in turn, Westminster has dealt with English devolution or lack of it. The failure of the English regions to gather enough political momentum to gain further autonomy is examined with respect to the failed devolution referendum in the English North-east. The chapter finishes by exploring the most prominent area of English devolution – the Greater London Authority and the personality politics that have surrounded its two mayors, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • •

The arguments for and against English regionalism The role of regional development agencies and regional assemblies The regional referendum on an assembly in the English North-east How Westminster is adapting to English devolution The way in which the London mayoral candidates are selected and elected The development of the Greater London Authority under its mayors, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, and its perceived successes and failures

40

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Introduction We saw in the previous chapter that the practical application of devolution had started to spread throughout England after 1997. Though this was a stated aim of the New Labour government when it came into power in 1997, sceptics believed that English devolution outside of London would be left to ‘wither on the vine’, as it would prove to be too politically contentious to get off the ground. In the event, the Labour government, spurred on by its pro-devolutionary deputy prime minister, John Prescott, used the period towards the end of its second term to test the extent to which the public in England was in the mood for more devolution. While this would prove to be a success in London, elsewhere in England the story was one of devolution never achieving its full potential.

The evolution of English devolution Devolution in England lacked many of the clear-cut certainties of the devolution occurring elsewhere in Britain. When it came into power in 1997, the New Labour government’s establishment of the regional development agencies (RDAs) was seen in policy terms as putting into place the ‘raw building materials out of which some kind of English devolution might be created’. From their inception, however, the agencies were seen as suffering from some major flaws (Box 3.1). In 2000 the British Social Attitudes survey showed that a mere 18 per cent of the population favoured regional devolution for England while 62 per cent wanted the status quo. In some areas, such as Merseyside, the North-west, and Cornwall and the South-west, it was felt that there was greater demand for regional devolution. Therefore, delegates to Labour’s 2001 election national policy forum agreed that the party had to recognise the ‘legitimate aspirations of the English regions’, and belief was expressed in the idea that elected regional assemblies might well be the next step in Labour’s programme of constitutional reform. In May 2002, the White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice, was published and detailed plans for English devolution. The regional chambers were to be slightly enhanced versions of what already existed but with larger budgets and more

English Devolution

41

Box 3.1 The arguments against English regional development agencies • • • •

•

Few people were sure of what they did or even of their existence. Their management structure was seen to be ‘top-heavy and unaccountable’. They failed to get cross-party support, with both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats being committed to their abolition. Their budgets were only 1 or 2 per cent of the budgets of the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly. This was despite the fact that, in a number of English regions, the per capita gross domestic product was far higher than in these nations. They were seen as failing to gain sufficient local government support and of undermining their power.

Their failings were the main reason they were scrapped by the coalition Westminster government. We should note, however, that the RDAs and the regional assemblies (RAs) did provide the regions with the benefits of devolutionary power, such as closer and more realistic economic and government planning and development. This was seen to be more sensitive and focused on the region in question than direction from Whitehall in London. They covered the whole of England which was important in establishing equitable economic development and regeneration, and the even application and implementation of European Union funding. In addition, a 2009 Labour government study entitled Smarter government: Putting the frontline first, examined the RDAs’ operational role and effectiveness. It indicated that they were among the top 25 per cent most efficient of all government departments and larger agencies in terms of financial management, human resources, IT, procurement and office costs. In addition, before they were scrapped, the RDAs pointed to the fact that a comprehensive study by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers had indicated that that, from 2003 to 2008, for each £1 invested by them, the RDAs’ regional economies had been stimulated by a further £4.50. Despite this success, the RDAs had failed to develop any effective regional identity or loyalty to their continued existence.

powers of scrutiny. This disappointed the English pro-devolutionists as these strategic powers and limited budgets were far inferior to their own inspirational role model – the Welsh Assembly. The other key point of the White Paper, however, was that no region would

42

Devolution in the United Kingdom

gain an elected regional chamber unless it was endorsed in a referendum. Under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had established a political level to oversee the RDAs to try to solve some of their problems. The political level was known as the regional chambers, commonly referred to as ‘assemblies’, and came about in 2000 (Box 3.2). In May 2003 the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act was passed which detailed what regional assemblies would do but they were still seen as having a number of drawbacks (Box 3.1). Box 3.2 Responsibilities and problems of the former English regional assemblies The English regional assemblies have been designed to implement regional strategies for: • • • • • • • • • •

sustainable development; economic development; skills and employment; spatial planning; transport; waste; housing; health improvement; culture and tourism; biodiversity.

The North-east says ‘No’ On 4 November 2004, the 1.9 million electors of the North-east voted on whether they wanted to have an elected assembly and, at the same time, what form of single-tier local authority they wished to see for their area. These two questions had been asked as a result of a culmination of the Labour government’s English Regionalism programme. The referendum campaign in the North-east had brought forward two opposing sides. Professor John Tomaney led ‘Yes 4 the North East’ which included the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties and some prominent supporters, such

English Devolution

43

as the president of Newcastle United FC, Sir John Hall, and the sports commentator and former Olympic athlete, Brendan Foster. Though an MP in the neighbouring region, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott became known as the main political spokesman for the Yes camp. In the actual campaign, the Yes camp promoted the message that the vote was all about establishing identity, with slogans such as ‘be proud, vote yes’ and ‘this is your chance, don’t waste it’. The facts that the North-east could enjoy some of the benefits of the devolved nations and that this would bring political decision-making away from London to the North-east were also highlighted. The Yes camp also attempted unsuccessfully to link the official No campaign directly with the Conservatives and the BNP and other right-wing parties which were alien to most traditional Labour voters. ‘The North East Says No’ (NESNO) campaign was under the chairmanship of John Elliott, a former Conservative candidate who enjoyed a lot of business and Conservative Party support. As a result of Elliott’s past links, the No campaign became synonymous with the Conservatives. This was the official group backed by the Electoral Commission. In addition to NESNO there was also another No campaign, the ‘North East No Campaign’ run by Neil Herron and backed mainly by UKIP. Both No campaign groups constantly argued with each other but this did not have an impact on their overall message. The message was that a new assembly would be a waste of money. To this effect they produced a slogan ‘politicians talk, we pay’ which turned out to catch the public’s mood in the North-east. Though, initially, polls had indicated that the Yes campaign would win, as the campaign advanced, the numbers who said they were certain to vote, and would vote No, exceeded considerably those who would be voting Yes. The postal vote, over a period of weeks, as opposed to the traditional ballot-box voting on just one day, also meant that few voters left their vote to near the actual polling day and therefore could not be persuaded by the developing arguments of either side. On 4 November, when the results came in, some 77.9 per cent voted No and just 22.1 per cent voted Yes, on a turnout of almost 50 per cent. Every council area in the North-east voted No by more than two to one. In the period after the North-east referendum, the Labour Party

44

Devolution in the United Kingdom

persisted with its commitment to RDAs and to regional chambers. This was partly because the party thought that the existing structures would be too difficult to remove. The Conservatives wished to scrap the RDAs and regional chambers, and the Liberal Democrats wanted to streamline them into agencies run solely by local councillors. It was the Labour Party, however, which won the May 2005 General Election and, therefore, it was their manifesto commitment to continue to develop the RDAs with further powers on planning, housing development and English devolution. The failed referendum had also produced some important lessons about the future of English devolution (see Box 3.3).

Box 3.3 The lessons learnt from the North-east referendum for pro-English devolutionists In March 2005 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Parliamentary Select Committee published the results of its investigations into the withdrawn, draft Regional Assemblies’ Bill. There were lessons to be learnt for English pro-devolutionists. They were that: • • •

•

• •

any future assemblies should be given ‘real’ powers if and when on the political agenda; any future legislation to set up elected regional assemblies in England needs to be more ambitious than the draft bill; the scope of the powers and responsibilities which the government was prepared to give assemblies was disappointing and would limit their effectiveness; any further initiative to promote assemblies must be backed, and commitments made, by all government departments, not just the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM); the role of local government, once an assembly was up and running in a region, had to be clarified; a clearer case is needed for elected regional assemblies in terms of value for money for the electorate.

The failure of the North-east referendum ended the mainstream political demands for regional governance in England. In future, policy within the main political parties concentrated on stronger local autonomy either through elected mayors or local enterprise partnerships.

English Devolution

45

Westminster and English devolution In 1998 the House of Commons Procedure Committee began an enquiry into the Procedural Consequences of Devolution with respect to England. When it reported back in July 1999, it set Westminster two questions to answer. 1. What legislation would continue to be debated at Westminster and what new procedures should there be for its scrutiny? 2. What would be the role of the territorial select and grand committees? In a number of the devolved areas, Westminster had already become a de facto English parliament. At the beginning of 2001 a survey conducted by the University College, London Constitution Unit showed that four select committees had already established an exclusively English membership. These were the committees dealing with the devolved matters of education, employment, health and home affairs. The second question was also important for Westminster because, even before devolution, Scotland and Wales, whose affairs were dealt with by the Scottish and Welsh Offices respectively, had had their own select, standing and grand committees to consider all legislation for those territories. The Procedure Committee decided that it would be unfair to retain the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Grand Committees if there were not some similar arrangement for English MPs, although England had over 500 members which made it totally impractical to have an English Grand Committee. Therefore, Westminster went back into its past and resurrected the defunct Standing Committee on Regional Affairs which looked at the English regions and which operated between 1975 and 1978, containing only eleven MPs. The committee first met on 10 May 2001 but only really examined issues relating to the north of England and, consequently, it was regarded by most observers as something of a ‘damp squib’ as far as wider English devolution was concerned. After 2003 the Regional Affairs Committee never met again. In June 2007 the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced plans to appoint nine regional ministers to cover the areas of the RDAs. Then, in October of the same year, Westminster’s Modernisation Select Committee started examining ‘Regional

46

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Accountability’ and, in July 2008, recommended the establishment of regional select and regional grand committees for all of the regions outside of London. The government accepted these proposals and drew up lists of its own MPs to be members of these committees. It also set up a London Regional Select Committee. None of the committees ever sat, however. The Opposition refused to put up members for the committees and, when the coalition government gained power in June 2010, one of its first acts was to scrap the regional select committees, followed shortly afterwards by the scrapping of regional development agencies. The coalition wished now to focus power in England at a local government or national level, rather than at that of the region. As part of its policy agenda, the coalition government moved from a devolution to a decentralisation policy. It also described this policy as ‘localism’. This meant transferring English regional powers to local government and ending a number of administrative procedures and scrutiny activities local government had to go through. A new post of Minister for Decentralisation was established in June 2010 which was later was combined with responsibility for ‘the Cities’. This post was contained both within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Communities and Local Government. It was this Minister for Decentralisation and Cities who saw through the coalition government’s Localism Bill that ended regional strategies and the RDAs and replaced them by transferring powers to both the Greater London Authority and local government across England. With the SNP’s move towards holding an independence referendum, however, events in Scotland mean that Westminster politicians have once again been forced to look at the English question.

The governance of London While it became apparent by 2004 that the English regions did not want regional government, the national capital, London, had already decided to take this route. By doing so, London had already demonstrated that it had perhaps the strongest sense of regional identity of all the regional areas in England established by the government. This was greatly aided by London’s population size and historical roots

English Devolution

47

that go back to the first century ad. It was then that it was established as a Roman town. Since then, this ‘town’ has expanded into a city of some 7.8 million (2010) with a strong sense of its own multicultural identity. Many of the inhabitants of this cosmopolitan city also readily identify themselves as Londoners, adding to this sense of regional identity. The events leading to the establishment of the Greater London Authority (GLA) began when the Greater London Council (GLC) was abolished by the Thatcher government in 1986. When that happened, it meant that London became the only major city in the developed world not to have some form of city-wide government. Instead, there was a confused system of public and private bodies that took over the duties of the old GLC. As the situation became more confused, politicians of all parties sought to bring back some form of city government. When John Major’s Conservative government introduced their nine government offices (GOs) in 1994, one of these was the Government Office for London (GOL). Members of the Major administration, most notably Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, then became enthused with the idea of a directly elected mayor for London, on the grounds that most major cities, such as Paris and New York, had one. The idea of an elected mayor also became popular within the Labour Party, as was the idea of a return of the GLC. Just a short while after winning the 1997 General Election, the New Labour government produced New Leadership for London, in July. This Green Paper suggested that there should be a directly elected mayor and an elected London authority. In October 1997 the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill was introduced to Parliament to allow the population of London to decide on whether or not they wanted an elected mayor and authority. The 7 May 1998 referendum result appeared to be a resounding endorsement of the government’s proposals, 72 per cent voting in favour and only 28 per cent against. The turnout of only 34.6 per cent of the electorate meant that only 23 per cent of Londoners had voted for the GLA which gave it a somewhat limited electoral mandate. Despite the size of the mandate, the Greater London Authority Act of 1999 received the royal assent on 11 November 1999, and led to the mayoral and authority elections of

48

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Table 3.1 London Authority election results, 2000–12 2000 Party

2004

2008

2012

Constit List Constit List Constit List Constit List

Labour

6

3

5

2

6

2

8

4

Conservative

8

1

9

0

8

3

6

3

Liberal Democrats

0

4

0

5

0

3

0

2

Green

0

3

0

2

0

2

0

2

UKIP*

0

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

BNP**

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

* The UKIP Authority Members defected to the UKIP breakaway party Vertis; they later left that to form a new party entitled ‘One London’ ** British National Party

5 May 2000. In these, Ken Livingstone, formerly a Labour MP who had been expelled from the party when he stood against the official Labour candidate, won by a considerable majority in an electoral system known as the Supplementary Vote (SV) system. In elections for the London Authority a different electoral system was used from the mayoral one. This was the Additional Member System (AMS) based on fourteen London constituencies and eleven London-wide seats. In no election to the London Authority has one party managed to gain a majority (Table 3.1).

The Livingstone administration After May 2000, the governance of London was dominated by the personality politics that surrounded the new mayor, Ken Livingstone. The battle with central government over who controlled the London Underground, the congestion charge, the London bombings, and the worldwide contest to gain the 2012 Olympics dominated newspaper headlines in Britain and further afield. Despite the fact that, on occasions, the GLA’s chair and the wider GLA itself have tried to exert

English Devolution

49

their power, it is the mayor who has come to symbolise, in many ways, the people of London. Initially, Ken Livingstone took the middle ground as a politician. To the surprise of his many critics, he concentrated on law and order and supported the principle of ‘zero tolerance’ on criminal activity. By using his mayoral power to raise the council tax for specific purposes, he increased the size of the Metropolitan Police by 1,050 officers. It was therefore through policing and public transport that Livingstone sought to define his first period in office. It was the congestion charge that was to be Livingstone’s most controversial policy during his first period as mayor yet, despite fierce initial protest, it became a success that was studied throughout the world. While politically, Livingstone could be shrewd on some occasions, such as in setting the price on the congestion charge well before the next mayoral election, on others he caused a great deal of negative publicity.

Ken Livingstone rejoins Labour In September 2002 Ken Livingstone applied to be readmitted to the Labour Party but his application was rejected. Despite the fact that many at the top of the Labour Party did not want Ken Livingstone back in the party, in January 2004 the Labour Party National Executive Committee met and interviewed Livingstone and then allowed him back. The problem that there already was an existing Labour mayoral candidate, Nicky Gavron, was dealt with by offering her her previous position as deputy mayor, in the post-election authority. In the 2004 mayoral election, turnout was slightly up on that of 2000, to 36.95 per cent, with almost 2 million people voting. Once again, Livingstone was the winner, albeit now back in the Labour Party. As well as the July 2005 terrorist bombings, Livingstone’s second period in office was dominated by issues relating to public transport in London: the introduction of the Oyster smartcard ticketing system for London Transport; the continuation of the congestion charge, introduced in his first administration; and the modernisation of the tube network. Despite rejoining the Labour Party, Livingstone continued to court controversy by association with, and support

50

Devolution in the United Kingdom

for, the anti-Iraq War protests, and his closeness to pro-Arab causes and left-wing world leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. He signed a deal with Chávez to supply cheap oil for London’s buses. Consequently Livingstone continued to be regarded as something of a maverick by his own party and an ‘over-powerful Socialist radical’ by many of his political opponents. On 1 May 2008, Ken Livingstone lost the mayoral election to the Conservative Boris Johnson on the counting of the second preference votes. Johnson gained 53.17 per cent of the vote against Livingstone’s 46.73 per cent. Some four years later there was another contest between Livingstone and Johnson. This time, against the background of an unpopular coalition government, Livingstone increased his share of the vote to 48.47 per cent. This was, however, still not enough to defeat Johnson on 51.53 per cent and therefore Johnson, just like Livingstone before him, had become a two-term mayor.

Boris Johnson Ken Livingstone had been born to working-class parents and attended Tulse Hill Comprehensive School before leaving to become a laboratory technician at the age of sixteen. The background of his Conservative successor as London mayor, Boris Johnson, was almost the exact opposite of Livingstone’s. Johnson was educated at Eton College and then Balliol College, Oxford, giving him the educational background of the traditional British Conservative elite. A direct descendant of British and European royalty, Johnson had a career as a journalist before becoming the Conservative MP for Henley-onThames in 2001. Like Livingstone, Johnson is a controversial political character well known for his political gaffes and colourful private life. He also enjoyed a high media profile with frequent appearances on television shows such as Have I Got News for You and Room 101. His personality, however, is well suited for that of the mayoral elections, as, like Livingstone before him, he also has the ability to present a serious and studious side to running the governance of London. Johnson had been backed by the Conservative leader, David Cameron, with the caveat that ‘I don’t always agree with him, but I respect the fact that he’s absolutely his own man’. Johnson’s period in office has been most significant for gaining the Olympic 2012

English Devolution

51

games for London. Other issues, such as a ban on alcohol use on public transport and the introduction of the Forensic Audit Panel (run by members with Conservative membership links), to investigate the financial management of the GLA were the more controversial initiatives of Johnson’s administration. Issues of law and order were also significant in Johnson’s term in office. In October 2008 he was instrumental in forcing the resignation of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Ian Blair; a year later he intervened in a mugging and chased the muggers away. He was also the mayor during the 2011 London riots which, once again, raised issues into the way the capital is policed.

The mayor and the London Authority The London mayor was Britain’s first ever directly elected executive politician. Politicians before this had been elected solely to represent a constituency, as opposed to a particular executive post in governance. This provided the mayor with a powerful electoral mandate, in many ways more powerful even than that of the prime minister who is elected only as an MP. The mayor is held accountable by a number of devices, including the monthly report he must make to the GLA and a monthly question-time session in the authority. Once a year, the mayor must present to the authority a progress report which is then published as a ‘State of London’ address and debated by the authority. Twice a year, in association with the authority, the mayor speaks directly to Londoners in a ‘People’s Question Time’. From 2002 onwards, the chair of the Greater London Authority has also taken part in these sessions. The mayor also has the task of drawing up a budget that is presented to the authority before the end of February each year. The GLA has tax-raising powers of its own (precept on the council tax) and it has access to the council tax precept which raised almost a billion pounds in 2011–12. When he came to power in 2008, Boris Johnson committed himself to not raising the GLA precept. He consequently froze the precept at the 2008 level between then and 2012. In one way, the precept makes the GLA’s revenue-raising powers more fiscally autonomous than those of the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies which currently have no tax-raising powers. The

52

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 3.4 The Greater London Authority (Assembly) The GLA constituted in the Greater London Authority Act of 1999 and revised under a further Act of 2007 consists of: The mayor, directly elected by supplementary ballot. His duties are to: • propose policy; • prepare a budget; • make appointments to the GLA agencies; • speak for London; • appoint his/her own cabinet; • appoint mayor commissions which examine a particular area such as housing or health, independently from the authority’s scrutiny committees; • make mayoral strategies, statutory (in areas such as health, climate change, water quality, housing, learning and skills, air quality, culture, transport, development schemes and waste management) and non-statutory (in areas such as arts and sports, children and childcare, energy, drugs and alcohol); • set budgets for the Metropolitan Police, which can be vetoed by the Home Secretary, and can also express opinion on operational police matters; • the mayor has powers over consideration of strategically important planning applications. The authority, twenty-five members elected by the additional member system: • fourteen members are constituency members, elected by simple majority; • eleven members are ‘top-up’ members, chosen from Londonwide party lists (Table 3.1). GLA agencies, known as the ‘functional bodies’, the executive powers of the GLA are held within these five bodies: • Transport for London (TfL); • London (economic) Development Agency (LDA); • Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA); • London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA); • London Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The GLA, however, does not have the power to require the functional bodies to consider any of its reports or recommendations. This power resides with the mayor.

English Devolution

53

authority can approve a budget by a simple majority but any amendment requires a two-thirds majority. Around three-quarters of this goes on funding the Metropolitan Police. The authority also elects a chair and deputy chair who have the power to take over many mayoral functions in the mayor’s absence. The authority is regarded by some as a ‘toothless talking shop’. Its only real power is to reject the mayor’s budget but, in a system of governance that is built on partnership, this issue hasn’t really arisen. In addition, it has limited power over London’s thirty-two borough councils and over the City of London regarding their decision-making, even when their powers overlap. With no substantial or legislative powers, the authority has had to build up its scrutiny remit of the mayor’s activities based on committees (see Box 3.5). Box 3.5 Role and powers of the Greater London Authority The GLA has nine committees involved in scrutiny and policy creation: • Budget; • Commission on London Governance; • Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism; • Elections Review; • Environment; • Health and Public Services; • Planning and Spatial Development; • Transport; • Standards.

The evolution of powers to the GLA Under the original legislation, the mayor did not need not take on board any committee recommendations and was also able to set up his own mayoral commissions if he wished to enquire into any particular issue. The 2007 Greater London Act, however, gave the GLA the power to hold confirmation hearings and also required that the mayor had to have regard to the authority’s responses to his draft proposals. By a two-thirds majority, the authority also has the power

54

Devolution in the United Kingdom

to amend the mayor’s budget but this power has never been used. Despite requests by the London authority members to have a powerful role in holding the mayor to account prior to the 2007 GLA Act, the situation remains one of a weak GLA and a strong mayor. In a number of ways the GLA members even lack the statutory powers of English local authority councillors to hold the executive and other public bodies to account, much to its members’ frustrations. In 2011 the Localism Act also transferred the powers of the soon-to-beabolished London Development Agency to the GLA with respect of developing new housing and regeneration. Like the other devolved bodies, the GLA was now evolving new powers.

Conclusion Between the policies of both the Labour and the coalition governments there has been a decrease in English devolution over the last decade. They scrapped the existing regional devolution in England in the form of the regional chambers (assemblies) and RDAs. While in office, the Labour Party came down firmly against establishing a parliament for England. The coalition government similarly is against establishing an English parliament yet, at the same time, it is acutely aware of the political problems caused between England and the other devolved nations. As we shall see in the next chapter, what has been described as ‘The West Lothian Question’, concerning the voting rights of Scottish MPs over devolved matters in England, has lead the coalition government to establish a commission to see how this may be resolved. Devolution at a regional level within England, however, does operate to a limited degree in London. There, though the personality politics of Livingstone and Johnson and the weak powers of the GLA over the mayor are not to everyone’s taste, the system is seen to be representative of the capital. Like the devolved institutions outside of England, the GLA has also evolved to take on more powers and responsibilities. The other regions of England, which were initially believed to have wanted greater autonomy from London and to have their own regionally elected assemblies, do not have this desire in sufficient numbers within their own populations. There are two main reasons why the English regions do not want devolution. Firstly,

English Devolution

55

they do not have the cultural and historical cohesion of London. Secondly, there is a widespread antipathy towards creating ‘more’ politicians in any layer of government. Outside London, therefore, there remains something of a democratic deficit throughout the English devolutionary system.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

That English devolution outside of London failed to become established and has now been scrapped in favour of enhancing co-operation with local government.

•

Initially there was believed to be widespread public support for devolution in England but, when this was put to the test in the referendum in the North-east, the opposite was found to be the case.

•

The Greater London Authority and London mayor are seen as examples of effective regional devolution in England.

•

The personality politics which surround London mayors, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, have meant that the GLA and the mayorship have become closely associated with the actions of just one person. The GLA itself also often feels unable effectively to hold the mayor to account.

/

Glossary of key terms Greater London Authority (Assembly) The name given to the body of twenty-five politicians elected under the Additional Member System, and the Mayor of London elected under the Supplementary Vote, that control and implement strategic areas of London’s governance. Localism The coalition government’s policy of moving power and responsibility for governance and community services from central to local government. It replaced the Labour government’s policy of regional devolution for England Regional assemblies (RAs) The executive bodies that monitored the running of the RDAs. They included nominated politicians, business persons and community leaders. They were not directly elected and were scrapped by the Labour government. Regional development agencies (RDAs) The administrative bodies that dealt with devolved government in the English regions. They were scrapped by the coalition government in 2012. Royal assent The process by which the Queen formally approves a legislative act to make it a law. This is normally a mere formality with no

56

Devolution in the United Kingdom

British monarch questioning the need to sign an act into law since George V took legal advice on the 1914 Government of Ireland Bill. Supplementary Vote (SV) system All voters are given a first and second preference when they vote. If no candidate gains 50 per cent of the vote on the first preference then the second preferences are counted and the candidate with the highest number of combined votes wins.

?

Likely examination questions In the light of political devolution of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Houses of Parliament are now sometimes described as being the ‘English Parliament’. To what extent is this remark valid? To what extent have the mayoral terms of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson acted as a model for further English devolution?

¡

Helpful websites http://www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/ The Department for Communities and Local Government is the government department responsible for English devolution/decentralisation. http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/authority The Greater London Authority and London mayor’s official website. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/ The Constitution Unit, University College, London produces regular reports on devolution in England.

Š

Suggestions for further reading A. Green, The Life of a London Mayor – The Boris Johnson Story – A Biography, Kindle Addition, 2010. R. Hazell, The English Question, Manchester University Press, 2006. IPPR, Future of England Report, London, 2012. B. Johnson, Johnson’s Life of London: The People Who Made the City that Made the World, HarperPress, 2011. K. Livingstone, You Can’t Say That: Memoirs, Faber and Faber, 2011. T. Travers, The Politics of London: Governing an Ungovernable City, Routledge, 2004.

CHAPTER 4

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution Contents Scottish political history: 1707 onwards Growing pressure The Labour Party and Scottish devolution Scotland’s first chance for devolution: 1979 The 1980s: devolution remains on the agenda The Scottish Constitutional Convention Yes or No: the campaigns for and against devolution in Scotland The Yes campaigns The No campaigns The push for devolution: ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’? Devolution arrives: 1997 Devolution at last!

58 59 61 63 65 66 67 68 68 70 71 71

Overview Before any assessment of the current state of play within Scottish politics can take place, some background to the events leading up to the arrival of devolution within Scotland needs to be noted. Starting with the Act of Union in 1707, this chapter explores some of the developing themes within Scottish politics and then focuses upon the devolution referendums of 1979 and 1997. This will supply the required setting for explorations of the contemporary political scene in Scotland that will be looked at in Chapters 5 and 6. Having already assessed developments within England, we now move on to look at the case of Scotland within the governance of Britain as a whole, and the politics of Scottish devolution in particular.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • •

General political history of Scotland The demands for Scottish home rule Scotland’s devolution referendums: 1979 and 1997 The ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns The Scottish Constitutional Convention Devolution at last!

58

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Scottish political history: 1707 onwards In historical terms, Scotland has always had an uneasy association with England, its sometime friend, sometime foe, south of the border. Apart from the Jacobite rebellions, the constitutional settlement and relationship between England and Scotland settled to some extent in the early eighteenth century when, in 1707, Scotland was incorporated into the Act of Union with England and Wales. This Act of Union brought to an end the separate parliamentary systems that had been in existence in England and Scotland. The act led to the creation of a single parliament, based in London, that would cover the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, Scotland did maintain its separate identity through the continuation, in part or in full, of its legal, clerical, financial, and educational institutions. While some politicians in London thought that Scotland would gradually assimilate itself into England, the fact that Scotland retained some of its pre-1707 administrative functions probably helped it to maintain its unique national identity at a time when some advocates of the Union began referring to Scotland as ‘North Britain’. It is fair to claim, therefore, that, despite efforts to downplay it, a separate civic tradition of ‘Scottishness’ was much in evidence at this time. Despite the occasional eruption of nationalistic sentiment since then, the relationship between the old adversaries has been fairly peaceful overall, and has ensured the existence of a general degree of political and social stability. As tensions mounted throughout the United Kingdom in the late nineteenth century, however, with a call for self-government from many people within the Celtic fringe, most notably in Ireland (though Scotland did have a small ‘home rule’ movement), the Scottish Office was established in 1885, with a secretary for Scotland, to supervise the administration of everyday life in Scotland. Prior to this, the Home Secretary had been the person responsible for overseeing Scottish affairs at Westminster. The task of the Scottish Office was to assume responsibility within Scotland for certain aspects of social policy. As the powers and tasks of the Scottish Office accrued over time, it branched out to include such areas as health, employment, agriculture, fisheries, and farming. Despite the deliberate tactic of Westminster not to overplay this development within Scottish governance, this restructuring of the

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution

59

political landscape amounted to the recognition that Scotland had a particular agenda in relation to these matters, and some specific, though limited, policy development within these fields was allowed by the British government. Added to this, the introduction, in 1907, of a separate Scottish Grand Committee at Westminster, Scottish ‘overrepresentation’, in terms of the number of MPs Scotland elected to the House of Commons in relation to the English ration of seats since 1922, and, since 1926, a seat for the Scottish Secretary of State in the cabinet, could be portrayed as attempts by the British government to make the Scottish people feel that issues of concern to them were being taken seriously and to dampen any developing Scottish claims to independence. Devolution, if not independence, had been raised as an option for Scotland and for Wales at various times in the late nineteenth century and around the time of World War I but this was mainly in connection with the implications of far-reaching constitutional change in Ireland. In 1924, George Buchanan, MP for the Glasgow Gorbals constituency, attempted to promote a Scottish Home Rule Bill at Westminster. It was swiftly dismissed as it was felt by Unionist politicians that any further change in the UK’s political set-up at the time, in the wake of Ireland’s departure, would undoubtedly have placed unbearable pressure on the unitary nature of Britain’s constitution.

Growing pressure The acknowledgement by Westminster that Scotland was a distinct geographical, if not fully political, entity did not, however, succeed in diminishing the enthusiasm of those seeking independence. The founding of the Scottish National Party in 1934 – during an era when the Scottish economy was being ravaged by the depression of the interwar years – helped further to propel these arguments on to the main stage of Scottish and British politics. Moreover, symbolic gestures, such as the removal by a group of nationalists of the ancient Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in 1950 (the stone on which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned), ensured that the issue of self-government did not fade from view. While public spending in Scotland reached an all-time high in the post-war period

60

Devolution in the United Kingdom

– according to official statistics some 20 per cent higher per capita than in England – there was still a noticeable level of resentment in Scotland to the British political institutions. This was highlighted by the collection of two million signatures by the Scottish National Convention – formed in the 1920s and consisting mostly of MPs and local authority representatives – supporting the idea of devolved government. The petition was presented to the Conservative government in 1952 but to no avail. Just prior to the petition’s presentation, the Conservatives had set up a Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs and granted the Scottish Office an extra junior minister. Despite these moves, however, the Conservatives, being the most Unionist of all the Westminster-based parties, had little time for those people who called for Scottish home rule to be introduced. The Conservatives even went by the name of Unionists in Scotland until 1965 when they adopted the name of Conservative and Unionists (this is a name they still retain but are commonly known as the Scottish Conservatives). By the 1960s there were signs of political unrest across Scotland as some English and foreign-owned companies started to lay off workers because of a downturn in the economy. Resentment across Scotland was also aroused as the British government chose to locate the Polaris submarine base on the Clyde despite a wave of local and national opposition. On the back of these events came the ‘breakthrough’ election victory of the SNP’s Winifred Ewing at the Hamilton by-election of November 1967 which ensured that the topic of Scottish independence, or at the very least Scottish devolution, remained high on the political agenda. The effect of the rise in nationalist sentiment at this time is exemplified by the fact that, by 1968, even the Conservative Party, conscious of the unfolding mood of the Scottish people and keen to remove the potential sting of the SNP, proposed the establishment of a Scottish assembly. Edward Heath, Conservative Party leader and prime minister from 1970 to 1974, stated during his speech to the Scottish Conservatives’ annual conference at Perth his intention to set up the assembly. Though Heath, when in power, was to renege on his promise, the official Conservative line was to commit to the idea of an assembly subject to the findings of the Kilbrandon Royal Commission on the Constitution. This had been established by Labour prime minister,

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution

61

Harold Wilson, in 1969, and it eventually reported in 1973. Nothing was done upon the commission’s conclusion, however, and, upon her installation as the new Conservative leader in 1975, Margaret Thatcher swiftly adopted a hostile stance to any talk of diminishing the role of Westminster. Added to all of the above, the discovery of oil and gas in Scottish waters, and the subsequent expansion of the allied industries that saw Aberdeen and its hinterland experiencing an economic boom, enabled those advocating the break-up of the present constitutional arrangements to point to the fact that an autonomous Scotland would have no difficulty in paying its way in the modern world. This would be the message emanating from the ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ campaign in the 1970s which argued for profits from the oil bonanza to be redistributed within Scotland itself.

The Labour Party and Scottish devolution The Labour Party had traditionally been seen as being in favour of centralised political authority, with Westminster as the location for that authority. The rise of nationalism, and support for nationalist parties in Scotland and in Wales, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, forced the Labour Party into rethinking its position on the devolution of power. By September 1974, the government had published a White Paper entitled Democracy and Devolution: Proposals for Scotland and Wales. The White Paper envisaged a Scottish assembly with limited legislative powers. The new Scottish institution would be elected by the traditional first-past-the-post system and it would be funded by an annual block grant from the Exchequer in Downing Street. Labour took up the cause of devolution as a manifesto pledge and doggedly stuck with it up to the 1979 referendums in Scotland and Wales. Internal disputes within the Labour Party, however, meant that the case for devolution was never convincingly made. Nevertheless, it is not unfair to say that Labour’s leadership supported devolution in an attempt to quench the rising flames of Scottish nationalism. What was more divisive for the party was the fact that the Scottish Labour Party itself was not convinced about the proposals for devolution. The proposals for Scottish devolution proved problematic for some members who were keen on devolution because Labour’s plan was

62

Devolution in the United Kingdom

that Parliament would retain the right to legislate on any matter devolved to the assembly, and the Secretary of State for Scotland would remain to advise Parliament on how to respond to Scottish assembly decisions. Hence, there was initially some confusion as to what tasks the assembly would undertake, and then there was a certain degree of disappointment that the proposals did not offer Scotland greater powers to make its own laws and policies. After the rejection of the Scotland and Wales Act in 1977, a separate Scotland Act was eventually granted royal assent on 31 July 1978. The constitutional problems were threefold. First, devolution was very limited, arousing little general public enthusiasm. Second, there were to be different schemes for Scotland, Wales, and England, which raised the problem of variable treatment, symbolised in the ‘West Lothian Question’. This emerged because Tam Dalyell, the antidevolution MP for West Lothian, questioned the logic that he could come down to Westminster, following the creation of a Scottish assembly, and continue to vote on legislation for England on issues which, in Scotland, would have been transferred to the Scottish assembly, and over which English MPs would have no say. Dalyell argued that this was not constitutionally fair and he, accompanied by a group of English Labour MPs, mostly from the north of the country, set about trying to defeat the legislation. The name ‘West Lothian question’ was then coined by the Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell in his response to Dalyell’s speech in the House of Commons that raised this issue. As we saw in Chapter 3 the ‘West Lothian Question’ still remains an issue in respect of the lack of comparable devolution in England. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) did an extensive report on the West Lothian Question in 2012. As part of this report they listed opinion polling undertaken in England on this issue. It indicated that the majority of people in England have for over a decade wished to see Scottish MPs excluded from voting on England-only laws. Finally, we should note that the Scotland Act 1978 also contained some ambiguous legal language that could have created a recipe for future political conflict between the seats of power in London and Edinburgh. Though this didn’t occur over issues of domestic policy, there were later strong tensions between the SNP Scottish govern-

63

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution

Table 4.1 The West Lothian Question. Polling answers to the question: Now that Scotland has its own parliament, Scottish MPs should not be allowed to vote in the House of Commons on laws that affect only England, 2000–11 (%) 2000

2001

2003

2007

2011

Strongly agree

18

19

22

25

53

Agree

45

38

38

36

26

Neither agree nor disagree

19

18

18

17

N/A

Disagree

8

12

10

9

8

Strongly disagree

1

2

1

1

4

Sources: IPPR, 2012, Future of England Report (it should be noted that this report excludes ‘Don’t Know’ responses)

ment and the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government in Westminster. This was over the independence referendum for Scotland and how it was being developed under the latter Scotland Act 1998.

Scotland’s first chance for devolution: 1979 The year 1979 saw devolution referendums in Scotland and in Wales to establish whether the Labour government’s devolution proposals should be put into practice. On 1 March 1979 the Scottish people voted by a small majority in favour of devolution. Some 51.6 per cent had voted ‘Yes’ but this was only 32.8 per cent of the total electorate. A figure of 40 per cent of the total electorate voting had been set as a requirement before the proposals could be put into practice. This figure had been settled on through what became known as the ‘Cunningham Amendment’. The name derives from its instigator, George Cunningham, a Scot who was Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, and who wanted to scupper the devolution proposals, believing that demanding a high level of electoral participation would put immense pressure on those advocating devolution

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 4.1 Why devolution? What was wrong with the Scottish Office? The problems with the role of Westminster and Whitehall in the government of Scotland were: 1. the people of Scotland saw the Scottish Office as a Londonbased department that was often thought of as being too far removed from everyday life in Scotland; 2. as Westminster and Whitehall had to administer British affairs, some people in Scotland said that Scottish matters were not being discussed enough in the Houses of Parliament; 3. the Scottish Office was seen by many to be ineffective during times when Scotland was suffering from high unemployment and economic crisis; 4. there was a growing belief, from about the 1960s onwards, that the Scottish Office would not be able to operate as the type of inclusive and democratic political forum that many people in Scotland desired; 5. in the 1980s opposition parties in Scotland kept reminding the Scottish people that the Scottish Office was being run by the Conservative Party which had only ten Scottish seats and less than a quarter of the Scottish vote. After the rise of Margaret Thatcher, with her strong unionist convictions, the Scottish Conservatives were also increasingly seen as ‘the English party in Scotland’; 6. the growing tide of regionalism and regional administrations within European politics led some people to ask whether rule by a few centrally based politicians was the way forward for Scottish politics.

to inspire the Scottish public to go out to vote for the devolution proposals. Cunningham saw his amendment passed in the House of Commons by 168 votes to 142. Therefore, the ‘Cunningham Amendment’ became embedded into the Scotland Act as Section 85(2). When the votes came in, it became clear that this figure of 40 per cent of the electorate had not been reached. Therefore, the devolution proposals for Scotland, that had been set out by the Labour government under Prime Minister James Callaghan, could

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not be put into effect. This was seen as a severe blow, not just to the Labour Party which instigated the devolution proposals but also to the nationalist cause in Scotland as a whole. There were also political reprisals as accusations circulated claiming that devolution had been undone by the 40 per cent ruling, something unheard of in British politics, where a simple majority was normally deemed sufficient. Post-referendum, the SNP wanted the Labour government to continue its commitment to implementing devolution in Scotland. When no such commitment was forthcoming, all eleven SNP MPs voted with other opposition parties during a ‘no-confidence’ debate in the House of Commons on 28 March 1979. The Labour government lost the vote by 311 votes to 310. The Labour government realised that its days were numbered. Labour/SNP relationships were further damaged as Labour politicians gave the SNP the label of ‘Tartan Tories’.

The 1980s: devolution remains on the agenda Despite the failure to enact the Scotland Act and Wales Act of 1978, and the subsequent political fallout, the devolution issue did not go away. Indeed, as the 1980s developed, opposition to many of the political decisions stemming from Westminster grew throughout Scotland. One major decision during this period that infuriated most people in Scotland was to use Scotland as a testing ground for a new form of local taxation, the Community Charge, that became known as the ‘Poll Tax’. In 1987 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference the arrival of the Poll Tax in which everybody was expected to pay the same amount regardless of their economic circumstances. Thatcher believed that introducing a flat-rate tax in the land of the free-market advocate, Adam Smith, would prove unproblematical. She badly miscalculated the mood and the political inclinations of the Scottish people, however. This became clear when opposition parties and pressure groups organised a ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ campaign and there was talk of London politics being thrust on the people of Scotland. Tommy Sheridan, later to become a Member of the Scottish Parliament, went to Saughton jail for his part in the movement against the Poll Tax.

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

The subsequent failure of this tax system had two far-reaching effects so far as the people of Scotland were concerned. First, it was to bring about the demise of Margaret Thatcher’s term as prime minster and, second, it reinvigorated the devolution debate across Scotland. To add to the Conservatives’ problems, the Scottish Affairs Select Committee – set up in 1979 to review the work of the Scottish Office – did not sit after 1987 because there were not enough Scottish Tories to provide a majority. This led to political stagnation as commentators claimed that Scottish matters were not being given a proper hearing at Westminster. The Conservatives and Unionists used to have a majority of seats in Scotland; indeed, at the 1955 General Election, they captured over 50 per cent of the Scottish vote. But this steadily declined and, by the time of the 1987 General Election, out of seventy-two Scottish seats, only ten Scottish Conservatives were elected. This led to talk of what was called ‘The Doomsday Scenario’. The idea was that the Conservative government had no mandate to govern Scotland. Hence, some opposition politicians saw their political task to be as obstructive as possible until such time as the issue of an elected Scottish parliament or assembly was back on the cards.

The Scottish Constitutional Convention With this declining support for the Scottish Conservatives as a backdrop, therefore, it was not a complete surprise when, after the 1987 General Election, the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, that had been set up in 1979 in the wake of the first devolution referendum, decided to establish a Scottish Constitutional Convention to push for constitutional change. There was also a general feeling throughout Scotland, backed up by opinion polls (see Table 4.2), that the time was the right to reignite the devolution debate. The convention was made up of a cross-section of Scottish political and civil society; though, for differing reasons, the SNP and the Conservatives took no part in the deliberations of the convention. The Scottish local authorities played a significant role, as did a wide range of organisations, from the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Scottish Churches, led by Canon Kenyon Wright, to the Women’s Forum Scotland and the Ethnic Minorities Communities, led by Pek Yeong Berry of the Racial Equality Council. The intention

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Table 4.2 MORI opinion polls on constitutional change, 1979–87 Independence Devolution No change Don’t know March 1979

14

42

35

9

November 1981

22

47

26

5

March 1983

23

48

26

2

March 1984

25

45

27

3

February 1986

33

47

14

6

March 1987

32

50

14

6

of the convention was to formulate plans for the smooth introduction of devolution to Scotland and to put pressure on the antidevolution Conservative government that was in office at that time. Throughout its existence, the Scottish Constitutional Convention proved to be the bandwagon for constitutional reform, and its report, Scotland’s Parliament. Scotland’s Right, published in 1995, was widely seen as laying the basis for the devolution proposals that were adopted by the Labour government on taking office in 1997. What the convention also managed to do was to function as a channel for the ‘new politics’ that was being discussed at the time by people such as social policy-makers, politicians and think tanks, all of whom wanted to promote wider representation through new democratic structures. As this ‘new politics’ included the promotion of regionalisation and devolution, the constitutional convention found itself with a series of allies who demanded social and political reform.

Yes or No: the campaigns for and against devolution in Scotland Campaigns for and against devolution were part of the political scene in 1979 and in 1997. They were designed to bring together people and organisations that strongly advocated one position in this debate. While the main Yes and No campaigns functioned as umbrellas under which different groups and individuals could shelter, there

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were also smaller party-led or organisationally based campaigns, such as the ‘Conservative Yes Campaign’ or the fascinating example whereby the Clydesdale Bank made a statement that asked their customers to support a No vote at the 1979 referendum. But the main impact came from the major Yes and No campaigns.

The Yes campaigns By the time of the 1979 referendum, the ‘Yes for Scotland’ had been in existence for over a year. Launched in January 1978, it was designed to embrace people from across the political spectrum. It quickly attracted support from political activists, as well as from members of the Scottish clergy, media personalities, writers, and so forth. The Labour Party, however, did not climb on board as many of its members supported devolution because they viewed it as a form of accountable government, which Scotland needed, but were repelled by any talk of going further down the constitutional road and using devolution as a stepping stone towards a self-governing Scotland. Labour and the trade unions, therefore, came up with the notion of a ‘Labour Movement Yes Campaign’. In 1979, the SNP was generally supportive of the ‘Yes for Scotland’ umbrella organisation. Some SNP members also felt, however, that they needed their own group to put across the SNP message on Scotland’s future political status. Hence, the SNP supporters were able to work within one or both groups as they sought to achieve a devolved institution. By 1997 the Yes campaign had been greatly boosted by the highprofile activities of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. Hence, it could be argued that the umbrella ‘Yes’ organisation, ‘Scotland Forward’, had a relatively easy task in front of it. There were some internal tensions, however, and the No camp attempted to highlight any splits. Nevertheless, the Yes camp, despite some problems, helped to secure a clear victory in the devolution referendum.

The No campaigns The key No campaign in 1979 was Tam Dalyell’s ‘Labour Vote No’ movement. It was significant because Dalyell advocated a rejection of the devolution proposals by pushing his ‘West Lothian Question’.

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69

Box 4.2 Who was involved in the Scottish Constitutional Convention? Joint chairs: Lord Ewing of Kirkford and Sir David Steel MP (later Lord Steel) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Chair of Executive Committee: Canon Kenyon Wright Scottish Members of Parliament Scottish Members of the European Parliament Local authorities Political parties Scottish Labour Party Scottish Liberal Democrats Social Democratic Party Co-operative Party Democratic Left Scottish Green Party Orkney and Shetland Movement Scottish Trades Union Congress Scottish Churches Federation of Small Businesses Women’s Forum Scotland Ethnic Minorities Communities Forum of Private Business Campaign for a Scottish Parliament Law Society/Faculty of Advocates An Comunn Gaidhealach Comunn na Gaidhlig Committee of University Principals Scottish Council for Development and Industry

The ‘Labour Vote No’ organisation was set up initially during a meeting of Labour MPs at the House of Commons. Another prominent supporter of ‘Labour Vote No’ was Brian Wilson, later to be a minister in the Scottish Office. Despite the media attention given to Dalyell and his objections to devolution, the larger No campaign was visible with the presence of the ‘Scotland Says No’ movement. ‘Scotland Says No’ was formed on St Andrew’s Day in 1978. It offered a broad antidevolution front that saw it gain support from across the political spectrum and enabled it to incorporate a host of

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organisations with suspicions about devolution. ‘Scotland Says No’ had a forerunner in the ‘Scotland is British’ campaign which had played up the advantages of Scotland being part of the Union. While both organisations claimed to appeal to anyone interested in opposing the devolution proposals, in reality, the majority of those interested in securing a No vote in any referendum were Conservative supporters. Also, the fact that some senior Scottish business people, and Scottish businesses, supported ‘Scotland Says No’ tended to isolate antidevolutionists who saw themselves on the political Left. Matters had changed to some extent when it came to the 1997 referendum. The No movement faced a huge uphill battle and their ‘Think Twice’ campaign was launched at Murrayfield Stadium by the staunch Unionist, Donald Findlay. Though it was judged to add character to the debate, its ultimate failure to convince Scotland not to ‘sleepwalk’ into devolution probably said more about the mood for devolution of the Scottish people than it did about the lacklustre argument against its implementation.

The push for devolution: ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’? What needs to be asked about these calls for devolution is whether they were ‘top-down’ initiatives or ‘bottom-up’ demands. The argument that they were ‘top down’ arises because devolution, being a change in a country’s constitutional set-up, requires the coming together of politicians with legal and constitutional experts in order to construct proposals for change. It is sometimes said by opponents of devolution that it is a ‘chattering-class’ issue that does not find any real support among people on the ground. The alternative viewpoint, the ‘bottom-up’ argument, claims that there is a widespread demand for constitutional change among the electorate at large. The contention here is that there is a grass-roots sentiment in favour of political change. The ‘bottom-up’ position holds that the Scottish people were unhappy with the arrangements of the Union, as they stood, and they were therefore enthusiastic that some changes were enacted. It is probably fair to conclude that both the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ positions have their merits. Proposals for devolution have to be arranged by politicians, legal experts and constitutional advisers. So, an element of ‘top-down’ planning and implementation

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is required. In the case of Scottish devolution, however, it is clear that a substantial degree of ‘bottom-up’ enthusiasm for devolution was in evidence. This showed itself in opinion polls, prevalent grassroots attendance at rallies and public meetings, and the majority vote when it came to the devolution referendums.

Devolution arrives: 1997 In the general election on 1 May 1997 the Conservatives in Scotland lost every seat for the first time in their history. With the leading Conservative pro-unionists and antidevolutionists, Michael Forsyth and Malcolm Rifkind, having been removed from mainstream Scottish politics, the Yes campaign had an even easier ride than it expected. In the devolution referendum held on 11 September 1997, the Scottish electorate was asked to give its approval to two proposals. On the first matter of establishing a Scottish parliament (Question 1) 74.3 per cent voted in favour. On the second matter of awarding the parliament the right to have the power to vary the basic rate of income tax (Question 2) 63.5 per cent voted in favour (see Table 4.3 for the full figures).

Devolution at last! After decades – some would say centuries – of campaigning and lobbying, Scotland finally secured devolution after the 1997 referendum. New political institutions were to be established and Scotland’s relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom would be altered. Table 4.3 Scottish parliament referendum results, 1997

Question 1

Agree

Question 2

Agree

Disagree

Disagree

Votes cast

Percentage

1,775,045

74.3

614,400

25.7

1,512,889

63.5

870,263

36.5

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

In the following chapter the ways in which these changes have affected the governance of Scotland and what the political map of Scotland now entails will be covered. Box 4.3 Important events on the road to a Scottish parliament • • • • • • • •

• • • • •

D

1707: The Act of Union between Scotland and England does not resolve every political question. 1885: the establishment of the Scottish Office. 1934: the SNP is formed with the aim of campaigning for an autonomous Scottish political system. 1960s–70s: growing confidence among nationalists, and public discussion about devolution. February 1978: passing of the Scotland Act, paving the way for devolution. 1 March 1979: first devolution referendum proves to be unsuccessful in ensuring devolution is up and running. 1989–95: Scottish Constitutional Convention campaigns for a Scottish parliament to be established. 1 May 1997: Labour government elected with a commitment to hold another referendum on devolution. At the same time leading Scottish Conservative No campaigners lose their parliamentary seats thus severally weakening any No campaign. 11 September 1997: second devolution referendum ensures Scotland has its own parliament. November 1998: the Scotland Act, laying out the provisions for devolved rule, receives royal assent. 6 May 1999: first elections to the Scottish Parliament. 12 May 1999: first sitting of the new Scottish Parliament. 1 July 1999: the Queen officially opens the Scottish Parliament.

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

The 1707 Act of Union did not settle constitutional matters in Scotland once and for all.

•

The Scottish Office was established in 1885 to try to ensure that Scottish issues were seen to be given greater priority at Westminster, and to offset calls for independence.

The Evolution of Scottish Devolution

73

•

The views of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party about Scottish devolution have fluctuated over time.

•

Critics of devolution, such as Tam Dalyell, opposed the introduction of devolution as they maintained that, once in place, it would be irreversible.

•

The Scottish Constitutional Convention enabled a democratic dialogue about devolution to take place, and its findings enabled a smooth period of transition for devolution in Scotland.

•

Although a majority of people in Scotland wanted devolution, it was secured only after the second devolution referendum in 1997.

/

Glossary of key terms Act of Union The legal political union between Scotland and England (and Wales) in 1707. Sometimes referred to as simply as ‘the Union’. ‘Bottom-up’ devolution The idea that devolution is a key demand of the electorate which organises itself in movements to petition for it. Home rule The demands of a people to control their own social, political and economic affairs. Calls for home rule usually stem from internal pressure but sometimes external groups may also push for self-government. Nationalistic Being supportive of a nation and promoting the causes of that nation in a political and cultural sense. Poll Tax Short-lived experiment by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher to introduce a flat-rate local income tax, known as the ‘Community Charge’ or ‘Poll Tax’. During a bitter political period at the end of the 1980s, it was eventually defeated by ‘people power’ and a campaign of non-payment. Scottish Constitutional Convention An independent campaigning group made up of a cross-section of Scottish society that included, among others, MPs, representatives from various political parties, members of trade unions and church leaders. Scottish Office Set up in 1885 and administered by a Secretary of State for Scotland who is a member of the British cabinet. The Scottish Office’s powers have been curbed since the introduction of devolution and the arrival of the Scottish Parliament. ‘Top-down’ devolution The contention that the idea of devolution was conjured up by politicians and other groups, like the judiciary, and was forced on to the people of Scotland (and Wales). West Lothian Question The conundrum, first raised by Tam Dalyell, whereby Scottish MPs – and in some cases Welsh MPs – can vote in the House of Commons on English matters while English MPs have no say on matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament (or the Welsh Assembly).

74

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

Likely examination questions Did the 1707 Act of Union bring an end to Scottish desires for self-government? Was the setting up of the Scottish Office in 1885 seen as a way of playing down Scottish calls for independence? Discuss the ways in which the discovery of oil in waters off the Scottish coast boosted the arguments for Scottish devolution. How influential was the Scottish Constitutional Convention in securing devolution for Scotland?

¡

Helpful websites Scottish political history is covered on links at the following sites: www.ukpol.co.uk http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/ http://dmoz.org/Society/Government/ http://britannia.com/history/

Š

Suggestions for further reading V. Bogdanor, Devolution in the United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2001. T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation: 1700–2007, Penguin, 2007. I. G. C. Hutchison, Scottish Politics in the Twentieth Century, Palgrave, 2001. M. Lynch, The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, Oxford University Press, 2011. Scottish Constitutional Convention, Scotland’s Parliament. Scotland’s Right, 1995. B. Taylor, The Road to the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh University Press, 2002.

CHAPTER 5

The Governance of Scotland Contents The Scottish Parliament: its role and functions The committee system The passage of bills The Scottish Parliament and the issue of tax The Calman Commission Scotland Bill 2012 Westminster Scottish veto Building a new institution The Scottish Government How Scotland votes for its MSPs Membership of the Scottish Government The Scottish Parliament and Europe Parliamentary business Sewell motions Subnational Scotland: local government

76 77 79 80 81 82 82 84 84 87 89 91 94 95 96

Overview While, since the 1707 Act of Union, Scotland has always managed to maintain and keep up some uniquely Scottish institutions, effective political governance of Scotland by the Scots themselves was not one of them. This chapter looks at the governance of Scotland since the first Scottish Parliament elections in 1999. It looks at the wider system of government in Scotland and, in so doing, shows how it is not just the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive that control political affairs in Scotland.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • •

The Scottish Parliament The Scottish Executive The committee system The Scottish Parliament and Europe Local government in Scotland The Calman Commission and the Scotland Act 2012

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

The Scottish Parliament: its role and functions At its inception, the Scottish Parliament was the only institution in the United Kingdom, bar the Westminster Parliament, that was producing its own original legislation. This means that it has primary legislative powers, often referred to as ‘primary legislation’, across a number of policy areas. Since then, the Northern Ireland and Welsh assemblies have gained and used these same primary powers. The Scottish Parliament continues, however, to produce the majority of primary laws outside of Westminster. Primary laws, as distinct from secondary laws, are those that originate from, and are then turned into legislation by, one source – that is, in this case, the Scottish Parliament. Devolved Scottish issues can therefore be raised and scrutinised at Edinburgh without having to have recourse to Westminster. These devolved matters include areas such as education, agriculture, local government, health, environment, sport and the arts, economic development and home affairs (see Box 5.1). The Scottish Parliament also has control over many facets of transport policy. The Scotland Bill 2012 has also given the Scottish Parliament further powers. Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines what the Scottish Parliament is able to do. In essence, the Scottish Parliament is able to legislate on any issue (non-reserved powers). This excludes those powers that Schedule 5 states are still within the remit of the Westminster Parliament (reserved powers). The Scotland Act 1998 also allows for new powers to be gained or operated by the Scottish Parliament. •

•

Under Section 30(2) new powers can be given to the Scottish Parliament, for example, in 2002 the Parliament was given legislative power over the construction of new railways that were wholly in Scotland; Section 63 allows Scottish ministers to take responsibility for certain functions exercised by UK ministers. The power remains reserved in Westminster but day-to-day responsibility resides in Scotland. This is known as ‘executive devolution’ and examples include issues relating to law and order which may have a Britainwide remit;

The Governance of Scotland

•

77

Section 104 is where the Scottish Parliament gets the Scottish Office to pass through legislation in Westminster on reserved issues which it is unable to legislate upon. In 2008 this method was used to provide for new consumer protection to house buyers in Scotland.

Box 5.1 Devolved government in Scotland Issues devolved to the Scottish Parliament at its inception included: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

health education and training local government social work housing planning tourism, including financial assistance to the tourist industry law and home affairs, including the court system the police and fire services the environment natural and built heritage sport and the arts agriculture, forestry and fishing some aspects of transport, including the Scottish road network, ports and harbours income tax (up to 3 pence in the pound)

Also see Box 5.3

The committee system Within the Scottish Parliament a committee system has been established, shadowing the policy areas mentioned above, in order to oversee and scrutinise policy development (see Box 5.2). Apart from their roles as scrutinisers of parliamentary business, the committees are also designed to take evidence from professional bodies and to process public petitions on matters of general importance. These committees are cross-party and are assembled to reflect party balance within the parliament. A committee has between five and

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fifteen Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) as members. Membership of committees is proposed by the Parliamentary Bureau, the body responsible for liaising with the political parties to ensure that the functions of parliament run smoothly. After discussions are led by the Parliamentary Bureau, the whole parliament approves suggestions as to which MSPs are to be members of a committee. MSPs who are not members of a committee can take part in its public proceedings but cannot vote. Each committee then has a convener whose job it is to chair the sessions and determine the agenda. The members of the committee must choose a convener from a particular political party decided by parliament. In addition, each committee normally has a deputy convener who will chair meetings in the convener’s absence. All of the conveners in the Scottish Parliament meet on a regular basis to discuss the progress and management of committees. This group is known as the Conveners’ Group. Since the advent of devolution, the committee system has proved to be vital to the workings of the parliament, and committee members have an extensive and often exhausting workload. One of the drawbacks of the committee system, however, is the limited number of MSPs available to sit on the committees. Members of the Scottish Executive cannot sit on committees, neither can the leaders of the opposition parties nor the parliament’s presiding officer and his deputy. This curtails the number of MSPs who are free to make up the relevant committees, a problem mirrored in the Welsh Assembly. Hence, some MSPs have to sit on more than one committee, thus doubling their workload. While certain commentators and critics would say that this ensures the Scottish public is getting ‘value for money’ from their elected representatives, in terms of the actual quality of service and delivery, this overloading is hardly an ideal situation. In the 2011–12 Scottish parliamentary sessions there were some fifteen committees in operation. These consisted of seven mandatory and seven subject committees and one ad hoc committee (considering the Scotland Bill) in operation (Box 5.2). These committees can have between five and fifteen members on them. The exact number is determined by a motion of the Parliamentary Bureau which is endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. The SNP Scottish government

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has a majority on all of the committees and its members are the convenors on them. The demise, electorally in 2011, of the Scottish Liberal Democrats also saw them removed from the majority of Scottish Parliament committees and, therefore, most committees now contain representatives only from the other three parties plus the occasional Scottish Green MSP.

The passage of bills Bills are normally introduced by the Scottish Executive because they tend to derive from policy proposals which have featured in the manifestos of the political party or parties that have succeeded in gaining power. These bills are known as ‘executive bills’. Bills can also originate from sources such as the parliamentary committees, however – these are termed ‘committee bills’ – and individual MSPs. The latter are labelled ‘members’ bills’. Nevertheless, regardless of where the bill stems from, the process for transforming it into an act remains the same. This is because, whenever a bill is introduced to the Scottish Parliament, it has to pass through three stages before it becomes law. Stage 1 is where consideration of the general principles of the bill – its aims and objectives – is dealt with by the parliamentary committee that has been designated to deal with this particular piece of legislation. After scrutinising the detail, the committee will report its findings to the parliament and, if parliament agrees to the bill’s general principles, it will then be referred back to the committee for the next stage of the process to take place. At Stage 2 a more detailed consideration of the bill is undertaken. This will include contemplating any amendments to the bill that have been proposed by the Scottish Executive and by opposition MSPs. Stage 3 is the final consideration of the bill, in its amended form, by the entire parliament who will then vote on whether the bill should be passed or rejected. After a bill is passed, having successfully completed all three stages of the process, it is then submitted for royal assent. It is only when royal assent is granted that the bill goes on to the statute book as an Act of the Scottish Parliament. This distinguishes between Acts of Parliament in Westminster and Scotland, those passed by the Scottish Parliament also have the words: ‘Scotland’ placed after them, for example: Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

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Box 5.2 Mandatory (M) and subject (S) committees of the Scottish Parliament, 2012 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Economy, Energy and Tourism (S) Education and Culture (S) Equal Opportunities (M) European and External Relations (M) Finance (M) Health and Sport (S) Infrastructure and Capital Investment (S) Justice (S) Local Government and Regeneration (S) Procedures (M) Public Audit (M) Public Petitions (M) Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments (M) Subordinate Legislation (M) Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (S) Private Bills

The Scottish Parliament and the issue of tax Having observed the devolved powers and committee structure operating within the Scottish Parliament, certain similarities with other models of devolution in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, become apparent. One area in which the Scottish Parliament is very distinctive, however, from its Welsh cousin, for instance, is in its ability to raise or lower the basic rates of income tax and business rates in Scotland. The main funding for the Scottish Parliament, at present, comes from a block grant from the British Exchequer. This transaction is similar to the past ‘block grant’ system of payment that saw a set amount of money transferring from Whitehall to Scotland for the purpose of public expenditure. Nevertheless, since its inception, the Scottish Parliament has had the authority to vary the level of income tax, up or down, by 3 pence in every £1. This is what is known as the parliament’s ‘tax-varying’ powers. Though opponents and critics of devolution sometimes mischievously dub this procedure the ‘tartan tax’, this devolved fiscal power enables

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81

Scotland to be more adaptable in its economic planning. This is because the Scottish Executive knows that, if needed, additional funds could be raised without having to make an appeal to the Treasury in Whitehall. Despite having this devolved power at its disposal, neither the Labour–Liberal Democrat coalition nor the SNP government has sought to use it. This failure to raise its own taxes became a major issue of concern with the Westminster governments. They felt that the Scottish governments were avoiding responsibility for their own expenditure by relying wholly on the block grant and blaming the Westminster government for any cuts to that rather than trying to raise their own revenue. In part, this concern led to the establishment of a Commission on Scottish Devolution to examine its future funding.

The Calman Commission In April 2008 the Commission on Scottish Devolution was brought into being following a Labour Party opposition motion during the SNP’s first term in office in December 2007. It was the three British political parties’ response in Scotland to the SNP’s plans for independence in their ‘National Conversation’ (see Chapter 6). In this commission, however, there would be no consideration of independence, only further measures of devolution. Under the chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Calman, the chancellor of Glasgow University, the fifteen-strong political and non-member commission started work in April 2008. It established five task groups which examined the following aspects of devolution: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

principles functions engagement financial accountability intergovernmental relations

The commission’s first report in December 2008 endorsed the devolution that had occurred in Scotland so far while making it clear that there was no need for moving towards full independence. Calman’s final report in June 2009 made it evident that the Scottish Government should have much greater control over raising

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the revenue for its own budget. While endorsing many aspects of Calman, the SNP government wishes to see full fiscal autonomy within an independent Scotland. In both its first and second terms in office, the party continued to push towards a successful referendum on Scottish independence.

Scotland Bill 2012 In 2012 the Westminster Parliament was set to pass a further Scotland Act. As well as formally changing the name of the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Government, the Scotland Bill 2012 will radically change the way that the Scottish Parliament raises its revenue. The Bill draws many of its legislative sections from the recommendations of the Calman Commission. The Bill aims to transfer to the Scottish Parliament responsibility for raising some 35 per cent of its own spending by 2016, as opposed to the 15 per cent it raised before the act came into force. After 2016, the Scottish Government will be able to put in place its own rates of income tax and set its own taxes on stamp duty, land tax and land-fill tax. It can also borrow money for capital (building) projects and manage its own cash reserves to help even out rising and decreasing levels of tax income. It also has substantially increased powers in a number of other areas (see Box 5.3).

Westminster Scottish veto Under the terms of the Scotland Act (1998), the only way in which the Secretary of State for Scotland can interfere with the workings and decision-making of the Scottish Parliament is if he/she believes that a bill going through the Scottish Parliament contravenes, or is incompatible with, international laws or agreements. In that instance, the Secretary of State could veto the will of the Scottish Parliament or Scottish Executive. Furthermore, under Section 28(7) of the Scotland Act, Westminster could, under certain circumstances, impose legislation on Scotland. If any of these scenarios were to occur, it would inevitably heighten tensions between the administration in Edinburgh and the British government in London. For example, the vetoing of any Scottish legislation by a Secretary of

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Box 5.3 New powers for the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government The Scotland Bill 2012, if passed, will bring in a number of new powers to the Scottish Parliament which were not listed as being devolved in Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. These are that: • • • • • • •

Scottish ministers have powers in relation to the misuse of drugs; Scottish ministers have powers relating to the administration of elections to the Scottish Parliament; power to regulate air weapons is devolved to the Scottish Parliament; Scottish ministers have a role in the appointment process for BBC Trust members for Scotland; Scottish ministers have a role in the appointments process for the Scottish Crown Estate Commissioner; Scottish ministers have the power to set regulations for the drinkdrive limit; Scottish ministers have the power to determine the national speed limit in Scotland.

Source: Scotland Office, 2012

State who is a member of the British cabinet would undoubtedly be perceived in many quarters in Scotland as a ‘Britain-first, Scotlandsecond’ decision. Similarly, should governments of different political shades be in charge in Scotland and Westminster then clashes over policy direction or political philosophy could ensue. After 2008, the government in Scotland was run by the SNP. This meant that the government in Westminster was no longer of the same political party. It had been a Labour–Liberal Democrat government in Scotland and a Labour government in Westminster. Although, as we shall see later, considerable differences have arisen between the SNP government and that in Westminster, there have been no attempts by government in London to veto any of the legislation of the government in Scotland. In 1999 the post of Advocate General for Scotland was also created. This post has been held by, among others, Lord ( Jim) Wallace, the former Scottish Liberal Democrat deputy first minister

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

(1999–2005). The office has a staff of forty and advises the Crown and the British government on Scottish law.

Building a new institution The location for the Scottish Parliament is Edinburgh, Scotland’s ancient capital. The parliament initially met in the Church of Scotland Assembly Hall on The Mound. It was soon felt, however, that this meeting place was inadequate and, therefore, an innovative building should be created to symbolise the new political climate in Scotland. Enric Miralles, the Catalan architect, was commissioned to design the new parliament building. A site was identified opposite Holyrood Palace, at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, and construction work began. Before long, however, the excitement about this fresh political and public space dampened as the spiralling cost of the building became headline news, predominantly within the Scottish media but also further afield. Moreover, arguments about the cost and the timescale of the building work were used by opponents of the devolution settlement to vindicate their view that devolution would turn out to be an expensive and overambitious bureaucratic project. Whichever side of the debate people choose to support, there is little doubt that the outcome, though still controversial, is a state-of-the-art parliament building that has succeeded in picking up several awards for its architectural design. The new parliament, often referred to as ‘Holyrood’, was formally opened by the Queen on 9 October 2004.

The Scottish Government The Scottish Government was formerly known as the Scottish Executive. Its role in the day-to-day governance of Scotland is similar to the cabinet’s role at Westminster. In the financial year 2011–12 it managed a budget of more than £33.6 billion. This figure, however, was a reduction from the peak year of Scottish Government spending in 2010–11. The cuts were the result of the British coalition government’s large-scale public spending cuts brought in to reduce Britain’s national budget deficit. When the Scottish Government (Executive) was set up, the powers

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of the Scottish Office were transferred to it. So, for instance, the civil servants who worked for the Scottish Office automatically began working for a new master in the guise of the Scottish Executive. Furthermore, all the links and partnerships that the old Scottish Office had nurtured were transmitted to the Scottish Government. As a consequence, the Scottish Government started to operate in a climate in which the complex interaction between the governing political party and a reputable bureaucracy, a widespread quangos system, and the various groups within civil society, was already well established. Furthermore, pressure groups have played an important role in this process (see Box 5.4 overleaf). The relationship between ministers – the elected politicians – and civil servants within the Scottish Executive is more closely interwoven than that of Whitehall because of the much smaller size of the civil service in Scotland. Despite the close working relationship between Scottish ministers and the civil servants, the civil servants still remain employees of the ‘Crown’, the British government, rather than being a separate civil service as is the case in Northern Ireland. The same rules of conduct, conditions of pay and service and rules regarding neutrality and impartiality that apply to civil servants in London also apply to those in Scotland. The first two elections for a Scottish Parliament led to Labour– Liberal Democrat administrations. These coalitions were cemented by ‘Partnership Agreements’ and by the division of government posts between the two parties. Labour MSPs held the key post of  first minister: Donald Dewar (1999–2000), Henry McLeish (2000–1) and Jack McConnell (2001–7). The Scottish Liberal Democrats held the post of deputy first minister: Jim Wallace (1999–2005) and then Nicol Stephen (2005–7). The 2003 Scottish elections also represented the widest spread of voting across the Scottish electorate. As well as the four main parties: seven Greens, six Scottish Socialists, three independents and one member of the Scottish Senior Citizen’s Party were elected during this period. At the next election in 2007 only three of these other parties’ MSPs retained their seats as voters returned to voting for the four main parties. After May 2007, the SNP, with Alex Salmond as the first minister and Nicola Sturgeon as the deputy first minister formed the Scottish governments. From 2007 to 2011 this was a minority

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

Box 5.4 Pressure groups and devolution in Scotland •

• •

•

•

•

•

•

Pressure groups are non-party organisations such as Play Scotland which aims to enhance the opportunities that children have to play and learn. Pressure groups use a variety of activities, such as petitions, demonstrations, public meetings, etc. to influence policy-makers. Pressure groups have been active for many years in Scottish politics but they have had more opportunities to influence and even directly shape policy matters since devolution. As has been the case in Wales, the Scottish Parliament has seen the development of many more pressure groups and lobbying firms since power for much of government policy was devolved to them. This has meant that politicians cannot simply ignore the arguments of pressure groups, as they may have done before the advent of devolution. Shaping Scotland’s Parliament, the report of the Consultative Steering Group, produced in 1999, encouraged consultation and the sharing of power among the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive. Pressure-group activity was therefore given a green light and has been part of the life of the Scottish Parliament since then. The coalition Labour–Liberal Democrat, and later SNP, governments worked with pressure groups which they saw as representing civil society and the democratic process in Scotland. The New Labour government in Westminster also saw the recognition of pressure-group activity as an acknowledgement that Scottish society is democratic and socially inclusive. ASH Scotland, the anti-smoking organisation, is one of the pressure groups that has succeeded in getting official recognition from the Scottish Executive as it has helped produce joint policy documents on tobacco with NHS Health Scotland. Not all lobbying is seen as being benign, however. In the Scottish Parliament’s first year there was a scandal concerning the lobbying methods of the firm Beattie Media. It had employed Kevin Reid, son of the Scottish secretary, John Reid, and Jack McConnell, the future Scottish first minister. Kevin Reid had made it clear to clients of Beattie Media his connections with his father and this led to accusations of insider influence over Scottish policy and was referred to as ‘lobbygate’. The Scottish Parliament and Government then tightened up their rules and regulations for dealing with lobbyists. The codes of conduct for

The Governance of Scotland

87

MSPs and for Scottish ministers also provide set standards for their relationships with lobbyists. The Scottish Parliament does not, however, have its own register of lobbyists. At the moment, there is a voluntary registration process with the United Kingdom Public Affairs Council (UKPAC) scheme.

Table 5.1 Elections for the Scottish Parliament, May 2011 (May 2007 election results in brackets) Party

Labour

Constituency Constituency Regional Regional votes % seats list votes % list seats 31.7 (32.2)

15 (37)

SNP

45.4 (32.9)

53 (21)

16 (26)

69 (47)

Cons

13.9 (16.6)

3 (4)

12.4 (13.9)

12 (13)

15 (17)

Lib Dem

7.9 (16.2)

2 (11)

5.2 (11.3)

3 (5)

5 (16)

Others*

1.1 (2.1)

0 (0)

3 (2)

3 (2)

Totals

100 (100)

73 (73)

26.3 (29.2) 44

(31)

12.1 (11) 50

(50)

22 (9)

Total seats 37 (46)

100 (100) 129 (129)

* Two Green MSPs and one independent, Margo MacDonald

government and after 2011 they formed Scotland first majority government (Table 5.1).

How Scotland votes for its MSPs The system for electing members to the Scottish Parliament is a form of proportional representation known as the additional member system (AMS). The idea of AMS and, indeed, any system of proportional representation, is to try to make everybody’s vote count, in a democratic sense. The intention of AMS, therefore, is to ensure that the share of seats that each party receives reflects, as closely as possible, its level of support among voters. Consequently, there should not be any ‘wasted’ votes. The Scottish system also allows

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each constituency contested at the time of the Scottish Parliament elections to have its own representative, its constituency MSP. When it comes to the day of the election, each eligible voter at an election for the Scottish Parliament has two votes. The first vote cast is for the constituency vote, whereupon the candidate who gains the largest number of votes becomes that constituency’s MSP; this is the ‘first-past-the-post’ system. There is a total of seventythree constituencies. Since 2005 these have been different from the Westminster parliamentary constituencies which have larger electorates. The second vote that voters have is referred to as the ‘list’ or additional member system (AMS) vote. Here, political parties provide lists of nominations for election on a regional basis. A region is larger than a constituency. Indeed, a region consists of a cluster of constituencies. There are eight regions at present. Each of the regions has seven seats in the Scottish Parliament, making a total of fifty-six seats. Members elected to these AMS seats are known within the Scottish political system as ‘regional members’. The regions chosen for the Scottish Parliament elections were those based on the former European Parliament constituencies. Those regions are: • • • • • • • •

Highlands and Islands North-east Scotland Mid Scotland and Fife West of Scotland Glasgow Central Scotland Lothians South of Scotland

Every Scottish resident is represented by one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs. So the Scottish Parliament differs from the British parliament where only one elected member represents the local area. In Scotland, every member of the electorate has a total of eight MSPs who represent them in the Scottish Parliament. If the numbers of constituency and regional members are added together, they comprise the 129 members of the Scottish Parliament. Irrespective of how they are elected, however, once inside the parliament, each MSP has the same rights and responsibilities.

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Membership of the Scottish Government As noted earlier, the current Scottish Government Executive is the first majority government from one political party. This has come about because the SNP has a majority of five MSPs over all of the other parties’ MSPs combined. The AMS electoral system was designed to be proportional and ensure that one party with a minority of the vote did not gain power by itself. On just over 45 per cent of the constituency and 44 per cent of the list vote, however, the SNP was able to gain 53 per cent of the MSPs and thereby form the government. In doing so, it was able to form its own cabinet without the support of other political parties. Box 5.5 shows the 2011 make-up of the Scottish Government including its cabinet members and junior ministers. From the length of the names assigned to their titles it is apparent that they nearly all cover wide-ranging portfolios. The Scottish Cabinet normally meets weekly in Bute House which is the official residence of the first minister. These meetings are chaired by the first minister and are supported by a cabinet secretariat based in St Andrew’s House, the former home of the Scottish Office. The cabinet also has a number of subcommittees that also meet on a regular basis. After a Scottish parliamentary election is held – once every four years – a first minister is formally nominated by the parliament. If acceptable, that person is then appointed by the Queen, in her capacity as head of state. The duty of the first minister is then to appoint a cabinet (the executive) which must have been agreed upon by parliament and which must meet with the approval of the Queen. Box 5.6 shows the duties of the First Minister for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Scotland. To be a member of the Scottish Government you have to have been elected, in the first instance, as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP). The only exceptions to this rule are the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General whose tasks include overseeing the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service and offering legal advice to Scottish ministers. In the everyday language of Scottish politics and society, the members of the Scottish Government tend to be referred to as ‘the Scottish ministers’.

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Box 5.5 The Scottish Government, 2012 First Minister Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy Under the above Minister for Commonwealth and Sport Minister for Public Health Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth Under the above Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Minister for Local Government and Planning Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Under the above Minister for Children and Young People Minister for Learning and Skills (including Gaelic and Scots) Cabinet Secretary for Parliament and Government Strategy Under the above Minister for Parliamentary Business and Chief Whip Cabinet Secretary for Justice Under the above Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment Under the above Minister for Environment and Climate Change Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment Under the above Minister for Housing and Transport Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Law Officers Lord Advocate Solicitor General

Alex Salmond Nicola Sturgeon Shona Robison Michael Matheson John Swinney Fergus Ewing Aileen Campbell Michael Russell Angela Constance Alasdair Allan Bruce Crawford Brian Adam Kenny MacAskill Roseanna Cunningham Richard Lochhead Stewart Stevenson Alex Neil Keith Brown Fiona Hyslop Frank Mulholland, QC Lesley Thomson, QC

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Box 5.6 Duties of the First Minister for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Scotland First Minister for Scotland • heads the Scottish Government • oversees his/her party’s programme for government • nominates ministers to serve in the Scottish Executive • is the leader of his/her party in the Scottish Parliament • takes Questions in Parliament • liaises with Secretary of State on policy matters • represents the parliament and executive at official functions • is Keeper of Her Majesty’s Seal (appointed by the Treaty of Union) • acts as a national voice for Scotland Secretary of State for Scotland • Guardian of the Scotland Act and therefore responsible for the smooth running of devolution • liaises with the First Minister and the Scottish Executive • represents Scotland’s interests at the British parliament and cabinet • shares duties with First Minister for representing Scotland in discussions and meetings with overseas delegations Post-devolution Labour government Scottish secretaries often shared this post with that of another such as transport secretary or defence secretary. This was not the case for the coalition government at Westminster from 2010 onwards. Since the general election the post has been held by Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs, indicating their relative strength in Scotland compared to the Conservative’s weakness there.

The Scottish Parliament and Europe For many years, there has been an underlying assumption among some political observers that a Scottish parliament would be far more pro-European in its outlook than any government based at Westminster. While this pro-Europeanism has been overexaggerated, the historical links between Scotland and France – ‘the Auld Alliance’ – have been used as a basis for Scotland’s future relationship with countries on the European mainland. Before the 1997 referendum, one of the arguments put forward by those in favour

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of devolution was that a Scottish parliament could leapfrog London in order to provide the people of Scotland with a direct ‘voice in Europe’. The reality of a ‘voice in Europe’ is somewhat different, however. This is because the Scottish Parliament’s relationship with the European Union is complicated for several reasons. In the Scotland Act (1998), discussions about macro-EU legislation, and direct dealings with the European Union, were among the reserved powers that Westminster refused to devolve. Nevertheless, despite the primary position of the British government in European affairs, Scottish ministers can also, through invitation, attend meetings of the Council of the European Union. Sometimes, on issues such as fishing, Scottish ministers have even led discussions on behalf of the whole United Kingdom. Ultimately, however, even if members of the Scottish Government are present during discussions, it is the British minister, responsible to the prime minister and the British cabinet, who retains overall responsibility for any negotiations that are held. So, engaging in direct dialogue and voting on EU issues, along ‘nation-state’ lines, remains the preserve of the British government and its ministers. To aid the co-ordination of a UK response to EU policy a Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up between the British government and the devolved institutions in 2001. This memorandum laid down a concordat for coordinating EU policy across Britain and the devolved governments’ departments. Both the Labour–Liberal and the SNP Scottish governments have been keen to develop stronger European relations. The Scottish Government has its own European minister and European affairs division. The Scottish Government also has its own civil servants seconded to the United Kingdom Representation to the European Union (UKREP) which deals with day-to-day representation to the European Commission in Brussels. It also has its own office in Brussels, the Scottish Government European Union Office (SGEUO), which aims to strengthen Scotland–EU relations. The Scottish Parliament has retained its commitment to forging relationships with the regional governments in Europe, such as the Länder in Germany. These links with political institutions throughout Europe, and especially those within what is sometimes labelled ‘the new

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Europe’ – the newly emerging political and economic regions – are seen as important for the Scottish Parliament as they can aid in promoting ‘horizontal partnerships’ between the ‘nation region’ of Scotland and similar ‘nation regions’, such as Catalonia or Brittany. Further, the Scottish Parliament has also been active in its attempts to persuade the business community within Europe to consider investing in the Scottish economy. Part of this exercise involves promoting Scotland as an ideal place in which to live and work. To facilitate these and other matters, as well as the Scottish Government support and representation we mentioned earlier, the Scottish Parliament has a mandatory European and External Relations Committee with a membership of seven MSPs. This committee has to interpret, and then act upon, European Union legislation which relates to Scotland, such as monitoring the use of the European Structural Fund programme. To these ends, it is vitally important that all members of the Scottish Parliament are fully aware of legislative developments that emanate from the European Union. The European Committee of the Scottish Parliament also has to ensure that the policies and laws stemming from the Scottish Executive are in tune with EU legislation and practice. Thus, the precise remit of the European and External Relations Committee, according to Rule 6.8 of the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament, demands that the committee is to consider and report on: • • •

proposals for European Communities legislation; the implementation of European Communities legislation; any European Communities or European Union issue.

On 5 March 2003, the Scottish Parliament extended the remit of the committee to cover the following additional issues: •

•

the development and implementation of the Scottish administration’s links with countries and territories outside Scotland, the European Communities (and their institutions) and other international organisations; co-ordination of the international activities of the Scottish administration.

Upon taking charge of these extra tasks, the committee’s name was altered from the European Committee to the European and External

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Relations Committee. Most of the discussions and analysis concerning EU and Scottish legislative and policy matters can be comfortably addressed by the European and External Relations Committee. Some of the more complicated issues of policy and law, however, which may require negotiations at an EU national government level, have to be referred to the suitable government department at a British level. It is important to remember in all this, therefore, that, even though the Scottish Parliament is a relatively powerful political institution with primary legislative powers, any act of the Scottish Parliament cannot become law if it is incompatible with European Union law. This stipulation is enshrined under Section 29(2) of the Scotland Act (1998). Some members of the Scottish Parliament are also members of the Committee of the Regions. This is the European body that shadows both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. It is designed to represent all of the subnational authorities (SNAs), such as the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, that are below the national governments across the European Union. It is through the Committee of the Regions that the Scottish MSPs can seek to shape the European policy agenda on behalf of Scotland.

Parliamentary business Box 5.7 gives an example of a day’s political business at the Scottish Parliament. Like many parliamentary institutions, the business of committees usually takes place in the morning while plenary submissions tend to begin around midday. Plenary sessions are chaired by the presiding officer (the Speaker) whose task it also is to regulate the day-to-day business of the parliament. The presiding officer and his/her two deputies have to be elected within fourteen days of any Scottish Parliament elections. For the record, some of the other tasks undertaking by the presiding officer include administering oaths of allegiance in the parliament (held after MSPs have been elected), submitting bills for their royal assent, and chairing the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), that is responsible for staffing, overseeing the updating of facilities, and so forth. Throughout the day in the parliament building, ministers and individual MSPs will also have meetings among themselves as

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Box 5.7 Scottish Parliament Business Programme (example: 7 March 2012) Summary of Today’s Business Meetings of Committees Time: 10.00–11.30 a.m. Finance Committee Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee Local Government and Regeneration Committee Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee Committee Room 5 Committee Room 4 Meeting of the Parliament Time: 2.30–5.00 p.m. Time for Reflection – Sheila McKay, Chair of Grampian Family Support Forum Parliamentary Bureau Motions Health and Sport Committee Debate: Regulation of Care for Older People Public Petitions Committee Debate: PE1408 – Pernicious Anaemia and Vitamin B12 Deficiency (Understanding and Treatment) Business Motion Parliamentary Bureau Motions Time 5.00 p.m. followed by Decision Time Members’ Business – S4M-01982 Humza Yousaf: Save Gadburn School Source: Scottish Parliament website.

well as with outside organisations or individuals. These take place in committee rooms outside the debating chamber.

Sewell motions We noted earlier the issue of reserved and non-reserved powers in respect of what the Scottish Parliament could or could not do. As part of these issues, the Scottish Parliament can avoid legislating again on an Act of Parliament that is going through at Westminster but which also directly falls within its own powers. This is called a Legislative Consent Motion but is commonly referred to after Lord Sewell who introduced the policy to the House of Lords in 1998. As the Scottish Parliament has established itself, the use of ‘Sewell motions’ has grown. By the end of its third term in May 2011, the Scottish Parliament had passed some 107 of these motions. Historically while the Labour Party argues that Sewell motions

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are beneficial, as they can speed up the legislative process, the SNP contends that Sewell motions do not allow the Scottish Parliament any effective means to amend or to oppose changes made to a bill that derives from Westminster. For the SNP, therefore, this undermines the Scottish Parliament, and the devolutionary process. Despite this view, the SNP made use of Sewell motions thirty times during its first term in office.

Subnational Scotland: local government In the 1970s many people working within local government in Scotland had serious concerns about the arrival of devolution. This was because they envisaged their limited political autonomy being eroded more quickly under a Scottish parliament than it seemed to be wearing away under the British government. Scottish local government had undergone a major reorganisation in the mid-1970s, and many involved in local politics in Scotland just wanted to see a period of stability and consolidation rather than any further changes and upheavals. By the 1980s and 1990s, however, local government officials and representatives had climbed on board the devolution train, thanks in part to the intense involvement of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) with prodevolution organisations, such as the Scottish Constitutional Convention. From necessity, Scottish local government has had to develop close links with both the Scottish Government and Parliament. There are thirty-two unitary authorities in Scotland; Glasgow is the largest with a population of over half a million, and the Shetland Isles, with around twenty thousand people, is the smallest authority. The councils gain most of their funding from the Scottish government through the offices of the Cabinet Member for Finance and Sustainable Growth. It is they that provide the Aggregate External Finance (AEF). This AEF consists of three parts: revenue support grants, nondomestic rates, and income and specific grants. The councils can then levy their other major source of finance, the council tax, directly. In 2003 the Local Government in Scotland Act was introduced. This was seen as being key to the Scottish Government’s desire to introduce reforms and oversee the ‘modernisation’ of local government north of the border. The measures in the act were framed

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in such as way that they promote partnerships with other bodies and with the community, and were designed to put the quality of services, and their delivery, at the forefront of the local authorities’ commitment to the public. At the heart of this is the concept known as ‘best value’, with its ethos of continuous improvement across all aspects of local authority functions. As the 2003 act embodies a commitment to consult the public, many observers have seen this as a further decentralisation of power within Scotland, albeit that the role of the general public is naturally somewhat limited in the actual policy-making process. Nevertheless, ‘communities’, be they defined by their geography or by their shared interests, such as is the case with the elderly community, must now be seen to be active partners who engage in constructive dialogue with local government and with the Scottish Parliament to formulate policies that are deemed to be democratic, inclusive, and to the benefit of the many and not just the few. Prior to the 2003 act, the Scottish Government had pre-empted the role of communities by establishing ‘Communities Scotland’ as an agency to promote community regeneration. Box 5.8 Scottish local government functions (since devolution) Local government has a variety of roles and functions. These can be summarised under four main headings. 1. Provision of services Local authorities have responsibility for the planning, resourcing and direct provision of services that are within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. To help provide these services, local government works increasingly in partnership with the private and voluntary sectors as well as with executive agencies such as Communities Scotland. 2. Strategic planning Local authorities provide a strategic planning framework, setting objectives for their area over the long term. 3. Regulation Local authorities have regulatory functions, such as the granting of certain licences, and registration and inspection functions. 4. Community leadership The Local Government Act 2003 has aided this role by placing local government as the key agency in the community planning process and providing local authorities with a ‘power of well-being’.

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The Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 also had a dramatic impact on the way in which local government was controlled in Scotland. As part of the Scottish Liberal Democrats agreement to be part of the coalition government, they demanded that local councillors would in future be elected by the single transferable vote (STV). The first elections under this system in 2007 had the result of moving all but four of Scotland’s thirty-two unitary authorities to a situation in which no one party was in control of the council. Traditionally, most of the councils, particularly the urban ones, had been under the control of one political party, normally the Labour Party. They were referred to as ‘one-party states’. In Glasgow, for instance, in the 2003 council elections, the Labour Party gained 90 per cent of the seats, with the other political parties winning the other 10 per cent. In 2007 under the STV system, Labour still retained the majority of seats but the percentage fell to 56 per cent. Scottish local government has a stormy relationship with the Scottish Government. This relationship has become more strained as the budget cuts required by the Scottish Government in the light of the United Kingdom’s financial crisis have been introduced. This led the Scottish Government to establish in 2010 the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services. It became commonly known as the Christie Commission, after the chair, the former Scottish TUC General Secretary Campbell Christie. The commission reported back in 2011 stating that there was a need for a radical shift of council services and priorities towards prevention of social problems rather than dealing with their consequences. Endorsed in part by CoSLA, Christie’s recommendations are likely to reshape further the relationship between the Scottish Government and local government.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

The Scottish Parliament possesses primary law-making powers and these powers continue to grow.

•

The Scottish Parliament also makes use of Westminster for its own legislative processes through what are known as Sewell motions

•

The Scottish Parliament operates its legislative and its scrutiny functions through a committee system.

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•

The way that the Scottish Government is funded is changing as it becomes responsible for raising a much larger proportion of its own expenditure.

•

The Scottish Parliament has developed close working links with the European Union and with other parliaments and assemblies within Europe and beyond.

•

The Scottish Government is now going through a period of reducing its expenditure which is also having an impact on its relationship with local government.

/

Glossary of key terms Additional member system (AMS) The system of proportional representation used in elections to the Scottish Parliament. Best value Seeks to promote a climate of continuous improvement within local government so that local authorities can deliver improved services year after year. Block grant Payment from the United Kingdom’s Exchequer to the Scottish and Welsh Offices to oversee public expenditure on those countries. Communities Scotland An executive agency of the Scottish Executive. It was formed in November 2001 to promote community regeneration. Conveners’ Group This group seeks to promote and co-ordinate the work of the parliamentary committees. It meets on a weekly basis. CoSLA The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. CoSLA is the representative voice of Scotland’s unitary local authorities. Horizontal partnerships These occur whenever the Scottish Parliament attempts to create links and a working relationship with a similar institution, normally within Europe, whose composition, range of legislative powers and general geographical, historical or political position equate with those that can be found within the Scottish experience. Minority government A government in which the ruling political party (or parties) does not have a majority of those elected to the legislature. As a consequence, the government can be defeated on any vote and must therefore seek, formally or informally, to negotiate its policies, budget and legislation through the parliament. MSP Member of the Scottish Parliament. The title given to the democratically elected members of the Scottish Parliament. Parliamentary Bureau A cross-party forum that prepares the daily order of business for parliament. It also proposes the membership and remit of parliamentary committees. Primary legislation The ability to draw up, and subsequently pass, new laws within the confines of the Scottish Parliament. Primary legislation

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enables the Scottish Executive to do this without having to seek permission from any outside body. Quangos Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations. These are semi-independent administrative bodies that have traditionally controlled certain areas of public policy and expenditure. Scottish Government (Executive) In effect, the ‘Scottish cabinet’. This is the body that holds ultimate political power within the Scottish Parliament. Scottish Parliament The actual institution of government in Scotland. Usually identified as being the parliament building itself, though it does include the entire machinery of government in Scotland including the elected personnel. Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) The body responsible for overseeing staffing and estates in the Scottish Parliament. The SPCB is made up of four MSPs plus the presiding officer of the parliament. Single transferable vote (STV) This is the voting system used in Scottish local government elections. It is a proportional system in which voters use preferential voting to rank their preference of candidates. When counted, the number of first preferences are calculated and, if they pass the required threshold, the candidate is elected. The candidate with the least number of first preferences in eliminated. If the candidate is not elected by their first preferences, then the second preferences are counted and, if this puts him/her above the threshold, he/she is elected. If not, the process continues until the required number of candidates is elected. It is the voting system that most closely matches a political party’s share of the votes to the number of seats it gains in the election. The system, however, is complex and election results are not immediately available.

?

Likely examination questions Discuss the extent to which the Scottish Government is still reliant on the parliamentary processes of Westminster. How has devolution affected Scotland’s relationship with the European Union? Detail the ways in which local government in Scotland has changed since the arrival of devolution.

¡

Helpful websites www.scottish.parliament.uk The Scottish Parliament website. http://home.scotland.gov.uk/home The Scottish Government’s website www.cosla.gov.uk Further information on local government in Scotland can be found on the CoSLA website.

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www.audit-scotland.gov.uk The Audit Scotland website also provides details of problems or areas of concern in Scottish governance.

Š

Suggestions for further reading P. Cairney, The Scottish Political System Since Devolution: From New Politics to the New Scottish Government, Imprint Academic, 2011. P. Schlesinger et al., Open Scotland?, Edinburgh University Press, 2001. D. Torrance, The Scottish Secretaries, Birlinn, 2006. A. Trench (ed.), The State of the Nations 2008: Into the Third Term of Devolution in the UK: 6 (State of the Nations Yearbooks), Imprint Academic, 2008.

CHAPTER 6

Political Parties and Politics in Scotland Contents The unique nature of Scottish politics Scottish Labour Party The Scottish Labour Party since devolution Scottish Liberal Democrats Scottish Liberal Democrats: with devolution comes power but also rejection! Scottish National Party (SNP) Alex Salmond and the SNP’s push for devolution The fundamentalist/gradualist debate The SNP: from opposition to government Scottish Conservative Party Scottish Conservative Party: devotional, renewal and evolution The other political parties Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) Scottish Green Party Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP) Scottish political parties: the future

103 103 105 108 109 112 113 113 115 118 119 121 121 123 124 124

Overview As was noted in Chapter 5, the political scene in Scotland has been transformed since the arrival of devolution. Barring any major political upheaval, such as independence for Scotland, it is expected that it will continue to change, in an evolutionary manner, as devolved government embeds itself and political parties have to find ways to react to political scenarios that have never before been encountered. In this chapter, the four main Scottish political parties in the Scottish Parliament will be analysed. Some of these parties, such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, will be familiar to students of politics but they may not be aware of these parties’ attempts to make them distinctly Scottish, while others, such as the Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Greens, are more recent additions to the list of political parties that have attained some parliamentary representation.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • •

The unique nature of Scottish politics The four major political parties in Scotland The rise of the Scottish Socialist Party The Greens and devolution Senior citizens and devolutionary politics Scottish political parties: the future

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The unique nature of Scottish politics It can be claimed that every political system, anywhere in the world, has its own unique characteristics. As mentioned previously, Scotland has its own cultural and political history that identifies it as a separate nation, albeit that its history and its politics overlap and interweave with those of its neighbours and form part of what is termed ‘British history’ and ‘British politics’. So Scottish identity – political and otherwise – can sit comfortably in what some commentators have described as being the ‘four-nations’ model of Britain. As this book is attempting to do, however, the difference between these nations has to be acknowledged and assessed. It could be argued that the Scottish party political system, predevolution, looked broadly similar to the Westminster model with the addition of the SNP and slight Scottish variations on the other British political parties. Labour and the Conservatives, the largest Unionist parties, tended to adopt the parties’ British manifestos at elections, with only slight changes for Scotland. The leadership of these parties was always from London and in a British context rather than being Scottish. Policy for these unionist parties was almost wholly determined at their British conferences and London think tanks rather than in Scotland. Conversely, post-devolution, the Scottish political landscape appears markedly different as Scotland was governed first by coalition, followed by the SNP, and the other political parties sought to enhance their Scottishness. These political changes, added to Scotland’s distinct culture and heritage, have meant that the evolution of Scottish politics and society has become even more distinctive in recent years.

Scottish Labour Party While the Labour Party has long played a significant part in Scottish politics, it has never quite attained the hegemonic position in Scotland that it enjoys in Wales. It has maintained a solid level of support, however, especially in the industrial belt of central Scotland. There has also been widespread backing across Scotland for the party’s traditional concerns about achieving social justice through the implementation of a comprehensive welfare state system. Thus,

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despite attempts by some politicians to reduce it across Britain as a whole, a sense of ‘political collectivism’ is still in evidence across Scotland. When it came to the issue of devolution, it would be fair to comment that many people within Scottish Labour in the 1970s were unenthusiastic about the idea of decentralised rule. This was because, at that time, most Labour Party supporters still saw the future in terms of centralisation, wherein industries could be nationalised and run by the state, the state machinery being centred in London. By the late 1970s, however, opinion within the Scottish Labour Party was changing, and key figures such as George Robertson, Donald Dewar and John Smith campaigned for a Yes vote in the 1979 referendum. Although devolution failed on this occasion many party members who had been hostile or sceptical to it started to see devolution as the means through which the effects of Thatcherism could firstly be challenged and then, ultimately, reversed. Thus, devolution was seen by some within the Scottish Labour Party as a way of preserving, and developing, the welfare state system that had been built up in Britain since 1945. This view was further reinforced after the 1987 General Election when Labour picked up a majority of seats in Scotland but was frustrated by the return of the Conservative Party at Westminster because of the support given to the Conservatives by the English electorate. Despite a clear string of successes in elections, such as in the 1987 General Election mentioned above, it became evident, at least in the last couple of decades, that Labour’s position as the leading and, since 1997, the governing party in Scotland was being challenged by the SNP. As the Scottish National Party repositioned itself as a ‘centre-left’ political force, so Labour was faced with contending with a party that could appeal to social democrats and socialists while, at the same time, playing the patriotic card. Labour’s answer to the SNP threat was to re-emphasise its commitment to Scotland as a separate social, political and cultural unit; in effect, the party had to become one of ‘pragmatic nationalists’. The Scottish Labour Party hoped that this portrayal of the party as ‘pragmatic nationalists’ would persuade those people who could be described as ‘soft nationalists’ to stick with Labour rather than pledge their allegiance to the Scottish Nationalists.

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The Scottish Labour Party since devolution The Scottish Labour Party gained the most votes of any party in the inaugural Scottish Parliament election in 1999, and picked up fifty-six seats (fifty-three in the constituencies and three on the regional list). On 17 May, the Labour leader, Donald Dewar, became Scotland’s first minister. Dewar and Scottish Labour could not rule alone and therefore a coalition government was negotiated between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. As part of the deal, Jim Wallace, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, became deputy first minister. After Donald Dewar’s premature death, on 11 October 2000, the party struggled to some extent to reassert itself. The new first minister, the MSP for Fife Central, Henry McLeish, defeated Jack McConnell in a ballot for the post. McLeish did not last very long in the job, however, as he resigned in November 2001 amid a scandal, known as ‘Officegate’, involving allegations that he failed to register a business interest. He was succeeded as first minister by the man he had defeated, Jack McConnell, who was unopposed. The Scottish Labour Party was never able to implement fully its own agenda in office because it had to compromise with its coalition partner, the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Its attempts to distance itself from New Labour at Westminster which, after its pro Iraq War stance and abandoning of traditional Labour policies, was becoming more unpopular, was of limited success. Many of the leading cabinet members and later the prime minister, Gordon Brown, were Scottish Labour MPs. It was difficult to make a virtue of being Scottish at the same time as Gordon Brown was extolling the virtues of Britishness as one of his central campaign ideas. Nevertheless, in the coalition government, Scottish Labour were able to pursue some distinctly Scottish policies which included changing the way that students funded their higher education, free personal care for the elderly and changing the electoral system for Scottish local authorities to the single transferrable vote. Jack McConnell was able to restore some stability to the office of first minister after the short tenures of his two predecessors. McConnell had started his period in office with a radical pruning of the Labour members from his cabinet. He continued to shape the Scottish Labour Party and its policy in Scotland for the next six

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years. Under McConnell’s coalition government, Scotland became the first part of the United Kingdom to bring in the smoking ban in March 2006, and Scotland was portrayed nationally and internationally as the place to live, work, study and visit. It was the portrayal of Scotland’s international image that stands out in his period in office. There was strong support given for the Olympics Games to come to London in 2012 and the Commonwealth Games to come to Glasgow is 2014. Both bids were successful. World leaders travelled to Scotland for the G8 summit at the Gleneagles Hotel, and Scotland joined forces, unsuccessfully, with the Republic of Ireland in a bid to host the 2008 European Football Championships. McConnell was able to project on to the international stage the impression that Scotland was developing once more as a nation state. There was criticism, however, of the Scottish government by academics, the media and Opposition that its main policies, such as not introducing university fees or the ban on smoking in public places, either came from the smaller party of the coalition, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, or from the Opposition backbenches. The Labour Party in Scotland, it was said, was failing to grasp the opportunity to be distinctive enough from those of the same party who were governing at Westminster. At the 2007 Scottish parliamentary elections, the electorate seemed to agree with some of this criticism as the party lost four seats but at the same time as the SNP gained twenty. Although Labour gained only one seat fewer than the SNP, the Labour Party, for the first time for half a century, was the second party of Scottish politics in a national Scottish election, both in terms of seats and share of the popular vote. Owing to the poor results that knocked Labour out of government, McConnell resigned as the party’s leader in August 2007. He was replaced unopposed in September 2007 by Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance and Sustainable Growth, Wendy Alexander. She had been a cabinet member in the first term of the Scottish Parliament and also a special adviser to Donald Dewar when he was the Scottish Secretary. Alexander is also the brother of the Labour Westminster cabinet member, Douglas Alexander, who ironically had overseen Labour’s 2007 Scottish election campaign, which would lead to McConnell’s resignation, and his sister’s election. Alexander was proactive in calling for the wide-ranging review

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of Scottish devolution, and it was she who got her party to work together with the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in the Calman Commission (see Chapter 5). In May 2008 she caused a political storm when, in a move to take on the SNP directly, she publically supported a referendum on Scottish independence. The move appeared to put her at odds with the prime minister, Gordon Brown, however, and was not taken up by the SNP in their first term in office. Like two of her three predecessors, Alexander had only a short term in office. An issue relating to her leadership campaign team’s acceptance of a £950 impermissible donation in 2007 eventually led to her resigning as leader in June 2008. In 2002, when Alexander resigned from her post as Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning, she was replaced by the Edinburgh Pentland’s MSP, Iain Gray. History repeated itself six years later when Gray, newly returned to the Scottish Parliament after his defeat in the 2003 Scottish elections, became the party’s Scottish parliamentary leader. In the general election of 2010, the Labour Party in Scotland enjoyed a much better result than it did elsewhere in Britain. The party retained all forty of the constituencies it had won in 2005. Though it failed to win any of its target seats, Labour’s share of the vote increased by 3.1 per cent. These elections, however, were very much British affairs, with the party leadership debates being among the three main British political leaders while the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, was excluded from them. The Scottish parliamentary elections of 2011 were to be a wholly different affair. Here Gray was unable to carry over the same level of support that his party had enjoyed the year before. Gray kept his own seat by only a small majority of 151 votes (0.5 per cent). Overall, his party lost twenty constituency seats to the SNP, seven seats overall, and had its worst result in Scotland since 1931. At the same time, the SNP formed a majority government, something Labour had never been able to do. Straight after the election, Gray stated that he would be standing down in the autumn, never having had the chance to lead his party in office. While still remaining the second party in Holyrood, Labour now had only just over half the number of seats held by its main political opponents the SNP. It was widely felt within the party that substantial steps needed to be taken in order to reassert its position

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as Scotland largest political party. To try to alter the party’s future chances in Scotland, its British leader, Ed Miliband, commissioned a review of the Labour Party in Scotland (Box 6.1). Box 6.1 The review of the Labour Party in Scotland James Murphy MP and Sarah Boyack MSP led the review of the Labour Party in Scotland. The review has resulted in substantial changes to the way the Scottish Labour Party is run and managed in Scotland. Since October 2011 it has developed a more comprehensive form of devolution. The Scottish Labour Party has: 1. established a new political base in Edinburgh rather than London; 2. created an elected leader of the Scottish Labour Party which, for the first time, can be contested by any party member as long as he/she commits to then standing as an MSP and seeking to become first minister; 3. fully devolved powers to the Scottish Labour Party in all Scottish matters, including the rules for the Scottish leadership election, local government processes and selections, and Scottish parliament selections; 4. restructured the constituency Labour parties in Scotland on the basis of Scottish Parliament seats rather than on those used for Westminster; 5. established a political strategy board, which meets weekly, to develop and co-ordinate political strategy with the leader, (Shadow) Secretary of State, the leader of the CoSLA Labour Group, a representative of the MEPs, the party chair, and the Scottish party’s general secretary. Although the Labour Party in Scotland does not refer to its new structure as a federal party structure, it has many similarities with that of the Liberal Democrats, who do describe their party system as a federal one.

Scottish Liberal Democrats Although the Scottish Liberal Democrats are the youngest of the ‘big’ political parties, having been established as late as 1988 following the merger of the Scottish Liberal Party and the Scottish

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Social Democratic Party (SDP), their roots go back to the Victorian era. The Scottish Liberal Party was the dominant political party in Scotland until World War I. Even after this time, most of the Liberal Party leaders held Scottish seats. It was under one of these leaders, Jo Grimond, that the British Liberals started their post-war revival. David Steel, another of the post-war British Liberal leaders, was also instrumental in getting Labour governments to push through devolution referendums for Scotland in 1979 and 1997, and subsequently he became the first presiding officer (Speaker) of the newly formed Scottish Parliament in 1999. Despite a subsequent partial revival of Liberal fortunes in Scotland, as was the case in the rest of the United Kingdom, liberalism declined as an ideology in the early to mid-twentieth century. This meant that the Scottish Liberals lost seats that were once bastions of liberalism and, in other instances, they failed to find enough candidates to fight seats at general elections. In the election of 1945 the party failed to win a seat in Scotland for the first time and, in 1955, for example, only five Liberal Party members contested seats in Scotland. Fascinatingly, the arrival of the SDP, in 1981, boosted ‘centre-ground’ political thinking in Scotland. Two years later, in the 1983 General Election, the Liberal–SDP Alliance managed to contest every available seat in Scotland. From that point, the Liberals, later to be the Liberal Democrats, have managed to offer a real centrist political alternative in Scotland. Structurally, the Scottish Liberals were a state party, separate from the party in England and Wales. This was under the Liberal Democrats’ federal party structure. This allowed them to create their own policy, select their own leader and create their own constitution and internal rules. This structure continued with the setting up of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in 1988. The party, therefore, was in many ways already well structured to deal with devolved government when it arrived in 1999.

Scottish Liberal Democrats: with devolution comes power but also rejection! The Scottish Liberal Democratic Party has always stressed its commitment to devolution by pointing out that it is a party that is itself devolved from the United Kingdom, or Federal, Liberal Democrat

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Party. On top of this, the Scottish Liberal Democrats also cite the long Liberal tradition of supporting a decentralised political culture in Britain. With the arrival of devolution, therefore, the Scottish Liberal Democrats felt confident and upbeat about the party’s chances of shaping the path of devolved government in the years ahead. The real impact for the Scottish Liberal Democrats came about, however, when it became apparent that the party would have to enter into coalition government with the Scottish Labour Party. For the Liberal Democrats, the notable success of this coalition, in its first term, was evidenced by the party’s insistence that Labour dropped its commitment to introduce up-front tuition fees for Scottish students studying at Scottish universities. In terms of overall political philosophy, the Scottish Liberal Democratic Party was trying to defend the idea of the universal welfare state at a time when it was under fire from those, including many within the Labour Party, who saw the free market, and the opening up of public service provision to the private sector, as the solutions to the difficulties encountered by some sectors of the welfare state. One example of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ determination to uphold, and actually increase, welfare provision came about with the party’s insistence that the coalition government introduce free personal care for elderly people in Scotland. In 2006 an internal party commission under David Steel, which advocated a federal solution to enhancing the powers and status of the Scottish Parliament, shaped the party’s future position on Scottish devolution. In the 2007 Scottish General Election the SNP overtook Labour as the largest political party in Scotland. The partnership with Labour had been good for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Deputy First Ministers Jim Wallace (1999–2005) and his successor Nicol Stephen (2005–7) had been key figures in the coalition government in Scotland. Wallace had even been acting first minister when Donald Dewar died in 2000 and Henry McLeish resigned in 2001. This ended in 2007 when, at these Scottish elections, the party lost one seat and ended up with sixteen MSPs but the Scottish National Party, rather than Labour, was the largest party at Holyrood. The SNP offered them a role as a partner in a potential coalition government but the Scottish Liberal Democrats did not wish to support a party so committed to independence, so all the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs returned to the back benches. Stephen resigned as leader in

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July 2008 and was replaced by the Shetland MSP, Tavish Scott. In the period that followed, the party’s former leader, now Baron Wallace of Tankerness and sitting in the House of Lords, also played an active role on the Calman Commission (see Chapter 5). The party as a whole continued to pursue its agenda of increased devolution for Scotland and curtailing what it regarded as any ‘excesses’ by the SNP government, particularly its independence policy. Although the SNP replaced the Scottish Liberal Democrats in terms of the popular vote in the 2010 Westminster General Election, the party still came second in terms of the number of seats won (eleven compared to Labour’s forty-one, the SNP’s six, and the Conservatives’ one). This meant that, in a Scottish context, the Scottish Liberal Democrats retained their position as the second party of government at Westminster. As the British Liberal Democrat Federal Party went into a coalition government in May 2010, so their Scottish MPs took up key positions in the new government. Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) became Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) became Scottish Secretary. This was the first time that Scottish Liberals had held that post since Sir Archibald Sinclair held it in 1932. With such an historic breakthrough into British government, therefore, it is unsurprising that Scottish Liberal Democrats felt the 2010 General Election had been good for them. This coalition with the Conservatives in Westminster, however. was not popular with either the Scottish public or the Liberal Democrats in Scotland. As the reversal over the Liberal Democrats’ position of opposing English tuition fees and the large-scale budget cuts required became apparent, the party’s popularity in the Scottish opinion polls shrank substantially. The Scottish general election of 2011 therefore proved to be nothing short of a disaster for the party. The Scottish National Party won the majority of Liberal Democrat seats, as almost two-thirds of the Liberal Democrats’ electoral support seemed to transfer directly to the SNP. Nine incumbent Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs lost their seats in the worst post-war defeat for the party. With only five MSPs remaining, the Scottish Liberal Democrats now had just the minimum number of Scottish Parliamentary seats to allow them to serve on Scottish parliamentary committees. In the first Scottish parliamentary elections, the party

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had won almost half as many seats as the SNP; now it was down to only 7 per cent of the SNP’s number of seats. Their leader, Tavish Scott, resigned after these poor results stating: I have no doubt that since last May we have been up against it because of the formation of a UK Government where the Liberal Democrats have been seen to prop up the Conservatives which is a pretty disastrous and toxic mix in politics in Scotland.

The newly elected Mid Scotland and Fife regional MSP, Willie Rennie, was now elected unopposed with the aim of to trying restore his party’s fortunes at Holyrood and in Scotland. The 2012 Scottish local government elections, however, continued this rapid political decline as the party lost more than half of its councillors.

Scottish National Party (SNP) The Scottish National Party (SNP) was formed in 1934 from the amalgamation of two existing nationalist groupings, the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party. Like Plaid Cymru in Wales, the SNP had limited impact in the first few decades of its existence, and it was seen more as a pressure group and sometimes a social club than as a potent political force. What the SNP did succeed in doing, however, even during times when its electoral base was small, was to highlight the possibility of alternative methods of government for Scotland rather than merely the Westminster model that was being advocated by, for example, the Conservative and Unionist Party and Labour Party. The SNP had a moderately successful period – in terms of electoral triumphs and an expansion in membership numbers – during the 1960s and 1970s. Much of this success can be attributed to the party’s; ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ campaign, that succeeded in touching a raw nerve with those Scots who felt that the discovery of oil and gas reserves in Scottish waters should, first and foremost, aid the Scottish economy, rather than being siphoned off to the Treasury in London to be used for general expenditure. After this period, the SNP began to see the Labour Party as its real political enemy – launching into a rhetorical campaign in which Labour was described as ‘London Labour’ – and, with Labour moving to the right, the SNP began to reposition itself and describe its policies

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as ‘socialist’ or ‘social democratic’. Hence, the battle for the left-ofcentre ground in Scottish politics, and the claim of who had the true interests of the Scottish people at heart, were really under way.

Alex Salmond and the SNP’s push for independence In 1990 Alex Salmond took the leadership of the SNP, picking up 486 votes from party delegates against Margaret Ewing’s 186. Salmond (Box 6.2) led the SNP for a decade, from 1990 to 2000, before returning to assume the reins again in 2004. His leadership proved important to furthering the cause for a new political settlement in Scotland and, in particular, the support for the 1997 devolution referendum. Salmond sought to induce what he termed ‘social democracy with a Scottish face’. In doing so, he was taking on Labour on what many deemed as being its own political ground. This was an astute tactical move as it meant that the media in Scotland, and occasionally further afield, would home in on this ideological battle. While the media studied the nature of the policies, the SNP, with Salmond to the fore, could push the case for Scottish self-government.

The fundamentalist/gradualist debate However it positions itself in left/right terms, there is an ongoing debate within the SNP as to the pace at which the party should seek to transform Scotland’s constitutional status. This debate remains in progress because the SNP has always had its ‘gradualist’ and ‘fundamentalist’ wings. The ‘gradualists’ seek independence through a ‘ladder system’ that involves, initially, the type of devolved government presently to be seen at Holyrood. The gradualists, then, hanker for an incremental process – possibly taking many years – that would eventually lead to a referendum on independence. Alternatively, those supporting the ‘fundamentalist’ outlook within the SNP argue for what has been termed the ‘big bang’ approach to achieving self-government. This ‘big-bang’ position would, in theory, see Scottish independence coming about very shortly after a victory for the SNP at the polls. Those adopting the ‘fundamentalist’ stance contend that independence is an urgent necessity. They therefore claim that Scotland cannot afford to waste its time going through an evolutionary process to independence.

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Box 6.2 Alex Salmond: First Minister of the Scottish Parliament – biography • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Born 31 December 1954 (Hogmanay). Graduate of St Andrews University. Worked for the Government Economic Service and later as energy economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland. Joined the SNP in 1973. He was a leading member of the 79 Group of socialist republicans within the SNP, which resulted in a short expulsion from the party. Elected MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987. Supported the Yes campaign for the Scottish Parliament in 1997. Elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Stood down as SNP leader in 2000 and left the Scottish Parliament to lead the SNP at Westminster. Was re-elected leader of the SNP in 2004 and re-elected to Westminster in 2005. Re-elected in 2007 to the Scottish Parliament for the seat of Gordon. In May 2007 becomes the first minister for the first time, heading a minority government. His political stature rises well above that of the other Scottish leaders, and the SNP use this as a campaigning asset when they stand as ‘Alex Salmond for First Minister’ on the regional lists. In May 2011 becomes the first minister for the second time, winning a majority for the SNP and adopts the stature of ‘Father of the Scottish Nation’.

Both wings, however, were unprepared for the financial crisis that hit the global economy in 2008. This became particularly apparent with the demise of two Scottish banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Halifax Bank of Scotland. Both needed substantial sums of government financial support to prevent bankruptcy. RBS alone ended up with some £45 billion in taxpayers’ support. This made those sceptical of, or opposed to, independence wondering whether an independent Scotland would have suffered the same problems as Ireland did with its banks. It also lengthened the process and mechanisms of obtaining independence as the SNP government sought to deal with the problems facing the Scottish economy.

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Box 6.3 The ‘National Conversation’ on Scottish independence One of Alex Salmond’s first central policy actions when becoming first minister was to launch a consultation exercise on Scottish independence. The fifty-nine page White Paper entitled Choosing Scotland’s Future set out details of a draft bill which would have given public endorsement through a referendum to allow the Scottish government to negotiate with the Westminster government over Scottish independence. Any independent Scotland would retain Queen Elizabeth as its monarch and be a member of the Commonwealth in the same ways as countries like New Zealand and Canada are. On St Andrew’s Day 2009, at the formal end of the consultation of the ‘National Conversation’, another White Paper was introduced called Your Scotland, Your Voice which set out plans for the Referendum (Scotland) Bill. Any referendum held by the Scottish Parliament would not be legally binding as the Westminster Parliament retains parliamentary sovereignty over constitutional issues such as these. A vote for independence in any referendum, however, would difficult for a Westminster Parliament to ignore and not act upon. It was suggested by the SNP that any proposed referendum could also give those voting three possible options: status quo, more powers (referred to as Devo Max) and independence. The Westminster coalition government, however, dismissed this and stated there must be a straight choice between ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ only for the question of devolution. The financial crisis from 2008 onwards, however, has shifted public opinion away from independence, and the three main British political parties and most Scottish voters remain opposed to Scottish independence. In June 2011, a TNS–BMRB opinion poll, just after the SNP’s historic Scottish parliamentary success, showed 37 per cent for independence, 45 per cent against and 18 per cent undecided.

The SNP: from opposition to government With its mission to deliver independence to the people of Scotland, it would be easy and simplistic to claim that devolution is a ‘halfway house’ for the SNP and for other advocates of an independent Scotland. But, as seen in the debate highlighted above, there are

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internal tensions and disagreements about the correct way to proceed. Nevertheless, the SNP performed reasonably well at the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections. The party achieved second place overall, with 29 per cent of the first vote and 27 per cent of the second vote. This ensured a total of thirty-five seats in the first parliament. In the election campaign, the SNP portrayed the Scottish Labour Party as puppets of New Labour in London. The SNP thus asked the people to vote for a Scotland-based party rather than a Londonbased organisation. Simultaneously, Salmond attacked the Scottish Liberal Democrats who, according to the SNP, were just waiting to form a coalition with Labour. A decade later, when the Liberal Democrats formed another coalition, this time in Westminster, it was to be the SNP that functioned as an alternative for disillusioned Liberal Democrat voters. Initially, it was thought that devolution would satisfy the Scottish public’s appetite for increased political autonomy. In the 2003 Scottish elections the SNP under John Swinney lost eight seats as the electorate moved its support to the minor political parties. Labour gained almost twice as many seats as the SNP did and it looked as if Scottish voters were rejecting the party’s appeals for nationalism and independence. In 2004, at the European parliamentary elections, the SNP failed to improve on its two MEPs, and its share of the vote fell by 1.3. per cent. The fundamentalist wing of the party and some elements of the Scottish media portrayed this as further defeat for the SNP, and Swinney resigned and was replaced by his predecessor, Alex Salmond. The SNP’s rise under Alex Salmond from now on would cause turmoil in the other Scottish political parties. In 2007 he was returned as an MSP in the Scottish Parliament, removing the sitting Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP, Nora Radcliffe, from the seat of Gordon at the same time. This time he wasn’t leader of the Opposition but first minister of a minority Scottish government that had also secured the support of the Scottish Green Party on a confidence and supply basis. Despite Green Party support, the SNP remained as a minority government which restricted its governmental agenda and meant that it had to negotiate with the other political parties to ensure that its legislative programme could be implemented. The most

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Box 6.4 Gradualism versus fundamentalism Gradualism • Dominant faction within the SNP since the 1970s • Prodevolution: seen as a ‘step in the right direction’ • Evolutionary road to independence • More willing to co-operate with other political parties and campaigning organisations Fundamentalism • Smaller but vocal faction within the SNP • Unconvinced about the purpose of devolution • Fast track to independence: the ‘big-bang’ approach • Sceptical about the desire for independence among other political parties and organisations • When the SNP gained power in 2007 this part of the party grew in strength and the ideas behind independence were pushed forward more forcefully

controversial period of Salmond’s period in office concerned his government’s freeing of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset alMegrahi. He was released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was dying of prostate cancer. His release soured Scottish and British relations with the United States which condemned it. Neither the Labour government of Gordon Brown nor the subsequent Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, supported the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Nevertheless, they did not get publically involved in the decision and left it as a Scottish matter which demonstrated the extent to which some political powers had now truly been devolved. In the 2010 General Election, the SNP in Scotland advanced to second place in the popular vote but failed to improve on the six Westminster seats they held. It was also still a very long way from challenging Labour’s Westminster lead of forty-one Scottish seats. It was the 2011 Scottish General Election that caused real panic among the other Scottish political parties as they lost constituency after constituency to the SNP. The SNP positioned itself as the party of Scotland fighting against the expenditure cuts and putting

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‘Scotland first’. As well as appealing to the Left with their antinuclear stance, they also gathered support from the wider Scottish public by freezing council tax bills, abolishing prescription charges, by opposition to university tuition fees and reductions in local business rates. The SNP gained twenty-three seats from the other political parties in 2011 and with it the Scottish Parliament’s first majority government. Salmond came back into power determined to continue with his drive towards independence. At the same time, other policies, such as continuing to offer free places to Scottish undergraduates and freezing the council tax rates, could be undertaken without having to rely on other parties for support.

Scottish Conservative Party In the 1950s the Scottish Conservative Party was on the crest of a wave. So much so, in fact, that, in the 1955 General Election, the Tories gained over 50 per cent of the vote in Scotland. Interestingly, at that time, many Conservatives in Scotland were still using the title ‘the Unionist Party’, a title used by the party mainly from 1886 to 1921 but, in some instances, maintained until the 1980s. Given the debate on home rule that was beginning to emerge at that time, the use of the label ‘the Unionist Party’ showed that Conservatives who used it were clearly signalling their adherence to maintaining the political and constitutional status quo. The Scottish Conservative Party’s steady decline since their peak in the 1950s has been put down to many factors. It is evident, however, that the Conservatives’ passion for Unionism, and its intransigent position regarding the maintenance of the political and constitutional set-up of the United Kingdom, combined with a denial of the growing sense of national identity among Scottish people, did not commend it to those rising numbers among the electorate who were demanding radical change. The final nail in the coffin, however, appeared to be driven in with the arrival of the Conservative administration of Margaret Thatcher who, it was perceived by many north of the border, placed the interests of England before those of Scotland. With all this as a backdrop, the Scottish Conservative Party was always likely to face difficulties with the establishment of devolved government as the Tories, more

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than any other party, had to come to terms with a new structure that had widespread electoral support but which was the antithesis of the core beliefs held by most Scottish Conservatives.

Scottish Conservative Party: devolution, renewal and evolution Faced with the moral and electoral difficulties outlined above, it can be argued that the Scottish Conservatives initially did fairly well from devolution as the Scottish Parliament enabled them to gain elected representatives in Scotland once more after their total wipeout in the general election of 1997. One key moment for the Conservatives came in 1998 when, after some soul searching, the party became far more ‘Scottish’ in the sense that it was granted more autonomy from Conservative Central Office in London, and it began to develop more focused policies that took account of the changes that devolution was about to bring. Then, in the Westminster general election of 2001, they regained one seat in Scotland in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale removing the ‘Toryfree’ tag from Scottish politics. In electoral terms the Scottish Conservatives have undoubtedly benefited from the system of proportional representation (PR) that was introduced at the time of devolution. The Tories knew that this would be advantageous as the projections released at the time of the 1997 General Election indicated. According to these figures, the Conservatives, who did not pick up a single first-past-the-post (FPTP) seat at that election, would have had thirteen seats if a PR system had been in use. This was further indication, if needed, that, despite its general early hostility towards the concept of devolution, the Scottish Conservative Party would be in a position to gain seats and relaunch itself after elections to the Scottish Parliament took place. The Scottish Conservatives, under their leader David McLetchie, started off by winning just over 15 per cent of the vote and eighteen seats and this was repeated in 2001 with a slight increase in the vote. McLetchie even won the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency, re-establishing the Conservatives in the capital and defeating the Scottish Labour leader, Iain Grey, in the process. McLetchie was forced to resign as leader in 2005. This was after it came to light

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that he had been using taxis paid for by the Scottish Parliament for Conservative Party, rather than Scottish parliamentary, business. Annabel Goldie, a solicitor and MSP for West Renfrewshire took over, first as acting leader, and then stood for and was successful in becoming the first female to lead the Scottish Conservatives. At her party’s spring conference in 2006 she boldly announced plans to make the Scottish Conservatives once more the main opposition in Scotland. As we have seen already, however, this role had now passed to the SNP. Goldie was praised both inside and outside of the party for her leadership skills and her performance in the Scottish Parliament. Nevertheless, the Scottish Conservatives failed to progress electorally; their share of the vote dipped in the 2007 Scottish General Election, losing the party one MSP, and in the following election, it fell further resulting in more loses. One of those defeated was David McLetchie, the former Conservative Party leader, who lost his Edinburgh seat to the SNP. After the poor results, Annabel Goldie resigned as leader. In the subsequent leadership contest, one of the party’s front-runners, Murdo Fraser, advocated plans to remove the Scottish Conservatives permanently from the party in London and enjoy full autonomy. The plan was to have an independent party in Scotland with its own leader and name but allied to the Conservatives in London. This is a similar situation to that of the Ulster Unionist party in Northern Ireland. Fraser’s plan received a mixed reaction from his party, with some endorsing it fully and others describing it as merely following the SNP’s independence agenda. The first overall leader of the Conservatives in Scotland was not Fraser but Ruth Davidson, however. Davidson was a former BBC journalist. She had many of the qualities that would normally have been considered directly opposite to those of a traditional Conservative leader. She was newly elected (Glasgow list seat in May 2011), young (thirty-two years old), female and openly gay. Davidson also made it clear that the Scottish Conservatives would determine their own destiny separately, if required, from the party in London. Just after her election she stated to the BBC that: ‘While David Cameron is my prime minister, when he comes to Scotland he’s not my boss – we’re colleagues’. It appeared to those outside observers of the Scottish Conservative Party that it was now truly evolving into a Scottish party in its own right.

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Box 6.5 What is wrong with the Conservatives’ brand in Scotland? When David Cameron visited Scotland in 2012, he light-heartedly remarked that Scottish Conservatives at Westminster were rarer in Scotland than pandas. There are two giant pandas in Edinburgh Zoo but only one Conservative MP in Scotland. After their poor showing in the Westminster election of 2010 and the Scottish parliamentary elections of 2011, the Conservatives in Scotland have re-examined the perception of their party and sought to see why they are failing to advance. They have noted that: •

• •

•

the impact of the pro-Unionist and antidevolutionist Margaret Thatcher and her unpopular centre-right policies have had a lasting effect on the fortunes of the Scottish Party; the SNP has become seen as the voice of Scotland, while the Conservatives are perceived as the voice of England in Scotland; the coalition government in Westminster led by the Conservatives remains unpopular mainly because of its agenda of spending cuts; the Conservatives are suffering from a squeeze as two-party politics – SNP and Labour – has developed in Scotland.

The other political parties In the elections of 1999 and 2003 it looked as though a whole new series of minor political parties and independent MSPs was coming into being in Scotland. In 2003 some fifteen candidates from ‘other political parties’ and three independents were elected as MSPs. The 2007 Scottish elections, however, saw their number reduced to a small rump of three MSPs. This section examines the main ‘other political parties’, which never managed to win a constituency but were able to take advantage of the lists seats available as a result of the AMS system in Scotland.

Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) was formed in 1998. It arose out of the umbrella organisation, the Scottish Socialist Alliance, which

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was an alliance of left-wing organisations. Its principal founders were Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan (see Box 6.6). The Scottish Socialist Party ideology combines democratic socialism with a call for Scottish independence. In the Scottish elections of 1999 and 2003 the SSP had considerable appeal, gaining almost a quarterof-a-million votes and six MSPs. Internal disagreements within the party, the rise of the SNP and the self-destruction of their leader, Tommy Sheridan (Box 6.6), meant that, at the 2007 Scottish elections, the SSP lost all its MSPs and protected less than 10 per cent of the vote that it had at the previous election. The 2011 elections saw the party’s vote decrease still further. Their anti-war, anticapitalist and pro-socialist message now seemed to received no positive response from the Scottish voters and the party was left with just one elected county councillor as its democratic voice – a far cry from its successes a decade earlier. Box 6.6 Who was Tommy Sheridan? •

• •

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• •

Tommy Sheridan was an MSP from 1999 to 2007 and represented the region of Glasgow. He had been a member of the ‘Militant Tendency’ in Scotland, an outlawed, radical, left-wing grouping within the Labour Party, for which he was expelled from the party in 1989. Sheridan was the convener of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) from 1998 to 2004 A charismatic leader and fine orator, Sheridan often appeared right at the top of opinion polls that sought to find Scotland’s most respected politician. As a councillor on Glasgow City Council, Sheridan was imprisoned for his actions against the poll tax’s imposition. Sheridan resigned as convenor of the SSP in 2004 after which the News of the World ran a series of articles concerning his sexual and private life. In September 2006 he formed a new political party, Solidarity (Scotland), but failed to be re-elected. Sheridan sued the News of the World and won the case in 2006 but, in January 2011, he was sentenced to three years in prison for perjury in the case.

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Scottish Green Party The Scottish Green Party (Pàrtaidh Uaine na h-Alba in Scottish Gaelic) became a separate political party from the Green Party of England and Wales in 1990. The Scottish Greens wanted this separation as it showed the party’s commitment to decentralisation. Apart from decentralisation and environmentalist concerns, the Scottish Green Party, like the Scottish Socialist Party, likes to emphasise its commitment to establishing an independent Scotland. In international terms, the Scottish Green Party is a member of the Global Greens organisation, and, within Europe, it is a full member of the European Federation of Green Parties. The Scottish Green Party received 3.6 per cent of list votes in the 1999 Scottish Parliament election. This gave the Greens its first MSP, Robin Harper, in the Lothians region. With representation in parliament, the Scottish Greens’ profile was raised and its youth wing, Scottish Young Greens, grew in strength. This enabled the Scottish Greens to launch themselves into the 2003 parliamentary election with renewed vigour. With seven MSPs at Holyrood, in the 2003 Scottish elections, the Scottish Green Party reached its peak. The following election in 2007 saw its share of the vote almost halve and their number of MSPs was reduced to two. It was therefore ironic that it was only after this poor result that the Scottish Green Party was able to exert its influence on Scottish politics. As we noted earlier, the SNP failed to gain a majority in 2007 and needed to be supported by another political party. The Scottish Greens came to their aid with the confidence and supply agreement. As a reward for this agreement, the Scottish Greens received, among other things, a climate change bill and the nomination of one of their MSPs, Patrick Harvie, for the chair of the Scottish Parliament’s Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. In the Scottish Parliament elections of 2011, the Scottish Green Party retained its two MSPs which, in the process, made them the most durable of the so-called ‘other political parties’ in the Scottish Parliament. With the SNP now in a majority government, however, the Scottish Greens’ period of influence on Scottish Parliament outcomes was effectively over.

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Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP) The Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP) was formed in February 2003. Astonishingly, less than three months later, they had a Member of the Scottish Parliament. That MSP was John Swinburne, one of the party’s founders, who was the list MSP representing the region of Central Scotland. On policy matters, the SSCUP argued that senior citizens in Scotland should have been entitled to a basic pension of £160 per week. This enhancement was deemed to be vitally important as the SSCUP claimed that a third of Scotland’s pensioners were living in poverty at this time. The SSCUP also campaigned against any form of ‘means testing’ to establish entitlement and put forward proposals for replacing the council tax with a local income tax designed to be more favourable to those on lower incomes, included many pensioners. The SSCUP’s one MSP, John Swinbourne, was also in favour of reintroducing ‘the belt’, a method of physically beating schoolchildren in schools in order to install discipline (also known as corporal punishment). His views were condemned by other MSPs and by the teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS). These same views of Swinbourne’s policy ideas seem also to be reflected by the electorate at the 2007 Scottish parliamentary elections when the SSCUP’s vote fell from 6.5 to 1.9 per cent, and with it went the SSCUP’s presence in Scottish politics.

Scottish political parties: the future When the Scottish Parliament was first established, and in its first and second elections, it looked as though Scottish politics would be a pluralistic democracy with power spread across many different political parties. In the Scottish election of 2007, and even more so in those of 2011, political power became concentrated in the hands of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Under the stewardship of Alex Salmond, the SNP gained a victory at Holyrood that those who created the original AMS electoral system didn’t believe that any one political party could ever achieve. The SNP now saw this as confirmation by the electorate of its own policy agenda including that of Scottish independence. In turn, the appeal to Scottish nationalism

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damaged British political parties’ appeal in Scotland. All parties now sought to make themselves more Scottish rather than Unionist in their structures and policies. The British parties are now all pursuing policies at Westminster that will make Scotland far more autonomous than it has been since the Act of Union in 1707. It now looks, in many ways, as though Scottish politics is remodelling itself along the lines of the political parties of Northern Ireland in respect to their distance from London and the degree of autonomy they enjoy.

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What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

Scotland’s political landscape differs from that of other parts of Britain.

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Since devolution, Scotland has developed a five-party system with the SNP playing the dominant role.

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The SNP has moved from being a small party to one of government in less than a decade; in doing so, it now actively seeks to put its central aim of Scottish independence into practice

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Devolution has forced parties, like Labour and the Conservatives, to become more Scottish in their thinking, their public personas and in their party structures.

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Devolution has, arguably, given more voice to previously peripheral issues and peripheral political parties.

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There is still a debate about how far down the devolutionary road the Scottish people wish to go but all of the political parties support further devolution of one sort or another.

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Glossary of key terms Big bang The theory, supported by many fundamentalists within the SNP, that Scotland would achieve independence in a swift, almost revolutionary, manner following a huge pro-SNP vote in an election. Centre ground The area on the political spectrum that is inhabited by people of a liberal or social-democratic persuasion. Sometimes referred to as ‘the middle of the road’. Confidence and supply basis The agreement that a minor party undertakes to keep another party in government. It means that the minor party will support the government in confidence votes and in appropriation bills that ensure the government gets the finance needed to continue its policies in office. The reward for the minor party(s) is a greater say in policy creation.

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Democratic socialism The ideological position of the Scottish Socialist Party. Democratic socialists want a socialist society to come about through democratic, parliamentary methods rather than through violent revolution. Environmentalism The belief in preserving and enhancing the natural world. Though environmentalism is most commonly associated with the Scottish Green Party, other parties also like to present themselves as ‘environmentally friendly’. Federal party structure The structure of a political party in which powers and responsibility for different policy areas are split between the region/ country and the UK national level. Each federal part has autonomy over its leadership selection, internal rules and processes, constitution and development. Although the parts are united by common ideology they may still develop separate or contradictory policies. Four-nations model The argument that any talk of the United Kingdom must take account of the four nations that comprise it. Therefore, there must be some acknowledgement that each has its own history and culture that distinguish it from being just ‘British’. Fundamentalist A faction within the Scottish National Party (SNP) that wants independence immediately after the SNP achieves electoral success in Scotland. Fundamentalists are generally suspicious about the efficacy of the devolution process. Gradualist Gradualists within the SNP believe in an evolutionary road to self-government that passes through the devolutionary avenue. The gradualist vision has been the predominant view in the SNP in recent years. Means testing A system of measurement, normally financial, that is used by officers of the state, such as civil servants, to determine whether or not somebody is entitled to a benefit. New Labour The label associated with the Labour Party since its move to the right under Tony Blair. Many activists in Scottish Labour seek to distance themselves from the New Labour tag. Political collectivism The idea that issues are best dealt with in a group rather than on an individual basis. The principle of the National Health Service (NHS) is a good example of this collectivist approach. Pragmatic nationalists The label given to the Scottish Labour Party as it sought to show its commitment to Scotland while maintaining its British identity and its ‘British’ social policy agenda.

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Likely examination questions Identify the main reasons behind the rise of the SNP as a party of government. Discuss the ways in which the Scottish political scene is unique within the United Kingdom.

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Is it fair to claim that, when it comes to the issue of devolution, most voters in Scotland would describe themselves as ‘gradualist’ rather than ‘fundamentalist’? Indicate the impact upon the three main British political parties of the SNP’s success in the Scottish parliamentary elections of 2011.

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Helpful websites www.scottishlabour.org.uk The Scottish Labour Party. www.scotlibdems.org.uk The Scottish Liberal Democrats. www.snp.org The SNP (Scottish National Party). www.scottishconservatives.com The Scottish Conservative Party. www.scottishgreens.org.uk The Scottish Green Party.

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Suggestions for further reading G. Hassan, The Scottish Labour Party, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. P. Lynch, Scottish Government and Politics: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Edinburgh University Press, 2008. N. McGarvey and P. Cairney, Scottish Politics: An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. J. Mitchell, ‘Ever Looser Union’, Political Insight 2:2, 2011

CHAPTER 7

The Government of Wales Contents The road to devolution in Wales The development of the Welsh Office Wales at Westminster The Welsh political parties at Westminster Westminster and the Welsh Assembly The National Assembly for Wales – Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru The Welsh general election The first minister The cabinet of the Welsh Assembly government (Welsh Executive) The committees The similarities between Westminster and the Welsh Assembly Wales and the European Union Conclusion

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Overview Originally the Welsh Assembly was referred to as an executive model of devolution; this is distinct from the administrative model used by the former Welsh Office or the legislative/parliamentary model used in the Scottish Parliament. Aside from devolution in England, Wales has been the nation whose devolutionary powers have evolved the most slowly. The Welsh Assembly gained the power to make its own primary laws in Wales only in 2011. It still lacks other powers such as its own tax-raising abilities or responsibility for areas such as law and order which have been given to Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Welsh Assembly now, however, has developed into a parliamentary model of government, even if on a smaller scale than that of Scotland or Northern Ireland. Devolution in the form of the National Assembly for Wales (Welsh Assembly) has also changed to a significant degree the way in which Wales is governed. It has brought an increased ‘localism’ in the way that politics is now undertaken in Wales. This chapter examines the way Wales is governed centrally on an all-Wales level, the development of devolution and the modern-day operation of the National Assembly for Wales (Welsh Assembly). The chapter also looks briefly at the interaction between Wales and the European Union.

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The origins of political and administrative devolution in Wales The problems with the former role of Westminster and Whitehall in the government of Wales prior to devolution How Westminster now relates to Wales in the post-devolution era The role of the first minister and the Welsh cabinet How Wales relates to the European Union in the devolution era

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The road to devolution in Wales Wales was never really one unified nation in the form that we know today. Welsh princes, such as Llewellyn and Owain Glyndwr, succeeded in uniting some parts of Wales under one leadership but this never included the whole nation. It was Henry VIII, therefore, who united the public administration systems of Wales and England under the Acts of Union (1536–42). From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, the administration of Wales was gradually integrated fully into that of England. It then evolved as an element of the English administrative system. In the centuries that followed, the links between England and Wales were strengthened by ‘physical proximity, population movement and common legal and educational systems’. It was not until the last half of the nineteenth century that a Welsh national consciousness developed to such an extent, through the Welsh National Liberals and the Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) movement, that the status quo was challenged. The Liberal governments provided greater administrative devolution to Wales, such as the establishment of the Welsh Boards of Education and Health, but the more general desire for a Welsh parliament, as part of ‘Home Rule all round’, and substantial administrative devolution did not occur. Despite the numerous attempts to bring substantive administrative devolution to Wales, it took seventy-two years from the first attempt to create a Welsh Secretary in Parliament in 1892, until the Labour government eventually did so in 1964. The Conservative Party, and for many years the Labour Party, were always thoroughly opposed to the establishment of a Welsh Secretary or a Welsh Office. All attempts to establish them were rebuffed by the parties. The main obstacle in the decentralisation of administrative authority from London to Cardiff was that, unlike Ireland and Scotland, Wales lacked any widespread tradition of being treated as a separate administrative unit. The Conservatives, the Labour Party and the Home Civil Service (whose headquarters are based in Whitehall, London) resented a division of authority on an area or national basis, and always stressed the advantages of unified administrative control. Eventually, it was the Labour Party that was persuaded of the virtues of administrative devolution by

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those within their own Welsh ranks. In 1964 Labour won the general election and a Welsh Office was established, with Welsh Labour elder statesman James Griffiths becoming the first Welsh Secretary in recognition of his continued prodevolutionary campaigning. It had been a bitter battle within the Labour Party and was to foreshadow that which would occur later over political devolution in Wales. From now on, however, Wales would at least have its own secretary of state who, in theory, would project the Welsh voice into the cabinet and government.

The development of the Welsh Office Between its foundation in 1964 and its demise in 1999, the Welsh Office represented the most obvious example of the devolution of public administration to Wales. Over the thirty-five years of its existence, the Welsh Office grew from a territorial government ministry, with mainly executive oversight responsibilities (commenting on the work of the other government departments), to a department with its own functional remit. The Welsh Office grew tenfold in the number of civil servants employed within it. The size of its budget and its powers also grew considerably. It always, however, remained weaker in terms of staffing, ministerial complement and range of functions than its sister departments in Northern Ireland and Scotland. In 1978, in response to the forthcoming devolution referendum, the funding of the Welsh Office was fixed. The fixed sum it was given each year was known as the Welsh Block. Any additional money was supplied under what became known as the Barnett Formula. In its first twenty years, the Welsh Office was run by Welsh Secretaries who had come from Wales and who tried to shape the office to meet Welsh circumstances. In 1987, however, the Conservatives could no longer find any suitable MPs from Wales and, from then on, it was run by English MPs. This was just one of the problems with the operation of the Welsh Office (see Box 7.1). The problems of the Welsh Office in turn led to greater demands for a Welsh assembly and to a series of events that led to its eventual establishment (see Box 7.2).

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Box 7.1 What was wrong with the Welsh Office? The problems with the role of Westminster and Whitehall in the government of Wales were: 1. the Welsh Office was Whitehall’s smallest ministry and was therefore at the bottom of the ministerial pecking order. This meant that the Welsh Office was always the junior partner in ministerial negotiations; 2. the Welsh population constantly voted against a Conservative government yet, for most of the existence of the Welsh Office, it was a Conservative government that ran Wales and the Welsh Office; 3. many of the Welsh Secretaries did not come from Wales. Only one of the six Conservative Welsh Secretaries held a seat in Wales. Conservative Welsh Secretaries tended to be there for a short time before trying to move up the ministerial/ political ladder, though their fortunes in doing so were mixed; 4. Wales under the Welsh Office was run by a vast bureaucracy in the shape of the Welsh quangos. These quangos became bigger than the democratically elected Welsh local authorities. They were responsible for the allocation of billions of pounds of government money yet remained responsible to only a few government ministers; 5. Whitehall and Westminster were heavily congested with government business which meant that they had little time to spend on necessary Welsh legislation and business.

Box 7.2 Important events on the road to a Welsh assembly •

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From 1888 to 1979 numerous attempts to bring in a Welsh parliament failed. The 1979 St David’s Day referendum for a Welsh assembly was defeated by five to one. The 1983 General Election manifestos of the Welsh Liberal/SDP and Plaid Cymru parties made it clear that they still supported the idea of a Welsh parliament. From 1979 to 1987 Labour ignored the issue of political devolution  for Wales. In 1987 they lost the general election,

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which  caused them to re-examine the concept of a Welsh assembly. In May 1987 future prominent Labour figures, Jon Owen Jones and Rhodri Morgan, were elected as Labour MPs. Rhodri Morgan became a member and Jon Owen Jones the Chairman of the Campaign for a Welsh Assembly. Their drive pushed the issue of a Welsh assembly further up the Labour Party agenda. In October 1987 a working group was appointed by the Labour Party to look at the future of local government in Wales. When it reported back in 1989, it recommended the establishment of a Welsh assembly. In their 1992 General Election manifestos the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats all stated they would establish a Welsh assembly/parliament. In 1994 the Wales Labour Party established a Constitutional Policy Commission which produced a series of reports over the following years, endorsed by conference, which detailed how the Welsh assembly would be run. In 1996 Ron Davies, Shadow Welsh Secretary, announced the new assembly would be elected by a PR system, and would be introduced only after a referendum. In March 1997 Ron Davies, the Labour ‘leader’ in Wales, and Alex Carlile, the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, signed a joint declaration committing both parties to campaign for a Yes vote in any referendum. In May 1997 the Labour Party won the general election. In July they published a White Paper, A Voice for Wales, which detailed the nature of the new assembly. The Welsh assembly referendum was held on 18 September 1997. Half the Welsh counties voted No but the numerical superiority of the other eleven allowed a narrow majority for Yes. The final vote was 50.3 per cent Yes and 49.7 per cent No, with just over half of the Welsh electorate voting. In July 1998 the Government of Wales Act gained royal assent. The only major difference between the Act and the White Paper, A Voice for Wales, is that the assembly would now be run on a cabinet system instead of the previous model designed on local government committees. In May 1999 the first elections to the assembly were held. Labour gained twenty-eight seats, Plaid Cymru seventeen, Conservatives  nine and Liberal Democrats six. Alun Michael became the first minister and Lord Dyfydd Elis Thomas its presiding officer.

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Wales at Westminster It was not until its fourth term that the Welsh Assembly, via a referendum in 2011, was given its own primary legislative powers without the need to go through the Westminster Parliament. Therefore, for the first twelve years of its existence any primary laws that the Welsh Assembly did require had to go through a long process known as Legislative Competence Orders (LCOs). There have been very few purely Welsh Acts made within Parliament. Wales does not have a separate legal system from England. Therefore, for Wales the main role of Welsh MPs in Westminster concerns the process of the keeping the executive (government) in check. All of the main political parties in Britain are represented in Wales. The most regular opportunity for Welsh involvement is at the parliamentary question times attended by the Welsh Secretary and his/her junior minister. Held every three to four weeks, this method became more limited after devolution by concerning only non-devolved assembly issues.

The Welsh political parties at Westminster Just like MPs in the rest of the United Kingdom, those in Wales play numerous roles at Westminster. All the political parties, with the exception of the Conservatives, operate Welsh parliamentary groups although they do have a Welsh Whip. The Welsh Labour Party is the main political group of MPs in Wales, and a number of its MPs have served in the cabinet of the Westminster government and the Opposition shadow cabinet. The most prominent of these members in Labour’s first three governments, formed after 1997, have been Peter Hain whose posts have included, Secretary of State for Wales, Northern Ireland Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In 2008 Hain resigned following the failure of his campaign for the deputy leadership of the Labour party to declare donations of £103,156. Hain was not prosecuted for this and consequently returned to his post as Welsh Secretary in June 2009, becoming Shadow Welsh Secretary after his party’s 2010 General Election defeat. For a while Hain held the dual posts of Northern Ireland Secretary and Secretary of State for Wales. These posts were also held by the Labour MP for Torfaen,

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Paul Murphy, who later held the post of Leader of the House of Commons. For most of the period under the Labour governments between 1997 and 2010, a Welsh presence was re-established in the cabinet, after a ten-year absence under the Conservatives. Welsh-born politicians, who also held seats in Wales, however, remained a rarity in Tony Blair’s cabinet and were even rarer in Gordon Brown’s. Having said this, however, we should note that far more Labour MPs from Wales normally hold positions either in the government or in Opposition than those from other parties. In 2012 there were eleven Welsh MPs in the shadow government, 40 per cent of the Welsh total. For the Welsh Conservatives and Liberal Democrats there was just one MP, only 10 per cent of their total. The Labour Party in Wales also remains closely tied with that of London, to a far greater extent than it does in Scotland. This in part reflects the mainly antinationalist and pro-unionist views of its members. The Conservatives had no MPs in Wales between 1997 and 2005. In 2005 they gained three MPs and a further four in 2010. This had the effect of making them the second party of Wales once more. Despite this, they have failed to produce any prominent Welsh MPs in the post-devolution era. Their shadow Welsh secretaries have all represented English seats and, until 2005, were not even in the shadow cabinet. In December 2005, they appointed their first female Shadow Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, the MP for Chesham and Amersham since April 1992. Like most of their former Welsh secretaries, she had little connection with Wales, having left when she was ten. Although she was born in Cardiff, her main education and subsequent career development took place in England. Despite these facts, Gillan was appointed the Welsh Secretary in David Cameron’s coalition government in 2010, reintroducing the notion of English constituency Conservative MPs as Welsh secretaries that had been common until 1997. David Jones, the MP for Clwyd West, was appointed as Parliamentary Undersecretary for Wales. Jones became the only MP in Wales to hold ministerial office, notably at the more junior level of minister of state. This represented the lowest level of Welsh representation in the government since 1970–74 when no Welsh MPs were in the Conservative government of Edward Heath. Unlike in Scotland, the leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh

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Assembly does not hold the status of leader of his party in that country. Thus, Prime Minister David Cameron remains the leader of the Conservatives in Wales with the assembly group leader, Andrew R. T. Davies, holding only that position. While the Scottish Liberal Democrats have two cabinet secretaries and a junior minister among their number, the Welsh Liberal Democrats had no representation in the coalition government at Westminster. Until May 2010, the Welsh Liberal Democrats, with four MPs in Wales had been the official Opposition in Wales. This meant they had the greatest number of MPs after the Labour Party. In that election, however, Lembit Opik (their longest-serving Welsh MP whose name is of Estonian origin) lost his Montgomeryshire seat to the Conservatives in the largest electoral swing against a Liberal Democrat MP in the United Kingdom. While Opik had been prominent when the party was in opposition, he had been the Shadow Welsh and the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, he also had a flamboyant nature that proved to be his undoing. The fact that he was well known in the London media circuit and in the tabloid papers seemed to have led to his rejection by his constituency voters. Therefore, while the party gained 1.5. per cent more of the overall vote in the 2010 General Election than it did in 2005, it actually lost one seat. Jenny Willott, the MP for Cardiff Central, and the only female non-Labour MP in Wales since 1951, had been appointed a parliamentary private secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. She resigned this in December 2010 in order to keep the pledge she had given her constituents not to introduce the large-scale increase in tuition fees recommended by the Browne Review. Thus, the Welsh Liberal Democrats remain the weakest of the Liberal Democrat state parties at Westminster even though their presence in the House of Lords has been strengthened considerably with the arrival of two of its former leading Welsh Assembly Members (Michael German and Jenny Randerson). Plaid Cymru has just three MPs, all in Wales. Each of its MPs was Welsh born and, like the Conservatives, the party has never had a female MP in Wales. Elfyn Llwyd is the party’s long-serving leader in the House of Commons. The Plaid Cymru MPs form a single parliamentary grouping together with their Scottish National Party colleagues at Westminster, following a formal pact signed in 1986. This

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enables Plaid Cymru to ‘punch above its weight’ at Westminster (see Box 7.6). Their former leader, Dafydd Wigley, also became a peer in 2011, giving them regular representation in the House of Lords for the first time. Wigley, like all representatives from the smaller parties in Britain and Northern Ireland, sits on the cross-benches rather than on government or opposition benches. Westminster politics in Wales is quite different from that of the Welsh Assembly. Traditionally, it has suffered from two democratic flaws. The first concerns the lack of female MPs; until 1997 there had only ever been four female Welsh MPs. Since then, however, the Labour Party’s use of all-women shortlists and the success of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in gaining a female member for Cardiff Central ( Jenny Willott), have moderated this severe gender imbalance. After the 2005 General Election, however, only 20 per cent of the seats in Wales were held by women, falling to 17.5 per cent for the 2010 election. The second flaw concerns the overrepresentation of the Labour Party in relation to its share of the votes. Under the first-past-thepost electoral system, Wales has one of the most imbalanced electoral systems in the Western world. Between 1970 and 2001 Labour gained between 35 and 55 per cent of the vote but never less than 63 per cent, and as much as 85 per cent, of the total Westminster seats. This disadvantages the other political parties in Wales at election time. In contrast to Westminster, the Welsh Assembly is mainly an evenly balanced legislature in terms of its gender balance, and the proportionality of its votes gained per party to seats won is also much more balanced than those at Westminster elections. Even here, though, Labour’s representation is significantly higher than its share of the vote. Over the last fifty years, Westminster has evolved to allow a broader input from Welsh MPs on purely Welsh matters. The first modern step into accepting that Wales was a political entity in its own right occurred in 1946 when the Leader of the House, Herbert Morrison, introduced an annual Welsh Day debate. This still occurs on or around St David’s Day (1 March) each year. In 1960 a Welsh Grand Committee was established; it incorporated all the Welsh MPs, supplemented by others. The most important committee in Westminster concerned with

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Wales is the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, established in 1979. Following the arrival of the Welsh Assembly, the committee was given a wider remit covering any government policy in Wales not being undertaken by the assembly. When it deals with issues related to the assembly, the committee liaises closely with it. It has established a way of working through consultation, visits and by appearing before assembly committees. It also played a key role in the processes of Welsh primary assembly legislation – known as Assembly Measures – between 2007 and 2011. In 2010 the coalition government announced plans to cut the number of MPs in Wales by a quarter to ensure that all constituencies in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland had broadly the same electorate within them. These cuts will represent the largest reduction in Welsh political representation at Westminster ever to have occurred. In part, the reduction has been justified by the coalition government as a response to the increased powers of the Welsh Assembly and it represents a partial solution to the ‘West Lothian Question’. With the lack of representation of Welsh MPs in the coalition government, however, the reduction in their number may make the nation’s impact in Westminster even smaller than it is at present.

Westminster and the Welsh Assembly When the assembly was established, seven Welsh MPs and one Welsh Lord also became members of the Welsh Assembly. By the time of the second term of the Welsh Assembly, only two assembly members had been MPs, and one Lord (Dafydd Elis Thomas) remained. In the general election of May 2005, two assembly members were elected to Westminster (Peter Law, former Labour AM and now independent, and David Davies, Conservative); then, in 2010, another Conservative AM moved on to Westminster (Alun Cairns), and Glyn Davies, a former Conservative AM, was also elected for Montgomeryshire. In the following assembly election, however, two former MPs, Julie Morgan (Labour) and Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru), came into the Welsh Assembly. At around the same time, three former AMs also went to Westminster as members of the House of Lords: Dafydd Wigley (Plaid Cymru), Michael German

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(Welsh Liberal Democrats) and Jenny Randerson (Welsh Liberal Democrats). This political switching has ensured that there are now politicians from all parties that have experience of both assembly and Westminster politics. All of the political parties have also set up internal mechanisms to allow their Westminster and assembly elected members to consult and liaise regularly on matters of mutual interest although relationships between both groups don’t always runs as smoothly as the parties would wish. There has been a number of visible splits over the last decade between all three main British parties’ Westminster and Welsh Assembly groups. Westminster and the Welsh Assembly have the following relationships: 1. the dual mandate. A number of Welsh AMs have been or are MPs or Lords at the same time. This gives them contact with both bodies; 2. the Liaison Committee of the House of Commons. This is a committee of MPs which meets regularly with members of the assembly to discuss issues of common interest; 3. the Welsh Assembly has a Legislation Committee which partially deals with forthcoming primary legislation at Westminster. To a limited degree this shadows bills at Westminster which have an impact on Wales; 4. the British–Irish Council (Council of the Isles). Here the Welsh government mixes with members of the governments of the Scottish and Irish parliaments, Northern Ireland Assembly (when it sits) and the Westminster government; 5. the liaison between the Welsh Secretary and the Welsh Assembly. Although the Welsh Secretary’s main powers (see Box 7.3) and duties have been passed on to the assembly, the post remains. It is the Welsh Secretary who consults the assembly on the Westminster government’s legislative programme and also appears before its members to answer questions; 6. as part of his ‘respect agenda’ Prime Minister David Cameron agreed in 2010 to come to the Welsh Assembly once a year to address its members. At the same time the British cabinet also meets in Wales. No questions are asked of the prime minister by assembly members at these occasions, which tend to be formal. The deputy prime minister also makes regular visits to the Welsh Assembly to discuss issues with the Welsh government.

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Box 7.3 The role of the Welsh Secretary The role of the Welsh Secretary seems to be constantly evolving. In June 2003 the cabinet post of Welsh Secretary was combined with that of Leader of the House (the government’s parliamentary business manager). At the same time, the civil servants in the Wales Office (successor to the Welsh Office) were placed under the administrative and financial responsibility of the newly established Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) renamed the Ministry of Justice in 2007. Though this means that the Wales Office is now technically under the control of the Ministry of Justice, it is the Welsh Secretary and his or her junior minister who control the day-to-day running of the office. The change was seen by some as a recognition that the centre of political power in respect of a number of important Welsh issues had now shifted from London to Cardiff. Others, however, felt that, without the necessary transfer of primary law-making power to Cardiff, Wales’s voice in the cabinet was being weakened. Under the new government arrangements, two government ministers remain responsible for Wales. These are the Welsh Secretary and a junior minister. Because the Welsh Assembly is not as powerful as the Scottish Parliament, their role remains important to the development of the new assembly. Their duties are defined in part under the Government of Wales Act 1998. The main ones are as follows: 1. attends and speaks at sessions of the National Assembly; 2. ensures that the interests of Wales are fully considered in the workings of the British government; 3. steers Welsh primary legislation through Parliament; 4. has functions relating to the fact that the House of Commons votes the Welsh Assembly’s money to the Welsh Secretary who then makes a grant to the assembly after deciding the cost of running the Wales Office; 5. responsibility to consult the assembly on the government’s legislative programmes; 6. responsibility to ensure that the arrangements for co-operation with the British government are working effectively. In 2010 Cheryl Gillan became the first female Welsh Secretary. She also continued the tradition for Conservative Welsh Secretaries of not representing a Welsh constituency. The failure to find a Welsh constituency MP with sufficient stature to become Welsh Secretary was heavily criticised by the Opposition in Wales and represented a marked contrast with the coalition government’s selection of two different Scottish MPs as the Scottish secretaries in 2010.

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The National Assembly for Wales – Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru The Welsh Assembly is a single-chamber body, quasi-unicameral, as opposed to the Westminster Parliament which has two tiers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords (bicameral). The Welsh Assembly took over the majority of the rights, powers and duties of the Welsh Secretary. It has wide-ranging powers. The former Welsh Office defined the main powers of the assembly in 1998. •

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To make rules and regulations (subordinate legislation) which expand on Acts of Parliament (primary legislation) and give more detail. There are more than 300 Acts of Parliament under which the Welsh Assembly has the power to make rules and regulations. Around 400 new Statutory Instruments are issued by the assembly each year. Under this delegated legislation, the assembly, for example, can define the content of the National Curriculum in Wales. To make appointments to the Welsh quangos. The chairs and boards of public bodies, such as the NHS Health Trusts, are now appointed by the Welsh Assembly. To spend the Welsh block. The assembly will have discretion to allocate its budget among its responsibilities. This is currently worth some £15.4 billion per year (2012). To acquire land and property, and to undertake works, such as the building of new roads. To decide upon disputes and appeals, such as those relating to planning inspections.

Before May 2007 the Welsh Assembly did not have a defined mechanism for creating primary law-making powers (it could not create its own Acts). It still has no tax-raising powers though these may come. This meant that the assembly had to govern by using what is called secondary legislation until the Assembly Measures to Acts of the Welsh Assembly. This secondary legalisation comes from original (primary) Acts of the Westminster Parliament. It is through secondary legislation (Statutory Instruments) that an Act is enacted, developed or applied

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to particular Welsh circumstances. For Wales, the legislation in the past often allowed a lot of freedom for the Welsh government in its implementation. Often, the Act would also leave it up to the Welsh Assembly as to whether or not the legislation was implemented at all. From 2007, as we noted earlier, the Welsh Assembly could create its own laws through Westminster in a process known as Legislative Competence Orders (LCOs). These, however, often took years to complete through a complex eleven-stage process. They also tended to be only on non-controversial issues. The request to have legislation to introduce a bank holiday for St David’s Day, for instance, was never allowed by the Westminster government to go forward in an LCO. One of the boldest moves by the Welsh government, the introduction of a five pence charge on plastic bags in Wales, was not done through an LCO but instead through the use of the power the assembly gained under the Climate Change Act 2008. In the following chapter we will see how the new legislative process works in Wales.

The Welsh general election The Government of Wales Act 1998 states clearly that the Welsh general election (assembly election) must be held on the first Thursday in May every four years (it can be delayed, however, in the event of a royal death, until after the funeral). This was true of the first four elections but will not be true of the fifth. In 2010 the new coalition government at Westminster decided to bring in fixed-term parliaments of five years. To avoid a clash with the Welsh Assembly election of 2015 the Welsh government was allowed to decide whether it wanted to hold its elections a year earlier or a year later. It decided to have them a year later in 2016. There are sixty AMs in the Welsh Assembly. Forty of these AMs are elected in the Welsh Westminster constituencies in the same way that the Westminster MPs are elected. This method of electoral selection is called ‘first past the post’. To ensure that the percentage of seats won in the assembly are closer to the actual percentage of votes cast for each party, a method of proportional representation, known as the additional member system (AMS), has been introduced. For this purpose, Wales is divided into five regions. In each of these

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regions there are four regional AMs from the regional lists. The parties can put up to eight members on the lists. The way they choose their list members varies from party to party but it is normally through a ballot of the parties’ Welsh members in the region concerned. The Government of Wales Act 2006 forbids candidates from standing in both a constituency and on the regional list. This makes the Welsh AMS system different from that anywhere else in the world. In the 2003 assembly elections, the non-Labour political parties won all twenty Assembly Members’ seats. Labour Assembly Members were dismayed by the fact that many opposition AMs used a ‘belt-andbraces’ method of election whereby a candidate stood in a constituency and, if he/she lost there, could still be elected by the AMS list. They pointed to Clwyd West where all three opposition candidates lost in the constituency but were still elected on the regional list. This they saw as an undermining of the democratic process by allowing rejected constituency candidates still to be elected. The AMS system is not as proportional as it is in Scotland. It still allows Labour to gain a much larger percentage of the seats and it does not allow any political party, other than the main four ones, to win a seat. It is, however, far more proportional than any other electoral method used in Wales.

The first minister The assembly is led by a first minister (originally called the first secretary) who is also the leader of the majority party in the assembly. The first minister is the most powerful of all of the assembly members. At the Welsh Assembly’s commencement, the first minister and the Welsh Secretary were the same man, Alun Michael. This was undertaken in order to maintain continuity in the government’s running of Wales in its initial stages. It is the first minister who is the public face of the Welsh Assembly and the dynamo that keeps the assembly running. It is a vital role for Welsh democratic identity (see Box 7.4).

The cabinet of the Welsh Assembly government (Welsh Executive) The Welsh cabinet is the main decision-maker in the assembly government’s policy and legislative direction. It is also the main deter-

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Box 7.4 The role of the first minister The first minister is appointed by the Queen and represents the Crown in Wales. This appointment takes place after he/she has also received the endorsement by majority vote of the Welsh Assembly members. The roles of the first minister are: • • • • •

•

• • • • • •

to lead the assembly; to lead his/her own political party in Wales; to be the head of the Welsh government; to liaise with the Welsh Secretary and prime minister over issues of governance; to lead and select the Welsh government’s cabinet, the deputy Welsh ministers and the Counsel General for Wales (law officer) with the approval of the Queen; to liaise with the British government, in particular the deputy prime minister and the Secretary of State for Wales (and other Whitehall ministers as necessary) on fiscal matters, policy and legislation relevant to the Welsh Assembly; to ensure that the party’s assembly manifesto or any coalition agreement is implemented; to develop and co-ordinate new policy and legislative initiatives; to take a lead in promoting AMs and selecting the members of the cabinet; to represent the assembly in European institutions and overseas; to hold regular question times within the assembly for Assembly members; to take part in some staffing and civil service matters in Wales.

miner of how government in Wales is run on a day-to-day basis. The cabinet can meet in private or in public, as it wishes, but it normally meets in private. The minutes of its meetings are published as public records. The standing orders (rules) for the Welsh Assembly state that the Welsh cabinet can not have more than nine members, including the first minister. There are also four deputy ministers who do not sit in the cabinet. The first minister selects the cabinet shortly after the appointment of the deputy ministers following the Welsh general election. If the government is a coalition, as occurred between

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2000 and 2003 and then again between 2007 and 2011, then the other political party or parties nominate their own ministers whose portfolios are negotiated with the first minister. The leader of the junior coalition partner then normally takes the role of deputy first minister. Cabinet members are chosen on the basis of: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the views of the first and deputy first minister; their interest in doing the jobs; tenure and experience as an Assembly Member; a balance between male and female; their geographical location (which area of Wales they represent).

Ministers have not always been appointed with due consideration for the posts concerned. There was considerable upset in the farming community when Alun Michael appointed Christine Gwyther as agriculture minister. Welsh farming is concerned mainly with livestock (meat) production yet Gwyther was a vegetarian. In 1999, Tom Middlehurst, who was appointed to be the minister in charge of the Welsh language, was unable to speak or read Welsh, nor was his successor Jenny Randerson. Of the cabinet secretaries, after the first and deputy first ministers it is the Ministry of Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science that is regarded as the most important post. The first holder of this post was Rhodri Morgan MP, the twice-failed Wales Labour leadership contender. His appointment was seen as a consolation prize for his failed leadership bids. The deputy first ministers (Michael German and Ieuan Wyn Jones) have also held this post in conjunction with their deputy role. The cabinet portfolio that also includes that of assembly ‘business’ in its title is also one of the most important posts, holding the same status as the Leader of House of Commons and Chief Whip combined. The business minister has to ensure that the government’s business agenda goes through smoothly and on time. The assembly ministers hold regular question times within the assembly, just as in Westminster, where Assembly Members can ask them oral or written questions. They are also scrutinised by the appropriate assembly committees. We should also note that the assembly cabinet also has various subcommittees that deal with specific areas of policy and legislation and then report back to the full cabinet.

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The committees The assembly cabinet does not enjoy total freedom of action. For instance, the full assembly’s approval is required for the cabinet’s recommendations on the budget allocation between programmes. From May 2007 the assembly was able to ‘vote’ for the assembly budget to be ‘drawn down’ from Westminster. If it fails to do so then the Welsh Assembly government cannot continue to operate. The assembly committees also play important roles, as they comprise the mechanism by which ordinary Assembly Members can play a regular part in the scrutiny and development of policy in the assembly. The chairs and members for the non-regional committees are appointed in proportion to the parties’ political strengths within the assembly. The four regional committees, based on four economic areas, contain all of the Assembly Members representing that region. This means, therefore, that it is unlikely that they are proportional to the balance of the political parties in the assembly. Until 2007, committee chairs set the committees’ agendas in consultation with the relevant cabinet member. After this date, however, ministers were no longer part of these committees. The committees have five main purposes: 1. reviewing the effectiveness of policies and helping develop new policies; 2. scrutinising and reviewing the work of bodies funded by the assembly; 3. scrutinising, debating and amending secondary legislation; 4. discussing Westminster and European legislation that affects their particular committee; 5. passing their views on to the cabinet.

The similarities between Westminster and the Welsh Assembly The rationale behind the assembly was in part that it was meant to be a modern democratic body which did not have any of the drawbacks of Westminster. The assembly therefore lacks the pomp and circumstance of Westminster. For example, members are not referred

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to as ‘the Honourable’ or ‘Right Honourable Member for Cardiff North’, but instead are referred to simply by their first names or surnames. The assembly chamber is set in a ‘horseshoe’ shape and each Assembly Member has his/her own desk with a computer terminal on it. The parties therefore sit facing the presiding officer and not one another as they do at Westminster. Unlike at Westminster, the Assembly Members vote by computer voting but, as at Westminster, their votes can be recorded only if the members are actually in the chamber. There is also a verbatim record, called The Record, of the assembly and its committees. The assembly is also fully bilingual as speeches can be made in English or Welsh (full simultaneous translation facilities exist for this purpose). Other similarities to Westminster include the committee system and the cabinet ministers’ question times with their written and oral questions. The list of similarities is shown in Table 7.1. Not everything in the assembly has proved to be better or more popular than Westminster. In the debates in the assembly, for instance, members do not have to ‘give way’ to other members when making a speech. This practice is prevalent in the House of Commons where MPs are obliged to let other MPs comment on their speech at any time during its course. In the assembly, members can speak uninterrupted but it also means that there can be no room for the Opposition to have its say. From 1999 until 2010 Plaid Cymru was the second largest political party in the Welsh Assembly. In 2010 it was replaced in that position by the Conservatives. The eleven years as the number-two party, however, enabled Plaid Cymru to evolve not only as a party of opposition but also as one of government (see Box 7.5).

Wales and the European Union Wales’ position in the European Union is vital for its economic future. Wales benefits considerably from European funding. Over the last two decades, the Welsh economy has declined in comparison with other European Union regions, as it shifted from its traditional reliance on coal and steel to more modern industries. In 1999 a large part of Wales was declared Objective 1 by the European Union. This brought in over a billion pounds’ worth of European aid but did

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Table 7.1 Common terms: how the Welsh Assembly translates to Westminster Westminster

Welsh Assembly

Prime Minister

First Minister

Speaker

Presiding Officer

Chancellor

Finance Minister and Leader of the House

Leader of the House

Finance Minister and Leader of the House

Chief Whip

Chief Whip

Erskin May

Standing Orders

Hansard

The Record

Leader of the Opposition

Post or position does not officially exist but, since 1999, it has been regarded as the assembly government’s Opposition

Official Opposition

Technically all Oppositions are treated equally but Labour and Plaid Cymru and later the Conservatives established a government–Opposition system

Act of Parliament

Act of the National Assembly for Wales

not produce the European-inspired economic regeneration that had rebuilt the Irish economy during the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, Welsh GDP as a percentage of that of the United Kingdom has remained at the lowest level of the devolved nations and the English regions for the duration of the Welsh Assembly’s existence. Despite some £6 billion of funding between 2006 and 2013, the level of Welsh GDP against the European average fell from 66.8 per cent (2000) to 64.4 per cent (2008). Wales was one of only a few regions to get poorer with the Objective 1 funding. Nearly every other region that received the Objective 1 funding, including Greece, Latvia, Slovakia and Spain, saw a rise in their GDPs. The Welsh Labour government’s record on European funding has therefore often been criticised as being poor. Not only the Opposition but also Labour’s MEP for Wales, Derek Vaughan, criticised the administration of the funds by the Welsh government over this period. This only added to the

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Welsh government’s overall poor economic record. As much of rural Wales is also connected closely to the rural economy, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is also important in Wales’s relationship with the European Union. As well as its four members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Wales has a number of direct and indirect links with the European Union. In the context of the Welsh Assembly the foremost of these links are: •

•

•

•

•

•

the Welsh Secretary and first minister, with the agreement of the leading British minister, can form part of the British delegation at the Council of Ministers. There they can ensure that the views of Wales are expressed in any meetings; the Welsh Assembly has an input to draft European legislation. This has developed since a member of the assembly’s research service was based in Brussels and identifies forthcoming European legislation that could be of interest to the assembly and then notifies the relevant assembly committees which then consider it; the Welsh Assembly has a Committee on European and External Affairs which meets nine times a year to discuss issues relating to Europe and to the wider world. This committee takes an overview of what is coming up in Brussels and looks in particular at issues that do not fall neatly within the responsibility of individual subject committees. This, together with the Welsh Assembly government’s European and External Affairs’ Division, are responsible for overseeing the administration of structural funds, co-ordinating European issues as they affect the assembly, and maintaining the assembly’s office in Brussels. This office is also responsible for overseeing the Government’s policy and financial interests in Europe; the assembly has at least one annual plenary debate on Wales in Europe. This allows the Assembly Members to debate the Welsh cabinet’s handling of matters relating to the European Union; the European Commission Office and its representatives in Cardiff feed information and consultation directly to the Welsh Assembly and to Wales; Welsh representation on the Committee of the Regions. Wales has two representatives from local government and the assembly

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Box 7.5 Plaid Cymru loses the ‘Cymru’ At its spring conference in 2006 Plaid Cymru undertook a series of radical changes to its image. The leadership, which had been split between two people, now reverted back to one, the party’s assembly leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones. The party dropped its traditional triban logo which it had used since 1933. It consisted of three peaks representing what Plaid Cymru called its key values: self-government, cultural prosperity and economic prosperity. The triban emblem was replaced by a yellow Welsh poppy (Meconopsis cambrica) and the logo’s green colour was changed to yellow. At the same time, Plaid Cymru dropped the word ‘Cymru’ from its branding but did retain its official name as ‘Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales’. Despite the change in name, Plaid continued to be referred to as Plaid Cymru by the media and by many members of the party itself, and this is the name it stood under in the elections of 2010 and 2011. Plaid Cymru seemed to have reached its electoral peak in 1999. The change of branding was designed to try to modernise the party’s image with the voters and to improve its electoral chances. It seemed to make little impact on its electoral fortunes in 2010 and 2011 where the party continued electorally to be squeezed by the three main British political parties in Wales. In 2012 an internal party enquiry chaired by Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, which examined the poor election results of 2011, contained some ninety-five recommendations. One of the central recommendations was that Plaid adopt the name of the Welsh National Party as its English name. This was intended to counter any impression that it was a party solely for Welsh speakers.

on this European body for providing the European institutions with a local and regional point of view.

Conclusion The road to devolution in Wales has been lengthy and far bumpier than that in Scotland. Administrative and political devolution has come only after years of hard campaigning within the Labour Party. The Welsh referendums on devolution in 1979, 1997 and 2011 combined multiparty support in ever greater numbers. By the time of the 2011 referendum on primary powers for the Welsh Assembly, all

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four main parties in Wales were now fully in favour of enhancing the Welsh Assembly’s powers. All the main political parties in Wales are now fully committed to developing the Welsh Assembly. Over time Westminster has evolved both the way it deals with distinctive Welsh issues and, more latterly, in its relations with the Welsh Assembly. There continue to be direct and indirect influences over the Welsh Assembly by Westminster. The assembly has borrowed some practices from Westminster but has also developed some of its own.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

The fierce opposition to devolution in Wales took over a century to overcome. Initially this was led by the Conservative Party but later on the Labour Party followed suit. This opposition has now ended.

•

Despite being hostile to political devolution, the Conservatives and the Labour Party ensured that devolution developed in Wales. Both parties were instrumental in advancing administrative devolution through the Welsh Office, and the Labour Party was the key player in bringing forward political devolution to Wales in the form of the Welsh Assembly. Once the assembly was established, Labour continued to advance towards devolution albeit it at a slower and less radical pace than prodevolutionists wanted.

•

In the twentieth century, Westminster politics in Wales suffered from a number of flaws including: overrepresentation of the majority political parties and of men; the undemocratic nature of the Welsh Office; and the appointment of the Welsh secretaries. These have been only partially redressed by the establishment of the Welsh Assembly. The coalition Westminster government has reverted to appointing Englishbased MPs to the most senior cabinet position of Welsh Secretary.

•

Westminster developed mechanisms to scrutinise and develop legislation and policies specifically for Wales. These, however, proved to be cumbersome and lengthy, and were scrapped in 2011 in favour of direct primary law-making powers for the Welsh Assembly.

•

The National Assembly for Wales (Welsh Assembly) was established under a committee system based in part on a local-government model. Since 2005, however, it has been run more like a parliament.

•

The first minister is the dominant political figure not only in the Welsh Assembly but also in Welsh politics. He is the leader of the Welsh Assembly government and of the largest political party in Wales.

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Wales is not only connected with politics at Westminster, it is also closely linked with events taking place at the European Parliament and Commission.

/

Glossary of key terms All-women shortlists The course of action undertaken by the Wales Labour Party whereby seats in which the party has a successful track record in winning have their Labour Party candidate selection limited to female-only lists. It is a policy designed to increase the number of female Labour MPs in Wales. AM Assembly Member. Assembly Measures The name given to a type of lower primary legislation resulting from the Assembly LCO (see below). It was deemed as being lower because it did not contain a large bulk of powers which occurs in Westminster legislation. The LCO transferred power to legislate from the Westminster Parliament to the Welsh Assembly to a ‘Matter’ in one of the ‘Fields’ provided under Schedule 5 of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Bicameral A legislature with two parliamentary chambers. First-past-the-post electoral system A system in which Wales is divided into geographical constituencies (council wards). The winner in each seat is the candidate who gains a simple majority on one or more votes. Home Rule all round The name given in the early twentieth century to the Liberal government’s policy of providing political devolution to all the nations in the British Isles to try to solve the problems of Ireland. Legislative Competence Order (LCO) The name given to a piece of constitutional legislation in the form of an Order in Council. An LCO had to go through both Westminster and the Welsh Assembly and was a lengthy process. Some fifteen LCOs were passed between 2007 and 2011. The process ended in 2011 after the referendum on primary powers made the LCO process redundant. Objective 1 The European Union’s description of an economic area where development is lagging behind. It allows for the highest level of funding to be given. Official Opposition The name given to the largest elected opposition party. Statutory Instrument The name given to the publication of delegated (secondary) legislation. Unicameral A legislature (law-making body) with one chamber (group of elected members). Welsh Office The name given to the government department that was responsible for the devolved administration of government functions over a variety of areas ranging from education and transport to health and agriculture.

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Welsh Secretary or Secretary of State for Wales is the post in the British cabinet for the person who is central to the liaison between the United Kingdom and Welsh governments. Historically, this post was also responsible for the running of the government department in Wales known as the Welsh Office.

?

Likely examination questions The new devolved governments in Scotland and Wales are no more accountable to the people than the former the Scottish and Welsh Offices. Critically examine this view of devolved government. To what extent do Westminster and Whitehall still influence political life in Wales? Trace the key events that led to the establishment of primary law-making powers being given to the Welsh Assembly.

¡

Helpful websites http://www.llgc.org.uk/ymgyrchu/map-e.htm The National Library of Wales has a substantial website on Welsh political history. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/ BBC Wales history site – the web pages have a good coverage of Welsh history. There is also a host of websites linked to academic institutions and political parties in Wales: http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/IWP/ Institute of Welsh Politics. http://www.iwa.org.uk/ Institute for Welsh Affairs (Welsh think tank). www.wales.gov.uk National Assembly for Wales. http://www.plaidcymru.org/ Plaid Cymru, The Party of Wales. www.walesoffice.gov.uk Wales Office. www.welshlabour.org.uk Wales Labour Party. http://www.conservatives.com Welsh Conservatives. http://www.welshlibdems.org.uk/home_e.asp Welsh Liberal Democrats.

Š

Suggestions for further reading J. Davies, A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994. R. Deacon, The Governance of Wales: The Welsh Office and the Policy Process 1964–99, Welsh Academic Press, 2002.

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K. O. Morgan, Wales in British Politics 1868–1922, University of Wales Press, 1980. J. Osmond, Accelerating History – the 1979, 1997 and 2011 Referendums in Wales, Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2011. M. Shipton, Poor Man’s Parliament: Ten Years of the Welsh Assembly, Seren, 2011.

CHAPTER 8

The Continuing Evolution of Welsh Devolution Contents Consensus politics: the early years Examining the funding of the Welsh Government The end of the Red–Green coalition Creating the Welsh Assembly’s future: the Richard Commission The Government of Wales Act 2006: a Welsh parliament at last? Enhanced legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly The Welsh Assembly and the coalition government The Welsh language Welshness (Cymreictod) and cultural distinctiveness Threats to Welsh cultural identity Conclusion

155 161 162 164 169 171 174 176 178 179 181

Overview The National Assembly for Wales was quick in finding its feet. Before long, the legislature had become commonly known as the Welsh Assembly, and the executive had become the Welsh government. From now on both would help to shape policy and service delivery over areas ranging from agriculture and education to Welsh culture and language, as well as economic development. This chapter explores the development of the Welsh Assembly over its first four terms. The problems and successes of the Welsh Assembly, its leadership, the minority and coalition governments, and issues, such as the controversy surrounding the new assembly building, are examined. The assembly is an evolving institution so those events that have been important in its evolution, such as Lord Richard’s Commission into the future development of the Welsh Assembly and the subsequent Government of Wales Act (2006) and primary powers referendum, are outlined. Two other important aspects of Wales, the Welsh language and issues surrounding Welsh culture, are also examined.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • • •

The main developments in the first four terms of the Welsh Assembly The fall of Alun Michael and the rise and long tenure of Rhodri Morgan The problems within the Wales Labour Party that led to its becoming a minority government and the subsequent periods of coalition government The attempt to end the role of many Welsh quangos The Richard Commission and the Government of Wales Act (2006) The move to primary powers and the referendum of 2011 The Welsh language and threats to Welsh cultural identity

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Consensus politics: the early years When the Welsh Assembly was elected for the first time in 1999, no one party achieved an overall majority. At the subsequent three elections this pattern was repeated. At each election Labour was the largest party but never with a majority. In 1999, in the sixty-seat assembly, Labour gained twenty-eight seats but that was three short of a majority. When the same situation occurred in Scotland, Labour and the Liberal Democrats formed a pact and governed together but this did not occur in Wales. Instead, the Labour Party determined that it would rule alone, in what is called a ‘minority government’ (no one political party has a majority of the seats). It determined that it would govern Wales in future by trying to achieve a broad consensus with the other political parties over certain issues. The other political parties were not in a position to achieve government by themselves, and so a short period of consensus politics began in Wales as the political parties sought to adjust to the post-devolution political situation in Cardiff. Initially, the Assembly Members met in a converted office block (Crickhowell House). It was thought at the time that this would be a temporary measure but it was to be another seven years before they moved into their new purpose-built chamber (see Box 8.1). In 2005, when the new chamber opened, Crickhowell House, which had been named after the antidevolution former Conservative Secretary of State for Wales, Lord Crickhowell (Nicholas Edwards), was renamed Tŷ Hywel. This name came from Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) a tenth-century Welsh prince (born at the end of the ninth century) who created ‘just’ laws for parts of Wales. The name was therefore chosen in part to highlight the fact that Wales was an historic nation which at one time had made its own laws. The consensus politics of the first assembly did not last long. On 20 October 1999, the assembly censured agriculture secretary, Christine Gwyther, over her failure to secure a £750,000 aid package for Welsh dairy farmers. First Secretary Alun Michael refused to sack her and she refused to resign. This resulted in the Conservatives, under Nick Bourne, bringing a vote of no confidence against Alun Michael on 2 November 1999. The motion failed. Though Alun Michael had survived a no-confidence vote, the

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Box 8.1 Problems in building an assembly chamber (Senedd) When it was decided that the new Welsh Assembly was to be based in Cardiff Bay, an architectural competition was held. Chaired by former Labour premier, Lord Callaghan, it selected the design by the Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP), run by Lord Rogers. Originally, the costs for the project were set at £12 million but, by November 2000, they had risen to £26.7 million. Later, the costs escalated from £37 million to £47 million. The eventual cost was around £67 million. In July 2001, the RRP was dismissed from the project in a row over the rising costs. After legal action, the partnership was later reinstated but the date for the new building was postponed until after the May 2003 assembly elections. The building had originally been due to be completed in April 2001; then it was to be January 2003, then September 2005, but it was not officially opened by the Queen until 1 March, St David’s Day, 2006. The Welsh Assembly building opened five years late and cost more than five times the original estimate. The building, however, was warmly received by the Welsh public and won nine major building awards for its design between 2006 and 2008. The new assembly building is referred to as the Senedd building (Welsh for ‘parliament’) rather than Cynulliad (Welsh for ‘assembly’). The name Senedd caused some controversy and was opposed by those in the assembly who do wish to see it as a parliament.

Opposition now made it clear that they would unite over one issue concerning Europe. This concerned European Objective 1 funding for Wales and the need for the United Kingdom Treasury to supply ‘matched funding’. The main issue was that the Opposition wanted the Treasury to supply the money and not take it out of the assembly’s existing grants. Pleas by Alun Michael to trust the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deliver fell on deaf ears, as did attempts by Michael to form a pact with the Welsh Liberal Democrats. When Plaid Cymru called a motion of no confidence in Alun Michael on the European issue again on 9 February 2000, Michael resigned and the motion was passed. The resignation of Alun Michael was seen as the end of No. 10 Downing Street’s attempts to micromanage

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Welsh devolution as it resulted in Michael being replaced immediately by the very man Tony Blair least wanted to run Wales, Rhodri Morgan. Blair had previously refused to transfer Morgan from his Shadow Welsh Office post into the Welsh Office itself, stating he was ‘too old’ for government. He had then campaigned against Morgan when he had stood for the Welsh leadership. Now Rhodri Morgan was acting first secretary. Within a week, he had been voted in as first minister by the assembly, and was selected unopposed by the Labour Party as its Welsh leader. Within a year, Alun Michael would return to a junior ministerial post at Westminster and the assembly would remain under Rhodri Morgan’s control. Coalition had not come during Alun Michael’s short tenure but, with Morgan’s arrival, talks between Labour and the Welsh Liberal Democrats began almost immediately. The partnership document, Putting Wales First: A Partnership for the People of Wales, was duly signed by both parties. The Welsh Liberal Democrats secured two cabinet posts. Michael German became deputy first minister and took over the Economic Development Secretary post. Welsh Liberal Democrat AM, Jenny Randerson, became Minister for Culture and Sports. At the same time, Randerson became the first ever female Liberal politician to hold office in a government anywhere in the United Kingdom. Some Labour members also lost their posts, and this would fuel future resentment within Labour ranks (see Box. 8.1). While these changes were going on, Rhodri Morgan also altered the name of first secretary to first minister, following the Scottish parliamentary model. At the same time, the cabinet secretaries also changed their titles to become ministers. The Labour–Liberal Democrat cabinet worked together quite effectively. The main problem for the coalition concerned the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, Michael German (later Lord German). He had been forced to step down as deputy first minister in July 2001 until police investigations into aspects of his previous role as an employee of the Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC), particularly regarding various expenses claims, had been completed. Following the completion of those investigations, the Crown Prosecution Service issued a statement on 13 June 2002 stating that there was insufficient evidence to justify any criminal charges, and Mike German returned to the cabinet as both deputy first

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Box 8.2 Welsh pressure groups and lobbyists As much greater political power has been given to Cardiff, so the number of lobbyists and pressure groups has greatly increased. Under the old Welsh Office, a group of professional associations, mainly representing trade unions and local government, had concentrated around the Welsh Office’s headquarters in Cathays Park. This became known as the ‘Cathays Park Village’. When the Welsh Assembly arrived, the number of pressure groups and lobbyists grew substantially. They now centred around Cardiff Bay, where the assembly is located, forming a new ‘Cardiff Bay Village’. Most Britain-wide charities have ‘parliamentary officers’ at the Welsh Assembly, as do trade unions, business organisations and professional lobbyists. Each of these groups has varying degrees of influence with the local government organisations, the Welsh Local Government Association perhaps exerting the most. They also have their own code of conduct with respect to lobbying Welsh Assembly members. Wales also has two main ‘think tanks’ – the Institute for Welsh Affairs (IWA) and the Bevan Foundation. Each produces a wealth of material and reports on the Welsh Assembly, and actively seeks to influence the policy agendas of all of the political parties.

minister and Minister of Rural Development and Wales Abroad. It had, however, cast a shadow over the first year of the coalition government. There was a general feeling among Welsh political observers that, in many areas, the Welsh Assembly had been very successful in shaping a distinctive Welsh policy agenda. The main dispute between the coalition partners in the first Welsh government was over who was responsible for the more popular policies. Just before the first minister’s second Annual Report in October 2002, Mike German, much to Labour’s annoyance, claimed that six of the eight leading achievements of the assembly government that year had come directly from the Liberal Democrat manifesto. This did nothing to help ease Labour AMs’ fears about entering into another coalition if they did not gain a majority in the 2003 assembly elections. When the elections did come, the Labour Party won exactly half the seats. This time, despite what had occurred with the minor-

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ity government between 1999 and 2000, the bulk of the party again preferred to form a minority government which would be able to carry forward fully its own policy agenda until the May 2005 General Election. At this election a Labour AM, Peter Law, who had failed to be selected for the Westminster seat in Blaenau Gwent when the Labour Party imposed an all-women shortlist for the seat, stood as an independent and won. Law was expelled from the party with some vitriol which meant that he now voted with the assembly Opposition. The Opposition’s first major defeat of the Labour Welsh government occurred in a debate on university tuition fees on 24 May 2005. Assembly Members voted by thirty to twenty-nine in favour of a Welsh Conservative motion not to introduce top-up fees in Wales. After this defeat, the Opposition knew that, if it was united, it could defeat the Welsh government on any issue at any time. From now on the Opposition would defeat that assembly government whenever it felt strongly enough on an issue (see Box 8.3). To stay in power the Welsh Assembly government had now to gain agreement with the Opposition over policy implementation. Once more, a period of ‘forced’ consensus government had come to the assembly. In simple terms, if the Welsh Assembly government could not achieve some form of consensus with another political party on its policy agenda, then it would fail. After an uncertain period of Welsh government between 2005 and 2007, an election was held in which the Labour Party lost four seats (it held twenty-six), Plaid Cymru gained three (fifteen), the Conservatives gained one (twelve) and the Welsh Liberal Democrats remained stuck on six seats. After it was clear that no one party had a majority, there was a period of formal and informal discussion about which parties should form the next government. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats favoured a rainbow coalition with Plaid Cymru. Plaid Cymru, however, did not wish to work with the Tories. In their turn, the Liberal Democrats did not wish to work again with Labour in the Welsh Assembly government. After a period of around three weeks, Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party came together in what was described as the ‘Red–Green coalition’. Rhodri Morgan took the position once more as first minister and Plaid Cymru leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, became deputy first minister. Plaid Cymru took three posts in the Welsh Assembly Government’s

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cabinet and Labour took the remaining six. The Red–Green coalition agreement was signed under the name of One Wales: A progressive agenda for the government of Wales. Both parties had been bitter political enemies since Plaid Cymru had first got an MP, Gwynfor Evans, elected in 1966 by defeating a Labour candidate in Carmarthen. The fact that this hostility was likely to continue was even reflected in the wording of the One Wales agreement when they stated: Nothing in this agreement will stand in the way of us taking part with unconstrained vigour in democratic elections, not least the local government elections in 2008. Both parties will retain their individual identities and ideological distinctiveness throughout.

Considering the previous hostility between the two parties the Red–Green coalition managed to survive the whole term in office and, in fact, owing to its large majority of some thirteen seats (22 per cent of the Welsh total), it was the most stable of the Welsh governments. The Welsh government’s joint policy objectives were similar to those of their predecessors in being largely concerned with making Wales healthier and wealthier. They were also constitutional with the central aim of ensuring that Wales gained its own primary law-making powers through a referendum. On 1 October 2009, the long-serving first minister, Rhodri Morgan, announced his resignation and planned to retire at the 2011 Welsh government elections. Morgan left office with a high approval rating from the general public and from his fellow politicians both inside and outside the Welsh Assembly. Married to the then Cardiff North Labour MP, Julie Morgan, it was therefore somewhat ironic that, having been defeated as an MP in 2010, she was subsequently elected as an AM for the same seat at the same time as her husband was leaving the Welsh Assembly. In the Welsh Labour leadership elections of 2009, the barrister and Bridgend AM, Carwyn Jones, was elected as first minister at the age of forty-two. He was considerably younger than his two predecessors and was also the first not to have had an earlier career at Westminster. Like his two predecessors, however, he was also a fluent Welsh speaker, re-emphasising the importance of bilingualism in obtaining the top job in Welsh politics. After the Labour government’s Westminster defeat in 2010, Carwyn Jones became the

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most senior elected Labour minister in the United Kingdom and a standard-bearer for Labour’s ‘alternative approach’ to the policies of the Westminster coalition government.

Examining the funding of the Welsh Government The most serious problem to face the Red–Green coalition (2007–11) was the cuts to its budgets, delivered by both Labour and coalition Westminster governments. This reconfirmed the financial disadvantage felt by Wales regarding both the Barnett Formula of funding and its own lack of revenue-raising abilities. As a part of the One Wales agreement the Welsh Assembly Government helped facilitate an Independent Commission on Funding and Finance for Wales under Gerald Holtham to examine the Barnett Formula and the funding of the Welsh Assembly. Holtham’s final report in July 2010 saw the Barnett Formula as being outdated and had survived only for reasons of political and administrative convenience. The evidence indicated that Wales was being considerably underfunded in relation to its actual needs. The commission recommended that new tax-raising powers should be introduced to Wales as well as a needs-based formula for determining the Welsh Block grant (the funding it gets directly from the Westminster government). The coalition government in Westminster was also keen to ensure that funding for the Welsh Assembly was revised. This was partly because it felt that, because the Assembly did not raise its own revenue, it was not truly accountable for the money it spent. The Westminster government also felt that the Welsh government was too quick to pass on to Westminster the blame for any spending cuts and that this affected the coalition government’s electoral fortunes in Wales. Direct revenue raising by the Welsh Assembly would therefore enable the assembly to be more responsible for its own fundraising and its own funding cuts. The Block grant from Westminster would be reduced as the assembly government raised its own revenues. In the autumn of 2011, the Westminster government established a commission under the assembly’s former clerk from 2001 to 2007 and former clerk in the House of Commons, Paul Silk. The Silk Commission, was deemed to be similar in its objectives to

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the Calman Commission which looked at funding for the Scottish Parliament. It seemed as though the Welsh government was once again playing catch-up with its counterpart in Scotland.

The end of the Red–Green alliance Towards the end of the Red–Green alliance’s term, the governing parties started distancing themselves from, and critically briefing against, each other. Peter Hain, the Shadow Labour Welsh Secretary, was particularly openly critical of Plaid Cymru and this caused some friction with First Minister Carwyn Jones. It was he who still had to keep the Welsh government going as a partnership between Plaid and Labour and such friction did not help in this task. In the 2011 Welsh elections, Labour’s fortunes rose while those of Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats declined (see Table 8.1). Both parties had been junior partners in coalition governments, Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Liberal Democrats in London. Both seemed to suffer the fallout from unpopular policies linked to the need to cut public spending (see Table 8.1). After the 2011 election the Labour Party had exactly half of the seats in the Welsh Assembly. One of their AMs, Rosemary Butler, became the new presiding officer, replacing Lord Elis Thomas. This Table 8.1 Elections for the Welsh Assembly, May 2011 (May 2007 election results in the brackets) Party

Constituency votes %

Constituency seats

Regional list votes %

Regional list seats

Total seats

Labour

42.3 (32.2)

28 (24)

36.9 (29.6)

2 (2)

30 (26)

Plaid Cymru

19.3 (22.4)

5 (7)

17.9 (21)

6 (8)

11 (15)

Cons

25

(22.4)

6 (5)

22.5 (21.4)

8 (7)

14 (12)

Lib Dem

10.6 (14.8)

1 (3)

(11.3)

4 (3)

5 (6)

Others*

8.2 (9.2)

0 (1)

14.7 (16.7)

0 (0)

0 (1)

20 (20)

60 (60)

Totals

100

(100)

40 (40)

8

100

* One independent member, Trish Law, in 2007

(100)

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position remains neutral in the tradition of ‘Speakers’ of legislatures. To ensure that Labour was not now in a minority position, David Melding, a Conservative AM became the deputy presiding officer which is also a neutral position. Thus, the Labour Welsh government stayed with no overall control so that they could be defeated at any time if all their members did not attend the votes. The first primary legislation programme was extensive in its approach (see Box 8.3). It was, however, criticised by the assembly Opposition as being ‘too timid’ and lacking the ‘radical action’ needed by a Welsh government to address the weaknesses in both the Welsh economy and the wider society.

Box 8.3 The Welsh Labour government’s (2011–16) first legislative programme A bill to build on the Children’s Rights measure A bill to simplify ‘the web of legislation’ regulating social care to make access to services much easier and more understandable Funding and structural reforms to drive resources to the education front line Legislation to bring coherence and efficiency to higher education in Wales with a single strategic planning and funding body Modernisation of the Auditor General in Wales and the Wales Audit Office A new independent sustainable development body for Wales Improve supply of and legislate on the amount of land to be used for allotments Legislate to make it a duty to provide cycle routes in key areas Heritage Protection Bill to strengthen the protection of listed buildings Organ Donation Bill to provide for an opt-out system of organ donation Consolidation of existing laws such as planning Source: Welsh Government/BBC News website

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Box 8.4 The names of the Welsh government The name of the Welsh government has changed officially three times since the assembly was established in 1999. •

•

•

1999–2007 as a corporate body established by the Government of Wales Act 1998, the executive was officially known as the Executive Body of the National Assembly. 2007–11 under the Government of Wales Act 2007, which formally separated the Welsh executive from the legislature, it was known as the Welsh Assembly Government. 2011 onwards, to prevent confusion over roles and functions undertaken with the National Assembly for Wales and to reflect the precedent set by the Scottish government’s renaming in 2007, it became known as the Welsh Government after May 2011.

Creating the Welsh Assembly’s future: the Richard Commission We saw earlier that the establishment of theWelsh Assembly had been a compromise between those who wished to see a full lawmaking and tax-raising parliament and those who really didn’t want any devolution at all. Over time, those that favoured increasing devolution grew in number, particularly in the Welsh Assembly, though we should also note that a number of Welsh Labour and Conservatives MPs remained opposed to increasing significantly the assembly’s powers. As part of the first assembly government coalition agreement, however, the Welsh Liberal Democrats were able to have a commission set up to consider the future role and powers of the Welsh Assembly. The Richard Commission was run by a senior Labour peer, Lord Richard of Ammanford, who was appointed chair in July 2002. When the commission reported in April 2004, it recommended that, by the year 2011 or sooner if possible, the assembly: 1. should have its delegated powers enhanced; 2. should be given primary law-making powers;

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Box 8.5 Welsh quangos go on the bonfire While in opposition, the Wales Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats complained bitterly about the rise in public life of the Welsh quangos or, as they were known in Wales, assembly-sponsored public bodies (ASPBs). The Wales Labour Party promised that, when it came to power, there would be a ‘bonfire of the quangos’. When Labour gained power in 1997, it merged a few quangos into the Welsh Office but the vast majority remained untouched until after the 2003 assembly elections. In 2004, however, the Welsh Assembly Government changed its policy on ASPBs. In July 2004, Rhodri Morgan announced that three of the largest quangos, the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), Wales Tourist Board, and Education and Learning Wales (ELWa) would cease to exist by 2006. It was announced later that the government would take over many of the duties of a number of Wales’s culture, sport and countryside ASPBs. In future, funding would come directly from the assembly, rather than at arm’s length from the ASPBs. In the assembly, the Opposition, which had often noted the Welsh Assembly Government’s failure to bring the ASPBs under more direct control, was taken aback by the speed of this proposed integration. It was also concerned about the loss of its own scrutiny powers over these bodies, and the fact that the assembly government would now have too much direct control over funding. Although the political opposition didn’t stop some of the larger ASPBs from being scrapped, they did force the Welsh Assembly Government to postpone the scrapping of the Welsh Language Board in October 2005 and it was eventually scrapped in 2011. In 2010 the incoming Westminster coalition government cited the ‘success’ of the mass scrapping of the quangos made by the Welsh when it announced plans for its own extensive bonfire of the quangos. In retrospect, however, the scrapping of some of the Welsh quangos, notably the WDA, was seen by some as being disadvantageous for the Welsh economy. They pointed out that bringing the WDA officials into the civil service had resulted in lowering, rather than increasing, Welsh GDP.

3. should increase its membership from sixty to eighty and that all should be elected by STV; 4. should be reconstituted with a separate legislature and executive.

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There was one major problem with the Richard Commission’s recommendations, as the prodevolutionists discovered. It had reported eleven months after the most prodevolutionary party, the Welsh Liberal Democrats, had left the coalition government. For the first two years, the post-May 2003 Welsh Assembly saw Labour with exactly half the seats. As the other political parties could not form a coalition government between them, it left Labour in charge of the assembly government. The Wales Labour Party, which was traditionally of a ‘conservative’ nature in respect to devolution and contains many elements, particularly from local government and Westminster, who were openly hostile towards increasing the assembly’s powers, rejected by two to one in their internal consultation exercise Richard’s recommendation of primary law-making powers and an STV system. This was then endorsed by the Wales Labour Party’s special conference on 12 September 2004. Rhodri Morgan, Wales’s first minster, and Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Wales, now saw the progress of the Richard Commission through an obscure chapter subsection 13.2 (called 13.2 plus) within the report. This allowed for a framework type of legislation to be passed through the Houses of Parliament without any significant scrutiny rather than letting the assembly create its own legislation. Better Governance for Wales, the Wales Labour future assembly policy document produced in 2004, made it clear there would be no primary law-making powers for the assembly immediately. In addition, it saw that the electoral system used for the assembly was in need of reform with respect to the regional list. In its first two assembly elections, Labour had gained only one AMS list seat in 1999, and none in 2003. Their AMs were particularly annoyed to see defeated opposition constituency candidates get re-elected using the regional list. They regarded this as something of an affront to the democratic mandate of the electorate. Many in the party had also always been hostile to proportional representation and not only disregarded STV and an increase in members for the Welsh Assembly but deeply resented the present AMs system and its membership from which the bulk of the opposition AMs were drawn. They therefore amended the electoral system so that, unlike in Scotland, candidates could not stand for both the constituency and the regional list.

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From the evidence gathered by the Richard Commission and by other academic bodies, it became apparent that the Welsh Assembly had a number of drawbacks, not all of which could be sorted out through its own recommendations, and some continued or were enhanced during the third Welsh Assembly term (see Box 8.6). Box 8.6 The drawbacks of Welsh devolution (1999–2011) In its first three terms of office between 1999 and 2011 the Welsh Assembly suffered from a number of drawbacks, some of which were rectified by the Government of Wales Act 2006 but there are others that were not. The foremost of these are listed below. 1. All the Welsh Assembly Governments had been dominated by either a Labour only or a Labour-led coalition administration. The Labour Party in Wales is ‘conservative’ in its view of devolution aspirations and can also be somewhat politically tribal in nature. This, therefore, was seen to reduce the advances in devolution put forward by prodevolutionists and devolutionary commissions, such as that of Lord Richards and Sir Emyr Jones Parry. At the same time, this tribal nature of politics did not always enhance the consensus politics that many hoped would occur. 2. There is little (public or) media interest in the Welsh Assembly – partly because there are no national Welsh media to speak of. There are no Welsh national daily newspapers apart from the Western Mail, and about 35 per cent of households in Wales are tuned to English-based transmitters. The British media take no interest in the assembly so its proceedings (plenary and committee) are rarely available to the Welsh people who are often not aware of what the assembly does – nor what it has done. (Its proceedings are rarely covered and therefore it is surrounded by widespread public ambivalence.) 3. The assimilation of Welsh quangos into Welsh government and the expansion of Welsh Assembly Government civil service numbers have led to accusations of a period of ‘big government’ or ‘state-centred society’. The drive to put as many Welsh quangos out of existence as possible was later seen to be too hasty. The removal of the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), for instance, with its excellent record of gaining inward investment to Wales was not repeated by the Welsh government once the WDA had been abolished.

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4. The committee system, designed to hold the government to account had proved inadequate to do so. This is partially because of the inadequate scrutiny abilities of many Assembly Members and the lack of expert resourcing in Wales. 5. Initially, primary law-making powers were retained by the Westminster Parliament, and the assembly had little opportunity to make real change even in areas where it had ‘devolved’ responsibility. When it gained primary law-making powers, however, its legislative programme remained cautious and far from radical. The primary law-making process brought in after 2007 (Welsh Measures) was also seen as overly complex and lengthy. Among others, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the Chair of the All Wales Convention, criticised the Welsh government’s lack of connection with the needs of Wales by stating ‘I’m not sure whether they actually hit the button’. 6. Most of the secondary legislation made by the assembly concerns points of detail – not very exciting or interesting – which do not attract attention from the media nor able politicians. 7. There have been too few Welsh Assembly Members to provide a large enough pool from which to draw government ministers or to scrutinise properly the government over all issues. Despite the Richard Commission calling for more AMs if they gained primary powers, no Westminster government has legislated for this. 8. On the key issues, such as the economy, health and education, the Welsh government has continually performed worst in the United Kingdom. The target set for getting Wales to 90 per cent of the United Kingdom’s GDP by 2010 was never met. Its economic output actually decreased to 73 per cent of GDP making it not only one of the poorest areas of Britain but also one of the poorest of Western Europe. In education from schools to universities, Wales has also underperformed and its populations in a number of areas remain the sickest and most ill-educated people in Britain. 9. Elections to the Welsh Assembly have become seen as a stepping stone to Westminster by some Assembly Members rather than as ends themselves itself. This is particularly true of Conservative AMs. 10. The process of allocating legislative powers to the Welsh Assembly and the process of secondary legislation remain complex and confusing. 11. The divide between the powers of the Welsh Assembly and Westminster remained unclear for the first two terms in a number of areas, particularly on matters of law and order. Officials and politicians in Whitehall are often as confused as anyone about

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12.

13. 14.

15.

169

the devolution settlement for Wales – this meant that they often devised policies without reference to Wales because (a) they were unaware that it is a non-devolved issue so it was their responsibility and (b) even when they are aware, they did not consider the possible impact of their policy on areas which were non-devolved, for example, the closure of post offices and its impact on the social and community policies of Wales. Little of the Welsh Assembly Government’s primary legislative programme found its way into law through the processes at Westminster in the first two terms. There was still widespread indifference towards the Welsh Assembly, particularly in North Wales. The assembly lacks representation at the heart of the British government in Westminster. The assembly has an office in Brussels to represent its interests to the European Commission but not in London, despite the fact that Whitehall departments have nondevolved responsibilities for Wales and responsibility for primary legislation for Wales. The assembly therefore has to rely on the Wales Office, which is a division within another government department, for its voice in London. Some bodies with their own electoral mandate, such as local government, and others, such as the Welsh universities, have accused the Welsh government of being overbearing in its interference in their own affairs. The Welsh government insistence on the mergers of local authorities and Welsh universities for economic reasons has been rejected by some as unwanted and unwelcome top-down interference.

The Government of Wales Act 2006: a Welsh parliament at last? Those recommendations of the Richard Commission that the Labour government accepted found their way into The Government of Wales Act 2006. It made two fundamental changes that made the Welsh Assembly more like a Welsh parliament. 1. Splitting the executive from the legislature The Government of Wales Act 1998 made the Welsh Assembly a corporate body. This meant that there was no separation of the executive from the legislature so that the whole assembly ‘exercised

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Box 8.7 The Welsh Assembly’s evolved role After 2006, ministers became directly accountable to the assembly for the exercise of their powers. If they lose a no confidence vote, they have to resign. Prior to this they went only if the first minister directed them to do so in person, though no minister has ever done so. At the same time, however, ministers no longer had to attend committees, and the assembly has much more power to determine its own committee structure than it did prior to 2006. The assembly also now had the power to block the Welsh Assembly Government’s budget by refusing to ‘vote’ down the money needed to finance the budget. It is also able to make the appointments to the offices of the Auditor General for Wales and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales which scrutinise the government’s operation of public services. The assembly has its own support service provided under the presiding officer, deputy presiding officer and Clerk to the Assembly. The role of this support and its nature are determined by a body called the Assembly Commission made up from the assembly’s presiding officer and AMs from the four largest political parties.

its functions on behalf of the Crown’. This was mainly because the assembly was initially planned to be based on the old local government model of being run by committees. Even when the first Government of Wales Bill was going through Parliament, however, Parliament had decided that the assembly should be run on a cabinet system rather than by committee. Once this decision had been made and, in conjunction with the desire of many of the newly elected AMs to feel and behave like parliamentarians, it was inevitable that the Welsh Assembly would try to become more like a parliament. In February 2002 when the assembly debated its own Review of Procedure, it approved unanimously a motion calling for ‘the clearest possible separation of powers between the Government and the Assembly’. From March of that year until May 2011, the ministers and civil servants who exercised the executive powers on behalf of the assembly called themselves the ‘Welsh Assembly Government’. Since then they have been called the Welsh Government (see Box 8.4). The wider assembly and their supporting services have gone by the title ‘Assembly Parliamentary Service’.

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The Government of Wales Act 2006, which followed on from the 2005 Wales Office’s White Paper Better Governance for Wales, formally acknowledged what has been occurring since 2002 by establishing a Welsh Assembly Government as a separate entity but accountable to the Welsh Assembly. The first minister is now appointed by the Queen after nomination by the Welsh Assembly. The assembly appoints up to twelve ministers and deputy ministers ‘upon her approval’. These ministers then act on behalf of the Crown rather than on behalf of the assembly. They are supported in their task by a Counsel General for Wales who provides legal advice to the cabinet. It is the assembly ministers who are responsible for most of the policy-determination and law-making undertaken by the assembly.

Enhanced legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly The Government of Wales Act 2006 increased the assembly’s legislative powers, in three new stages. Stage 1: Framework legislation which conferred wider powers on the assembly to make subordinate legislation. This meant that all Westminster legislation which went into those areas controlled by the assembly was now drafted in order to allow the assembly ‘maximum freedom of manoeuvre’ in Wales in delivering policy. It was this method which the Welsh government used to introduce powers under global warming legislation to charge 5 pence for plastic bags provided by shops in Wales. Stage 2: Orders in Council These allowed Parliament to confer enhanced legislative powers on the assembly in relation to specified subject matter within devolved fields. An Order in Council enabled the assembly to pass its own legislation within the scope of its powers delegated by Parliament. Orders in Council are not normally scrutinised by MPs in Westminster, but the Government of Wales Act 2006 allowed them to do so. At the same time, these orders were scrutinised by the assembly in Wales – resulting in ‘double scrutiny’. This type of legislation was known as Assembly Measures, and is referred to in the previous chapter. Stage 3: Primary legislative powers These were brought in following the successful Yes vote in the March 2011 Welsh primary powers referendum. When asked, some 63.5 per cent of voters

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were in favour of giving further law-making powers to the national assembly, though Westminster continues to be able to legislate for Wales in respect of some delegated areas through the use of the socalled Sewell motions. This means that, if parts of an Act passed in Westminster are also deemed to be relevant and suitable, the Welsh Assembly can also consent for it to apply to Wales without the need for further legislation. This is because the Westminster Parliament remains sovereign in Britain. The Acts of Union of 1536 and 1543 had abolished Welsh law and replaced it with that of England. The advent of Welsh primary law-making powers, however, has brought about the need to examine whether Wales should have its own legal jurisdiction once more. It is thought that the two reasons why it might need do so are that: firstly, in nowhere else in the world do two primary law-making bodies inhabit the same jurisdiction; secondly, the amount of separate Welsh legislation has been growing considerably since 2007 and therefore it will become increasingly difficult to follow a single ‘England and Wales’ jurisdiction when the laws of the two nations become ever more different. Those who argue against the need for a Welsh jurisdiction point out that the common jurisprudence system and procedure already allow the courts to operate differently in England and Wales and to alter things would only make the law more complex to interpret. They point out that you would also need to develop a separate legal profession and answer questions such as ‘would decisions in English courts still be binding in Wales and vice versa?’. In the autumn of 2011, the Welsh government set out on a consultation exercise to ascertain the necessity to establish a separate Welsh jurisdiction. There is also an optional additional stage for amending the legislation between stages 3 and 4 if the Assembly Member proposing it requests this and it is agreed by a majority in the Welsh Assembly. Bills can be introduced to the assembly by the Welsh government, an assembly committee, an individual AM through a members’ ballot, or the Assembly Commission. A bill is given royal assent after a four-week waiting period. During this period the Counsel General for Wales or the Westminster government’s Attorney General could refer the measure to the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court for a decision as to whether it was in the assembly’s legislative competence to for the bill to become law.

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Box 8.8 How the Welsh primary legislation process works From 2011 onwards laws made in Wales are known as Acts. The power do to this was provided by the Government of Wales Act 2006 and endorsed by the Welsh population in a referendum in March 2011. As with the other legislatures in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland a bill is the name given to the proposed law. Welsh laws can be created on any area devolved to the Welsh Assembly, specified in Schedule 5 of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Welsh Acts have a five stage process which consist of: Stage 1 – consideration of the general principles of the bill by an assembly committee, after which these must be agreed by a majority of the whole assembly; Stage 2 – the Bill Committee considers in detail the bill and any amendments tabled; Stage 3 – the Welsh Assembly then considers the bill and any amendments tabled; Stage 4 – the whole assembly votes on whether to pass or reject the final version of the bill; Stage 5 – the bill is given royal assent and comes into law as an Act of the Welsh Assembly. The Act then has the word Wales inserted at the end to distinguish it from Westminster legislation, e.g. Transport Act (Wales) 2013.

Box 8.9 Examples of differences in Welsh and English policy Wales has free NHS prescriptions Unmanned coin-operated sunbeds are banned in Wales There is a 5 pence levy on each carrier bag provided by shops in Wales Organ donation is an opt-out process in Wales; in England it is opt in Shock collars for dogs are banned in Wales Welsh students pay much lower tuition fees than those in England

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The Welsh Assembly and the coalition government While Labour was in power in Westminster and in Cardiff Bay, there was very little sign of public disagreement between the Welsh and Westminster governments. This situation changed in June 2010 with the arrival of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government. In October 2010 and February 2011, First Minister Carwyn Jones had joined with the first ministers of the other devolved nations in opposing the coalition’s economic programme of expenditure cuts. This criticism was continued by both Labour and Plaid Cymru. In September 2011, the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, Kirsty Williams, also criticised the Conservative Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, stating that Liberal Democrats in the Westminster cabinet where having to speak out for Wales because she was failing to do so. While stating she was baffled by Williams’s accusations, Gillan was more robust in taking on Carwyn Jones’s political attacks. In October 2011. she told the Labour government in Cardiff to stop ‘blaming Westminster and get on with governing’. Gillan also criticised the Welsh government’s record in power because its economy was ‘weaker than every other part of the United Kingdom’, because of its timidity in bringing forward new legislation under its primary powers, and its failures in health and education. Although these political spats were not of a major constitutional nature, they did indicate that the relationship between Westminster and Cardiff Bay was evolving. As the SNP government in Scotland pushed forward with the independence referendum, however, Carwyn Jones started to promote his own ideas for a revision of the place of Wales in the Union if Scotland were to leave it. This was the first time that a Welsh first minister had suggested re-examining the constitutional position of Wales. In 2012, the Welsh government set up its own offices in London for the first time; prior to this they had always worked through the Wales Office. Devolution, however, had appeared to have brought Wales a number of distinct benefits that governments at Westminster and Cardiff could broadly agree on (see Box 8.10).

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Box 8.10 The benefits of Welsh devolution In the first three terms of the Welsh Assembly, it became apparent that a number of benefits had accrued from devolution in Wales. 1. The national assembly has given Wales a much stronger sense of identity and importance on the national and international scenes. The first minister has become the recognised face of the Welsh nation in Britain and abroad. 2. The assembly is much more open and accessible than the old Welsh Office. Much of the working of government, and the assembly itself, are open to public view. 3. Devolution has brought the government closer to the people and made it more responsive to local communities on issues such as the closure of hospitals and post offices. 4. Opinion polls show that the Welsh public is now firmly in favour of devolution. From 2003 onwards polls showed that only around 20 per cent of the Welsh population would like no devolution. In the 1997 assembly referendum it was about 50 per cent. 5. The Welsh government has been keen to establish its own Welsh policies. In part, these are centred around the concept of ‘localism’. This means that local communities have more influence over the way that services are delivered than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. 6. Those policies in devolved subjects are now drawn up with reference to the circumstances and needs in Wales – previously the Welsh Office served to put a Welsh spin (of varying strength) on initiatives/ policies which were drawn up to address issues in England, and may not have been so relevant to Wales. 7. All the British political parties have developed separate policies from their constituent bodies in England. Labour, for example, has created its own so-called ‘clear red water’ to distinguish it from New Labour in London. 8. Devolution has increased accountability of Welsh quangos (ASPBs) by integrating them directly into the Welsh Assembly. 9. Wales was now developing its own unique primary laws designed in Wales for the people of Wales. At the same time, secondary legislation was undergoing a more detailed examination than it did under the old Welsh Office. This has removed some of the democratic deficit of the previous system of governance in Wales. 10. The government of Wales is now run by people elected by the Welsh electorate rather than under the old Welsh Office system

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whereby the Secretary of State, often an English MP, was selected by the British government. This has removed another democratic deficit. 11. It has kept in Cardiff talented politicians and civil servants who would previously have developed their careers in London. This, in turn, has been beneficial to the Welsh economy and to the social development of the nation. 12. It has provided highly skilled jobs across Wales. The assembly government has been able to transfer civil-service posts to boost job opportunities in traditionally high-unemployment areas, such as Merthyr Tydfil, and rural areas that struggle to attract employment.

The Welsh language When the social scientist Jonathan Scourfield, looked at Wales and Welshness in a study of Welsh children, one of them commented that ‘Mae gormod o bobl siarad Seasneg’ (Too many people speak English). English has become one of the dominant languages across the world so, in England’s immediate neighbour, perhaps the question should be ‘how does Welsh survive at all?’. The answer, surprisingly, is ‘very well considering’. The 2001 census revealed that some 28.4 per cent of Wales’s population, or 797,709 out of 2.8 million people, had some knowledge of Welsh. This was a slight improvement on the 1991 census which showed that the language was no longer in decline. The number of those with a knowledge of Welsh was not evenly spread across Wales, however. The proportion of those with a knowledge of Welsh increases the further one travels from the border between England and Wales. The status of the Welsh language is a political hot potato in Wales. Plaid Cymru was founded mainly around the issues of protecting it and enhancing its status. From the 1960s onwards, a series of civil protests by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society), together with pressure from other parties, brought the issue of the Welsh language to the forefront of government policy in Wales. In 1967 the Welsh Office introduced the first Welsh Language Act which, for the first time, gave the Welsh language equal status to English. Over the ensuing decades the Welsh language was seen

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more and more as an important political issue. The Conservative Party, which had traditionally been against promoting any issue that encouraged Welsh nationalism, poured millions of pounds into its promotion. After much controversy, it even introduced a Welsh language television channel, Sianel Pedwar Cymru – S4C (Wales Channel Four). In 2011, S4C suffered a 25 per cent cut in its funding. From 2013 S4C became the responsibility of the BBC, losing its independent status and receiving a fixed grant from the Westminster government. This has caused considerable concern among Welsh language campaigners, such as Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, and Welsh politicians seeking to promote the use of the Welsh language. To the added frustration of both, broadcasting remains a nondevolved issue which means that politicians in Cardiff can do little directly to influence policy over S4C’s future. In 1988 Welsh was made a compulsory subject for all schoolchildren as part of the National Curriculum in Wales. Since 2000 the teaching of the Welsh language has been compulsory in all schools for students up to the age of sixteen. In 1993, a second Welsh Language Act strengthened the position of Welsh in public life. It established a Welsh Language Board which was responsible for promoting the use of the language and ensuring that public bodies treated the Welsh and English languages equally, though this was scrapped in 2011 as part of the Welsh government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’. A plan by the Red–Green alliance Welsh government in 2008 to launch a daily Welsh language newspaper in Wales was scrapped because of cost and poor subscriptions sale. Thus, there remains no daily Welsh language newspaper, only a weekly one – Y Cymro (The Welshman) with a circulation of around 4,000 copies. In December 2010 the Welsh Assembly brought forward another Welsh Language Act that received royal assent in February 2011. This new Act reconfirmed the official status of the Welsh language and established the post of a Welsh Language Commissioner. It is the commissioner who enforces the duty for public bodies to provide for Welsh language services for Welsh speakers. The commissioner has the power to investigate occasions where there are attempts to interfere with the freedom to speak Welsh. The Act also created a Welsh Language Partnership Council to advise government on its Welsh language strategy.

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Not everyone is happy with the policies made to promote the Welsh language, however. In the counties where only a small percentage of the population spoke Welsh, there was continued resistance to having to learn Welsh at school and to watching the Welsh Channel Four instead of English/Scottish television. Various Welsh public institutions, such as the University of Wales, complained that they could not afford to implement the requirements of the 1993 Welsh Language Act. Other public bodies have also rejected the need to appoint Welsh speakers in senior posts even in areas which are predominately Welsh speaking. After their general election defeat in 1997, the Conservatives also came out strongly against the compulsory elements of the Welsh language legislation. Through their 1999 assembly manifesto, they sought to make Welsh no longer compulsory in post-fourteen education. Some business people point to the fact that increasing the use of Welsh causes businesses to incur additional costs at a time when they can ill afford it. Yet, despite these protests, the existence of the Welsh language remains important in Welsh public and private life.

Welshness (Cymreictod) and cultural distinctiveness In the nineteenth century, under the entry for ‘Wales’ in the Encyclopedia Britannica it stated simply ‘see England’. By the late Victorian period, however, with the pressure in part put forward by the rising Welsh Liberal Nationalists, such as David Lloyd George and Tom Ellis, and their desire through the movement Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) to bind politics and Welsh culture in one movement, there arose a Welsh National Party (within the Welsh Liberal Party) which sought to distinguish Wales from England. From then on, Welsh national identity and culture became a political issue of varying importance. Today, those leading cultural bodies, institutions and figures that are in and surround the Welsh Assembly are said to be the driving force of what is described as Welsh ‘civil society’. It is this civil society that was in part responsible for the establishment of the Welsh Assembly which was itself partly the result of the aspirations of a Welsh population who believed their cultural values and norms were different enough to require a separate legislative and executive body to help maintain them.

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Threats to Welsh cultural identity The Welsh economy has been in steady decline for decades. Large areas of Wales have a GDP of 67 per cent of the British average. This has meant that Wales has, for the most part, become an area of lowpaying jobs but, at the same time, one that attracts inward migrants owing to the lower cost of living, mainly in the price of houses. Immigration When asked what defines Welsh identity ‘being born in Wales’ is regarded as being the most important (see Box 8.11). It is thought to be more important than speaking the Welsh language, living in Wales, or even having Welsh parents. Therefore, the influx of those people not born in Wales is seen by some as a threat to national identity, particularly where it lessens the amount of Welsh spoken in that area. The problem of solely English-speaking or Eastern European people moving into predominantly Welshspeaking areas has at times been a sensitive political issue. In 2001 a pressure group, Cymuned (Community), began to lobby the Welsh Assembly on issues relating to inward migration and the need to prioritise local housing for local people. They have lobbied both the government and private sector over issues relating to Wales. In 2007 they lobbied the holiday company Thomas Cook over its banning of the use of Welsh in its Bangor branch. They have also brought forward issues such as the plight of rural Welsh-speaking communities. In some Welsh-speaking areas, such as Ceredigion, the average property price had by 2010 risen to ten times the average annual wage in the county. House prices rises, such as these, prevent many young people from living where they were born and brought up. Emigration The loss of Welsh graduates, and other young Welsh people in search of better-paid jobs, to England or to other countries is significant while the overall population remains fairly constant but increasingly ageing. This means that the younger, more educated Welsh people are moving out at the same time as an ageing population is coming to Wales to retire. Media and the dominance of ‘English’ values In many parts of Wales neither the Welsh press nor broadcast media are dominant. The main Welsh daily newspaper, the Western Mail, is read by only about 10 per cent of the population, while the majority reads the London press. The digitisation of the broadcast media has also

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Box 8.11 What shapes Welsh cultural identity? Welsh cultural identity is difficult to define but it is thought to be shaped by a number of factors: 1. a sense of Welshness – whether a person was born in Wales, has Welsh parents or speaks Welsh can shape one’s own sense of identity; 2. patriotism associated with support for the nation in sporting or other events – this is most focused on the nation’s sport of rugby; 3. Welsh customs and traditions, ranging from St David’s Day on 1 March to Saint Dwynwen’s Day (Welsh St Valentine’s Day) on 26 January; 4. the Christian ‘non-conformist’ heritage which led to the main religion in Wales being separated from that of England; 5. the Welsh Assembly through its actions in committees, policy, patronage, laws, personalities and direction of cultural identity; 6. its socialist and trade union history; 7. its media from BBC Wales to The Western Mail and North Wales Daily Post; 8. its literary and artistic codes; 9. its rural community and heritage which culminate in national events, such as the Royal Welsh Show; 10. people’s names in Welsh or English (Morgan, Jones, Phillips, etc.); 11. its music, from the harp to the male voice choir and the Welsh National Opera to singers such as Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel and Duffy; 12. the Welsh language and the culture and tradition associated with this. In particular the Welsh Youth Movement (Urdd), and National Eisteddfod; 13. the education system, in particular, the Welsh medium schools and the universities with their Welsh academic community associated with groups such as The St Davids Group; 14. its national institutions, from the Welsh Arts Council and National Library to the Welsh literary establishment; 15. the monarchy – particularly the Prince of Wales who has a 192-acre estate and house in Wales, Llwynywermod in Carmarthenshire. Although the prince has little direct connection to Wales, he does pay an annual summer visit to the country, and his very name also highlights the nation on the national stage. His son Prince William’s working presence at RAF Valley on Anglesey has also drawn attention to Wales, enhanced by the presence of his popular wife, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge.

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resulted in channels such as S4C becoming marginalised as they drop their English content. The massive choice of channels, cuts to BBC Wales’s news coverage and the decline of ITV Wales as one of the central channels for viewing have weakened the presence of tailor-made Welsh channels in favour of mainly English or American broadcasters. Dominance of the Westminster parliament Despite the existence of the Welsh Assembly, the British media pay little attention to events in Wales but a great deal of attention to events in Westminster and Whitehall. New policies in Westminster, however, such as tuition fees or the establishment of business enterprise zones, do not automatically apply to Wales. Confusion therefore arises among business and the general public as to the actual policies that are being delivered in Wales as the Welsh situation fails to be more prominent that the English one.

Conclusion Since its inception in 1999, the National Assembly for Wales has gone through a steady period of evolution. Designed initially more on a local government model of one body being run by a series of committees, in reality, almost from its first day, it sought to become more of a parliament. It soon became known as the Welsh Assembly rather than by its more formal title. The names of first and cabinet ‘secretaries’ were dropped to be replaced by the terms first and cabinet ‘ministers’. An official Opposition developed and the Welsh Assembly government became separated from the wider Welsh Assembly. From 2007, Welsh government has had its own form of primary law-making powers via Westminster through a process known as Welsh Measures which still needed to go through the Westminster Parliament. After the successful referendum in March 2011, it has now been developing and using its own primary law-making powers. At the same time, its system of finance is being reviewed with the notion of making the assembly less reliant on the money its gets from Westminster (the Welsh Block grant) and more accountable for its spending decisions. The Welsh Assembly has not been without its problems. Its first

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leader, Alun Michael, was removed in a vote of no confidence. Its new home upon the Cardiff Bay waterfront was five years late in coming and more than fives times costlier than was initially planned. The Welsh government’s development of the NHS in Wales led to much longer waiting lists for operations than was the case across the border in England. The scrapping of school league tables has lead to a decline in educational attainment levels. The Welsh government’s stewardship of the Welsh economy has also left it as one of the poorest regions not only in the UK but also of Western Europe. Nevertheless, over its first three terms, the Welsh Assembly Government was able to develop policy and legislation in Wales that marked it out from its neighbour, England. These included lower tuition fees, free prescriptions, free entry to museums and the levy of 5 pence on plastic bags provided by retail outlets. These differences have helped highlight publically the fact that Wales is developing its own policy strategy. While these events were going on, the Welsh language continued to be an integral part of Welsh politics and, at the same time, the cultural distinctiveness of Wales was being in part enhanced, and supported, by the Welsh Assembly.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

When the Welsh Assembly was established, it was thought that it would herald a new era of consensus politics. This period did not last for more than a few months and, in the new period of conflict politics, First Secretary Alun Michael was removed.

•

Under Rhodri Morgan, the assembly evolved through periods of coalition with the Welsh Liberal Democrats, later as a minority government, and then the Red–Green coalition.

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The construction of the new Welsh Assembly building caused controversy in its overspend and in its delay but was later to receive a number of architectural awards.

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The Welsh ASPBs were integrated into the Welsh Assembly Government. This process was not without controversy and some resistance.

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The coalition government established the Richard Commission to examine the future of the Welsh Assembly. The commission

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recommended an eighty-member assembly elected by STV with primary law-making powers. •

Under a Labour administration, the Welsh government rejected the main Richard Commission proposals and instead brought forward its own more limited changes. These in turn, however, resulted in a referendum which led to the introduction of full primary law-making powers. New law-making powers may also mean the eventual introduction of a Welsh jurisdiction.

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The Government of Wales Act 2006 altered the Welsh Assembly so that it is more like a legislative parliament, with a divide being clearly made between the executive and the legislature.

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The Labour Party has been the dominant political party in the Welsh Assembly, partly because of its traditional political support base in Wales and partly because of its flexibility in working with other political parties in coalition government.

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Having gained its own primary law-making powers, the situation of the assembly’s funding, with possible tax-raising powers, is being examined.

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The Welsh language is important in distinguishing Welsh culture and politics from that of other nations.

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Glossary of key terms All Wales Convention The Commission set up by the Labour–Plaid Cymru assembly administration under the chairmanship of Sir Emyr Jones Parry in 2008. Its purposes was to examine primary law-making powers for Wales and when a referendum should occur on them. ASPB Assembly-sponsored public bodies (quangos). Framework legislation An Act which just provides the outline of what it wishes to undertake, with the detail to be filled in by secondary legislation. GDP Gross domestic product, an economic measure of the wealth of an area. Jurisdiction The territory or sphere of activity over which the legal authority of a law-making body or court extends. In the United Kingdom there are currently three jurisdictions: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Non-conformist A Christian who worships through the Methodist, Baptist or other movements but not through the Anglican or Roman Catholic Churches. Primary law-making powers The ability to make and determine lawmaking powers without recourse to another legislative body. For Wales

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these law-making powers would mean that laws (Acts) would be made in Cardiff instead of at Westminster. Red–Green coalition The name given to the coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru (2007–11). Labour’s electoral colour is red and Plaid Cymru’s colours are green and white. It was welcomed by those on the left wing of politics as being the joining of two political parties with socialist backgrounds.

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Likely examination questions Critically evaluate the view that the Welsh language is the only real difference between Welsh and English culture. To what extent is it true to say that the Labour Party has dominated the Welsh government during its existence? The proposal concerning tax-raising powers has now been examined by both the Holtham and Silk Commissions. Appraise the extent to which new taxation powers could make the Welsh government more accountable to the electorate.

¡

Helpful websites http://allwalesconvention.org/ The All Wales Convention website contains a great deal of information on the development of the assembly and on the potential for its future. The other relevant websites are shown in Chapter 7.

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Suggestion for further reading P. Hannan, A Useful Fiction: Adventures in British Democracy, Seren, 2009. D. Melding, Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020?, Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2009. J. Osmond, Accelerating History – the 1979, 1997 and 2011 referendums in Wales, Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2011. M. Shipton, Poor Man’s Parliament: Ten Years of the Welsh Assembly, Seren, 2011.

CHAPTER 9

Northern Ireland: Historical Political Development Contents The long history of a troubled nation The thousand troubled years of history Ireland in the Victorian era The Unionists become politicised The Treaty of Ireland, 1922 The Protestant state takes shape The British and Irish governments and the road to a peaceful solution Conclusion

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Overview A nineteenth-century proverb says ‘happy is a country with no history’. Nowhere is this more true or important than in Northern Ireland. Events of centuries ago still affect and influence the lives of people there today, and the religious divide between Protestants and Roman Catholics remains as acute as almost anywhere else in Europe. Long before ‘ethnic cleansing’ became synonymous with events in the former Yugoslavia, it was occurring in Belfast and the rest of Ireland as the mixed communities of Protestants and Catholics were being broken up and segregated. Over three centuries, events in Ireland often came to dominate British governments’ domestic political agendas, so studying contemporary political events in Northern Ireland needs knowledge of its historical development. This chapter looks at the historical events shaping the political situation in Northern Ireland over the last 500 years. The importance of the Roman Catholic – Protestant religious divide is examined. The development of Irish Home Rule, the Irish civil war and the establishment of the Stormont Parliament, with its subsequent failure, are detailed. The division in politics between nationalists and unionists, their subsequent development and the development of the peace process are also examined.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • • • • •

Irish history: the arrival of the Roman Catholic Church to the Act of Union The importance and relevance of the 1801 Act of Union How religion is at the heart of the problems in Northern Ireland The Victorian era, and the modern development of Irish nationalism The background to the Orange Order; politicisation of the Unionist cause The 1920 Government of Ireland Act and the 1922 Treaty of Ireland The role and functions of the Northern Ireland parliament (Stormont) The development of Northern Ireland into a Protestant state The road to a peaceful solution to Northern Ireland’s troubles

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The long history of a troubled nation The island of Ireland is not only physically separated from the other nations of the United Kingdom but, since 1922, it has also been split into two separate nations, Southern Ireland (Eire), an independent nation, and Northern Ireland (Ulster), a province of the United Kingdom. For much of the last 500 years Ireland has been the most troubled of all the nations that make up the British Isles. Famine, rebellion, emigration and civil war have continually shaped and reshaped the island. Owing to the fact that attempts to deal with devolutionary pressures in Ireland dominated the later part of nineteenth-century British politics, the whole concept of the ‘devolution of powers’ has its origins in the Home Rule for Ireland Movement. Subsequently, the first example of a devolved parliament in the United Kingdom was that of Stormont in Northern Ireland.

The thousand troubled years of history The Romans never conquered Ireland but, ironically, it was to become the part of the British Isles most dominated by Rome’s greatest legacy, the Roman Catholic Church. For many centuries, Irish missionaries went out to convert the rest of Europe, and one, St David, became the patron saint of Wales. By ad 800, Ireland comprised a series of individual kingdoms. It was the Vikings who settled in Ireland and established towns, of which Dublin became the chief one. From the twelfth century on, through conquest and intermarriage with the Irish nobility, the English controlled about two-thirds of Ireland. By the fifteenth century, however, direct rule by an English monarch had been reduced to Dublin and its hinterland. Despite England’s loss of direct control, Irish independence was halted by Poynings’s Law of 1494, when the Lord Deputy, Sir Edward Poynings, ruled that the English Privy Council must approve the summoning of an Irish parliament and any legislation of that parliament. This law was to remain in place from that time, and any moves towards independence or against English rule were ruthlessly crushed. In 1534 Henry VIII broke the rebellion of Thomas Fitzgerald, and the English king smashed the power of

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Kildare and the Geraldines, taking Ireland under direct rule and dividing the country into shires after the English model. In 1541 Henry became the first English king to be known as ‘King’ rather than ‘Lord’ of Ireland and, at the same time, made himself the head of the Church in Ireland. Over the following centuries a process of colonisation occurred across Ireland. The governments of James I and James II intensified the policy of imposing Protestant settlers on Catholic areas that were known as ‘plantations’. For the next few centuries, there were frequent rebellions by the Catholics which were suppressed by Protestants. The Treaty of Limerick, 1691, promised religious freedom for Roman Catholics but the promise was never honoured and there was, instead, a series of anti-Catholic laws. Catholics were excluded from the Irish parliament in 1692 and disenfranchised in 1727. In 1781, however, anti-Catholic laws were relaxed and Poynings’s Law was repealed in 1782, creating a de facto parliamentary independence. The ‘Irish problem’ continued to exist and, therefore, as a solution, Prime Minister William Pitt proposed to unite the Irish and Westminster parliaments. Although initially resisted by the Protestants, the Act of Union was passed in 1800, coming into force on 1 January 1801. Article 1 of the Act 1800 stated that the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland would, from 1 January 1801, and ‘for ever after, be united into one kingdom, by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’. For the next 120 years the Act of Union remained unaltered. The Act allowed for the continued prosperity of the ruling classes in the ever-expanding British Empire. Irish public administration continued to be run in Dublin under the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland who was a cabinet minister. As in Scotland, Ireland also had a judiciary of its own but no independent legislature. From now until its independence, Ireland would be a subordinate country ruled by the British and its allies rather than being an integrated part of England, as Wales was.

Ireland in the Victorian era During Queen Victoria’s reign, Irish nationalism continued to develop. An upper-class Catholic lawyer, called Daniel O’Connell,

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formed the Catholic Association to bring pressure to bear on the government by such means as electing Roman Catholic MPs. Two years later the association was dissolved by the government which then sought to suppress it. In 1828 O’Connell himself was elected as MP for County Clare but, as a Catholic, he was unable to take his seat. Catholic emancipation occurred the following year. The attention of the people then turned from religion towards social and economic questions, especially regarding land tenure (tenant farmers). As unrest grew, agitation for repeal of the Act of Union resumed after 1829. O’Connell founded the National Repeal Association in 1841. For the next eighty years various groups, ranging from the Young Ireland Movement to the Home Rule Association, campaigned unsuccessfully to have the ‘hated’ Act of Union repealed. The defining event of the nineteenth century in Ireland, was the potato famine (the Great Famine) of the 1840s. There was little industry in Ireland, and the majority of the population was based on the land. The overreliance of the Irish on potatoes was in part due to Irish inheritance laws which continually divided land into smaller plots, and partly because of a lack of tenants’ rights for most farmers. The problems in agriculture meant that, when the potato harvest failed over a number of years, about a million people died in Ireland and three million emigrated to Britain, many to Wales and Scotland and a million went on to the United States. In the space of a few years, Ireland had lost almost half its population. Many American Irish, including those who had fought in the American civil war, supported a secret society called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), better known as Fenians. In time, the IRB would promote rebellion against the British across Ireland. Though Irish nationalism was associated with the Catholics, it was an Anglo-Irish Protestant, Charles Parnell, MP for Meath, who formed a group known as the New Departure which went beyond the more passive Irish Home Rule Movement. Its MPs were disruptive in Parliament and caused increasing problems for Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. In the 1885 General Election eighty-six Irish nationalist MPs were returned while the number of Liberal MPs was so reduced that Gladstone could form a government only with the assistance of Irish members. Parnell used a combination of the Irish party’s strength in Parliament, together

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with this Liberal alliance, to persuade Gladstone that Ireland had spoken and to accept the necessity of Irish Home Rule – a bill to bring it about was placed before Parliament in 1886. This move brought out the full hostility to Home Rule of the Conservatives, Ulster Protestants and a significant number of Liberal MPs, led by Joseph Chamberlain. Home Rule was defeated; Chamberlain’s dissident Liberals became Liberal Unionists, and left the Liberals to join up with the Conservatives. The Liberal administration collapsed and was replaced by a pro-union Conservative–Liberal Unionist government which opposed any Home Rule for Ireland bill and would block its arrival in either the House of Commons or House of Lords until after World War I. In the light of the failure of Home Rule, Parnell’s career went into decline and the Irish party’s fortunes declined with it. In 1900, at the general election, the Irish Parliamentary Party made something of a comeback under the leadership of John Redmond but the younger and more radical elements were now backing the more extreme position advocated by the political group known as Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone). For the Irish nationalists, Redmond’s main hope came after 1910 with Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government but, even with the Liberals, they were still unable to get a Home Rule bill past the Conservative-controlled House of Lords before war broke out in 1914. Redmond supported Irish involvement in the war, something which cost him his popularity which decreased as the war itself became unpopular. When the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Sinn Fein promoted the Dublin Easter Rising in 1916 Redmond failed to condemn the harsh treatment by the British of the republican leaders. The threat of introducing conscription to Ireland in 1918 also added more fuel to the nationalist fire. After the war, Sinn Fein, led by Eamon de Valera, won seventy-three seats compared to just six for Redmond’s Home Rule Party. The Irish Unionist Party won twenty-six seats, mostly in Ulster. The seventy-three Sinn Fein MPs refused to go to Westminster and, instead, sat in their own parliament in Dáil Éireann in Dublin. Although it first met on 21 January 1919, it had no powers. On the same day that the Dáil Éireann met, the newly formed Irish Republican Army (IRA) shot dead two Irish policemen in County Tipperary, marking the start of what became, known as the ‘Irish War of Independence’.

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The Unionists become politicised In 1905 the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) was formed. It was linked with the Conservative Party and would evolve to become the Ulster Unionist Party and dominate Irish politics for nearly a century. In 1911 (Sir) Edward Carson, a noted Dublin lawyer, became leader of the UUC. Carson then set about galvanising the Protestants of Ireland against Home Rule, often bringing together rallies of tens of thousands of supporters. Unionists wanted to remain governed by a Protestant London and not a Roman Catholic Dublin. To confirm this viewpoint, in January 1912 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was formed by militarily experienced gentry to support the Unionist cause. Before trouble could arise, Britain was plunged into World War I. The opposition in Ulster from Edward Carson and the Orange Order to Home Rule and a mutiny by British army officers at the Curragh Camp meant that implementation of Home Rule was shelved until after the end of the war. Carson had already gained the concession that the six counties of Ulster would be able in any settlement to delay joining the devolved Irish parliament for six years.

The Treaty of Ireland, 1922 In 1920, while this conflict was going on, the government passed the Government of Ireland Act. The Act gave Ireland two parliaments (each with a prime minister), one for the North and one for the South, both accountable to Westminster. The first elections for the Northern Ireland parliament were held in May 1921 and the Unionists gained forty of the fifty-two seats. The parliament first met in Belfast in June 1921 with the new prime minister being the Ulster Unionist leader, Sir James Craig. This new deal was a disaster for all Irish nationalists who wanted a united Ireland, and a victory for those who did not. Elections were also held for the nationalist parliament in Dublin in May 1921, and Sinn Fein took 124 seats, with the remaining four going to Unionist candidates. Sinn Fein refused to recognise the parliament, however, and instead continued to meet in Dáil Éireann. Only the four Unionists attended the new parliament. Under their leader, Michael Collins, the IRA continued to fight on for more inde-

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Box 9.1 The Orange Order While some Protestants and Roman Catholics joined together to seek Home Rule for Ireland, another group of Protestants was seeking to make its own claims for Ireland’s future. This was the Orange Order, a solely Protestant organisation, founded in County Armagh in 1795 as a counterweight to the ‘Defenders’, a Roman Catholic secret society. It was also in part a restoration of the Orange Institution which had supported William (III) of Orange in 1688. William’s victory over the Catholic James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, was, from 1796, celebrated annually in parades by Protestants. The Orange Order soon spread across Irish counties and was to form the core of ‘loyalists’ whenever British rule in Ireland was challenged. Despite their ‘loyalty’, the Orange Order was increasingly seen as a threat to the Union, as a disorderly ally causing severe sectarian rioting in Belfast leading to hundreds of deaths. In 1825, and again between 1832 and 1844, it was banned. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Orange Order dominated politics in Northern Ireland, as it sought to ensure that the North remained a predominantly Protestant state with Catholics sidelined. The order was powerful enough to bring the country to a standstill if matters did not go its way. The Orange Order is still a central part of Protestant life in Northern Ireland even today, and, with their system of lodges, the Orange societies are organised in a similar way to Freemasons. It enjoys close ties with the Unionist parties and celebrates this history through public parades during what is called the ‘marching season’.

pendence but a stalemate ensued and a truce was signed between the IRA and the British on 11 July 1921. Some four months later, a treaty was hammered out between Michael Collins on behalf of the IRA and Lloyd George for the British government. Collins, however, failed fully to consult his colleagues and they ejected many of those who rejected partition. This, in turn, led to Collins’s assassination a short time later. The ‘Anglo-Irish Treaty’, which was agreed between Collins and the British government, replaced the Dublin Home Rule parliament, created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, with a much more independent parliament. The new country was to be called

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the ‘Irish Free State’ and had its own army but remained within the British Commonwealth. With Michael Collins dead, it was the Sinn Fein leader, Eamon de Valera, who became the first prime minister of the Irish Free State. The United Kingdom was renamed ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ to reflect the change. In 1922 the Protestant establishment, led by their new parliament and prime minister at Stormont, used the excuse of the violence in the north and the civil war in the south to strengthen their own internal security power. The Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act 1922 gave widespread powers of detention and internment to the authorities. It allowed the security forces in Northern Ireland to ‘arrest without warrants, detain without trial, search homes without warrants, prohibit meetings and processions, and hang and whip offenders’. The Ulster Special Constabulary was also founded in 1922. It was a paramilitary, part-time police force in the mould of the infamous ‘Black and Tans’ and recruited largely from the ranks of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Known as the ‘B Specials’, they were notorious for their discriminatory use of violence in support of Protestantism.

The Protestant state takes shape Between 1922 and 1972, the Protestant state of Northern Ireland was maintained jointly by the Anglo-Irish, Church of Ireland establishment and a largely Presbyterian working-class rank and file organised within the lodges of the Orange Order. The Catholic population of Northern Ireland was excluded from any real power, and their middle class became increasingly resentful. In 1963, a liberal Unionist Ulster prime minister, Terence O’Neill, began to make modest reforms, admittedly under some pressure from London. At about the same time, owing to the events that were unfolding in the United States, a great deal of international interest and involvement had been stirred up by Martin Luther King’s campaign to gain civil rights for the black community. In 1966, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was founded in County Derry and immediately declared that its aim was to gain the right of ‘one man, one vote’ in local elections, extending the franchise to the whole adult population and getting rid of a

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business vote that gave some people a right to as many as six votes! In 1968, a peaceful march in Derry was broken up mainly by police overreaction and brutality. Most of the marchers, together with the founders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Gerry Fitt and John Hume, were advocates of peaceful protest. A republican element in the movement, however, wanted direct action. There was a Protestant counterattack against the protest movement, led from within the government by the Minister for Home Affairs, William Craig, who directed heavy-handed police action, and by militant Unionists such as the Reverend Ian Paisley. The latter founded the Protestant Unionist Party which later became the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Harold’s Wilson’s Labour government in Westminster was increasingly split over what to do about the disturbances but ruled out direct intervention for the time being. In November 1968, O’Neill granted a number of reforms that were well received by NICRA but not by Unionists such as Ian Paisley and William Craig. In February 1969, O’Neill called a general election which he duly won but with the Unionist vote seriously split. In April that year he resigned and, in the subsequent byelection, his seat at Stormont was won by Ian Paisley. The sectarian divide had now become almost unbridgeable. A prominent leader of NICRA, John Hume, defeated the nationalist leader Eddie McAteer. Hume, and other independents elected in 1969, formed the Social and Democratic Labour Party in the following year. For the next two decades, the SDLP would be the main political party for those Catholic or nationalist supporters who sought a peaceful settlement to Northern Ireland’s problems. From the summer Orange marching season onwards, events in Northern Ireland spiralled out of control to the extent that a Protestant mob, spearheaded by off-duty B Specials, began the ethnic cleansing of areas in Belfast of their Catholic residents. This horrified the Wilson government and it put pressure on Ulster prime minister, James Chichester-Clark, to make further reforms, including the disbandment of the B Specials, and a return to proportional representation in local elections. The British army was also sent in to protect the Catholics. The army was soon playing a key role in supporting the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) which, in turn, reactivated the IRA in the north with a new active faction

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Box 9.2 Bloody Sunday and the Saville Inquiry On Sunday, 30 January 1972, British soldiers from the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment shot twenty-six unarmed protestors on a Northern Ireland civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry. They killed thirteen men outright and another died of his injuries some time later. Eight of those killed were seventeen years old. There was a number of inquiries into the events of what became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. The first, under Baron Widgery, found in favour of the army and criticised the march organisers for undertaking an event that brought confrontation upon it. The Widgery Report was accepted by the British government and Northern Irish Unionists but was denounced by nationalist politicians. After this, the goodwill created on the Catholic side with the British government disappeared. The Widgery Report was later said to have been rushed, failing to take account of evidence from those wounded and being nothing short of a whitewash. On the twenty-sixth anniversary of Bloody Sunday the then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a new inquiry by Lord Saville. The Saville Inquiry took twelve years to report and cost some £190 million. The report’s findings reversed the Widgery Report’s findings and stated: ‘The immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday lies with those members of Support Company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries.’ The blame for the deaths was placed on the army. As a result, on behalf of the British government, Prime Minister David Cameron made a public apology in the House of Commons on 15 June 2010 on behalf for the events of Bloody Sunday. Cameron had been only eight years old when the events occurred but it acted as a reminder that Ireland’s violent and troubled history can often come back to haunt politicians many years after the original events have occurred.

calling itself the Provisional IRA, known as ‘the Provos’. Its political wing was the ‘Provisional Sinn Fein’. The Conservative government under Edward Heath, which came into power in June 1970, made an effort to stay out of Ulster and concentrated on trying to get the IRA out of Catholic areas. In February 1971, Gunner Robert Curtis became the first British soldier to be killed by the provisional IRA, and Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark demanded reinforcements.

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London, however, did not want to be drawn into the troubles and Chichester-Clark resigned in March to be replaced by Brian Faulkner. Within months, Faulkner invoked the existing emergency powers Act to reintroduce internment without trial. Thousands of Catholics were interned in an old American Air Force base, Long Kesh. This resulted merely in pushing many innocent Catholics directly into the arms of the IRA. On 30 January 1972 (Bloody Sunday) paratroopers opened fire on a civil-rights march in Derry, killing thirteen people unlawfully (see box 9.2). This act led to the almost complete collapse of Catholic opposition to political violence. Stormont was thoroughly discredited and British Prime Minister Edward Heath wanted to be rid of it. On 22 March 1972, Stormont was prorogued and, within a week, direct rule came into effect with William Whitelaw as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish governments and the road to a peaceful solution to Northern Ireland’s troubles Within a short time, it became apparent that the British government would not be able to defeat the IRA, while the sectarian divide meant that the movement would continue to receive strong Catholic support. Over the coming two decades, thousands in Northern Ireland and beyond would lose their lives. A peaceful solution to the Northern Ireland ‘problem’ would now be a central part of every British and Irish prime minister’s political agenda. Over the next three decades, while the military and terrorist campaigns continued, there was a series of attempts to bring Unionists and nationalists together to end direct rule and achieve a peaceful solution to the ‘troubles’. In 1973 the Northern Ireland Constitution Act resulted in the election by the single transferable vote (STV) system of proportional representation of a seventy-eight-seat, multiparty assembly and a power-sharing executive composed of the Official Unionists, the Alliance Party and the SDLP; it took office on 1 January 1974. This was supported by a new settlement agreed at Sunningdale in Berkshire. Representatives of the IRA took part, and a proposed Council of Ireland, made up of seven representatives from Dublin and seven from Belfast, was agreed. The Unionists, were on the whole, opposed

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to the Sunningdale Agreement because of its recognition of the role of Dublin in the government of Northern Ireland. In the February 1974 General Election, eleven of the twelve candidates elected were opposed to the Sunningdale Agreement. The executive was undermined by this and by a general strike called by the Protestant Ulster Workers’ Council in May 1974. Brian Faulkner resigned from the executive and as leader of the Unionists. The Northern Ireland Act of 1974, which followed, dissolved the assembly and reimposed direct rule. Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (who survived an IRA assassination attempt in 1986) did use the political carrot and stick with Northern Ireland. As well as continuing a direct military war against the IRA, her Northern Ireland Secretary, James Prior, began a process of what he called ‘rolling devolution’ in 1982. A Northern Ireland Assembly of seventy-eight members was elected in October of that year. The Unionists refused to share power with the republicans. Sinn Fein and the SDLP then boycotted the assembly, and the venture was abandoned in June 1986. During this period, however, a step forward was taken in the peace process. An agreement of 1985 between the London and Dublin governments, signed by Margaret Thatcher and Dr Garret FitzGerald, and known as the Anglo-Irish or Hillsborough Agreement, was a major advance because Dublin openly recognised for the first time that there could be change in Northern Ireland only with the consent of the majority of people there. Hillsborough allowed for regular meetings between British and Irish ministers and a permanent staff of British and Irish civil servants based at Stormont to help negotiate agreement on cross-border disputes. On 15 December 1993, John Major and Albert Reynolds set out a Joint Declaration (also known as the Downing Street Declaration). This stated that: 1. the people of Ireland, North and South, should freely determine their future; 2. this could be expressed in new structures arising out of the three-stranded relationship; 3. there could be no change in Northern Ireland’s status without freely given majority consent; 4. this majority consent could be withheld; 5. the consent principle should be written into the Irish constitution; 6. Sinn Fein could enter into negotiations once the IRA had renounced violence. This agreement was now backed not only in Dublin and London but, importantly, by President Clinton in Washington. The Irish voice

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Box 9.3 Why did it take so long to come to a peaceful solution? • • •

•

•

• • • •

• •

Mistrust between Protestants and Catholics caused by the fear that one group would dominate the other. Religious, historical and cultural factors that kept Catholic and Protestant communities apart and from sharing common causes. The large supply of weapons, bomb-making equipment and money supplied by Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. This sustained the fighting strength of the IRA over a long period. It kept them well armed, equipped and able to take on the British Army directly in modern warfare. The geographical isolation of Northern Ireland and its structural economic decline meant that there was not the large-scale inward immigration that might have reshaped the culture. Intransigence in Southern Ireland and poor Anglo-Irish relations. The Republic would not amend its constitution which stated that Northern Ireland was an integral part of Southern Ireland. Intransigence in Northern Ireland’s Protestant community which did not want any role in the north for the Dublin government. The ‘hands-off’ approach of successive British governments which did not want to interfere in devolved Northern Irish matters. British governments’ preference for ‘loyal’ Protestant Unionists over ‘disloyal’ Catholic nationalists. Mistrust of the British government by Catholics and later by Unionists. Each side feared that it would be ‘sold out’ to appease the other side. Unionist and wider British public pressure on the British government which did not want to be seen to be ‘appeasing terrorists’. The increasing militancy of politics in the Protestant and the Catholic camps.

is particularly strong in American politics owing to the large-scale immigration into the United States. Now both Dublin and London, as well as Washington, sought to win agreement for the declaration, not only in Northern Ireland but also in their own countries. Soon after his election in 1997, New Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, with his Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, made serious efforts to bring the peace process back on track. Both sought to make progress from the Downing Street Declaration. On 15 July

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the entire province was horrified when ‘loyalist’ gunmen dragged Roman Catholic Bernadette Martin from her Protestant boyfriend’s home and shot her dead. Three days later Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness for Sinn Fein urged the IRA to call a ceasefire and, on 19 July, that ceasefire was effected. In September, the government accepted that the IRA ceasefire had lasted long enough for Sinn Fein to be admitted to the peace talks and, as a result, Sinn Fein agreed to the decommissioning of weapons (the ‘Mitchell Principles’ named after a US senator). On Good Friday 1998 the renewed peace talks bore fruit when agreement was reached that there would be a newly elected Northern Ireland Assembly.

Conclusion Ireland was one of the first colonies that the British developed. The successful struggle for Southern Irish independence was seen as an inspiration across the British Empire for other nationalist movements. After all, if nationalism could succeed in creating independence in the British Isles, then surely others would be able to gain it elsewhere. Yet, well after these other colonial nationalists had won their independence and the sun had set forever on the British Empire, the problems of the colonial legacy in Ireland continued. Northern Ireland represented one the plainest examples of how a religious divide could result in an almost intractable political problem. The Protestant suppression of Catholic rights, in part fuelled by Southern Ireland refusing to give up its own demands that the country should be united, led to a political head of steam building that erupted in the late 1960s. The violence associated with the troubles of Northern Ireland, especially the acts of terrorism by Unionist and nationalist groups, meant that the status quo was no longer an option. Since then British and Irish governments have tried, with varying degrees of success, to bring all sides together and end ‘the troubles’ for good.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

History is very important with respect to current political events in Northern Ireland.

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•

The divide in religion between Catholics and Protestants is at the heart of the problems in Northern Ireland.

•

The 1801 Act of Union between Ireland and Britain left Ireland with the status of a quasi-colony and soon resulted in resentment and a rise in nationalism.

•

The potato famine in Ireland changed politics in Ireland for ever.

•

Irish nationalism started as a political movement within the British political system but, with the failure to achieve Home Rule, it resulted in ever-increasing degrees of militancy and violence.

•

Original Irish nationalism was a cause taken up by both Catholic and Protestant Irish. Over time, however, Unionism became the domain of Protestants and nationalism that of Catholics.

•

After the failure to achieve Home Rule in Northern Ireland, a bitter insurrection occurred in Ireland. The British government failed to suppress it and, as a result of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 and the Treaty of Ireland, 1922, Northern and Southern Ireland were separated.

•

The devolved parliament in Ulster, known as Stormont, set about creating a Protestant state supported by Unionism under the Orange Order.

•

Despite clear evidence of the Protestant suppression of Catholics and their rights, the various governments at Westminster declined to interfere with devolved matters in Northern Ireland.

•

The more liberal Ulster Unionist attempts at reform were resisted by the more militant Unionists. The Catholics and some liberal Protestants began a civil rights movement that was, in turn, suppressed by the government at Stormont.

•

From 1968 onwards, Ulster spiralled into increasing violence and, over the coming decades, thousands would die through terrorism.

•

British military intervention initially seemed to suppress the violence but, after the events of Bloody Sunday and internment, they then alienated the Catholic community thereby lengthening the conflict. Bloody Sunday also resulted in the longest and most expensive enquiry in British history – the Saville Inquiry.

•

Direct rule from London was imposed on Northern Ireland in 1972, and British and Irish governments looked for a peaceful settlement to the ‘troubles’ thereafter.

•

In 1998 the British and Irish governments signed the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ which started a new, more peaceful phase in Northern Ireland’s history.

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/ ?

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Glossary of key terms Catholic The word literally means ‘universal’. The Roman Catholics see their faith as the faith of the Universal Church throughout the world. Since the fourth century AD, it has been centred on Rome in Italy. In terms of membership, it is the largest of the Christian Churches in Ireland and across the world. Direct rule The governing of Ireland directly from Westminster and Whitehall, while the devolved government of Northern Ireland is suspended. Ethnic cleansing The process of forcibly removing particular religious or ethnic groups from mixed areas leaving just one ethnic or religious group remaining. Fenians An Irish-American republican secret society formed in the United States in 1858 and named after the legendary Fianna, a band of armed warriors who protected the ancient High Kingdom of Ireland. Protestant A Christian who does not follow the Roman Catholic Church and whose faith is based on that of Luther or Calvin. It is the general name given to the Christian Churches which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church after 1517. In the context of Northern Ireland, it is the Anglican Church which broke away from Rome under Henry VIII.

Likely examination questions Identify the key political events in Irish history that, in 1968, led to the start of the ‘troubles’. To what extent does the current political situation in Northern Ireland owe its origins to the events that occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Define the immediate events that led up to Bloody Sunday and identify the reasons that it took some thirty-eight years for the full story to be revealed. In your answer refer to the work of both the Widgery and Saville inquiries.

¡

Helpful websites http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/ The BBC history unit provides full details of the troubles. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20101103103930/http://bloodysunday-inquiry.org/ The National Archives report on the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/history/19211925.html A complete history of Northern Ireland.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire This Sceptred Isle, Empire has a history of Ireland as a ‘colony’.

Š

Suggestions for further reading A. Aughey and M. Duncan (eds), Northern Ireland Politics, Longman, 1996. M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, Manchester University Press, 2001. E. Curtis, A History of Ireland from Earliest Times to 1922, Routledge, 1936. P. Dixon, Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2008. R. English, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland, Macmillan, 2006. M. Mulholland, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2003. J. Smith, Making The Peace in Northern Ireland, Longman, 2002. J. Tonge, The New Northern Irish Politics?, Palgrave, 2005.

CHAPTER 10

Northern Ireland and Devolution: Structures, Process and Government Contents The Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement and respect for all The devolved assembly in Northern Ireland The assembly’s powers Executive powers The d’Hondt route to consensus politics Up and running! The assembly after devolution Decommissioning and David Trimble Open again for business! Communication breakdown: devolution in trouble The stalemate continues – 2005 Time for action – the St Andrews Agreement The DUP–Sinn Fein-led administration Robinson’s stable instability Post-St Andrews Agreement politics

203 204 205 206 207 209 211 212 212 213 213 214 216 217 219

Overview Devolution within Northern Ireland has evolved in a different manner from devolution elsewhere in the UK, so the structures and processes are unique and have had to be constructed in a more conciliatory fashion than the devolution settlements in Wales and Scotland. Central to the establishment of the actual structures of devolved government in Northern Ireland are the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement. This chapter will focus on some of the detail of the agreement, then assess the structures of government that arose from it and how they have developed politically.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • • • • • • •

The Good Friday Agreement North and south devolution referendums Government structures in Northern Ireland Assembly and executive powers The workings of the d’Hondt electoral procedure Arms decommissioning Devolution in trouble: communications breakdown Restarting the assembly The St Andrews Agreement The new stability of Northern Irish politics The reform of policing in Northern Ireland

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The Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was the name given to the political deal that aimed at creating a lasting political settlement, or ‘lasting peace’ within Northern Ireland. It was signed on 19 April 1998. It marked the climax of a long political process involving statements, proclamations and face-to-face dialogue that had started as far back as the 1970s but which had accelerated rapidly in the early 1990s. These talks dealt with how Northern Ireland should be governed in the future to ensure that the aspirations of all Northern Ireland’s communities could be accommodated in a democratic manner. A vital moment in the process came about with the IRA’s announcement on 31 August 1994 that it would be ceasing to engage in further military operations. This enabled John Hume, leader of the nationalist SDLP, to intensify his talks with Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein. This episode highlights the delicate balance in Northern Ireland between democratic and non-democratic methods of attaining and maintaining power. It also displays how paramilitary forces have to be taken into the equation whenever there is any discussion about progressing the governance of Northern Ireland. Thus, with talk of ‘peace not war’, a new mood appeared to be reverberating around Northern Ireland.

Box 10.1 The Good Friday Agreement The proposals settled on in the Good Friday Agreement included: • •

•

• • •

Plans for a Northern Ireland Assembly with a power-sharing executive. New cross-border institutions involving the Irish Republic, and a body linking devolved assemblies across the United Kingdom with Westminster and Dublin. The Irish Republic was to drop its constitutional claim, in Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic’s Constitution, to the six counties which form Northern Ireland. Proposals on the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Proposals on the future of policing in Northern Ireland. Proposals for the early release of paramilitary prisoners.

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Four years on, and with many political highs and lows having been endured, the Good Friday Agreement passed into history. When looked at in more detail, the Good Friday Agreement document stated that the Northern Ireland Assembly would be democratically elected and that no one party would be dominant; hence the commitment to ‘power sharing’. To these ends the GFA included safeguards for cross-community participation. This would show itself in the allocation of committee chairs, ministers and committee members in proportion to party strength. When it came to dealing with matters that were not merely procedural, or strictly internal to Northern Ireland, the GFA laid out plans for the establishment of a North–South Ministerial Council whereby Belfast and Dublin could discuss matters of mutual interest. To avoid claims of any bias towards nationalists, it was laid out by the GFA that any decisions made by the North–South Council must be agreed by both sides. Similarly, a British–Irish Council was set up to encourage political, economic and cultural interaction between all peoples on the islands of Britain and Ireland. This was dubbed ‘the Council of the Isles’ by some commentators. It was envisaged that, when put into practice, this body would have representatives from the British and Irish governments, the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and also representatives from the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Furthermore a British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference was also to be established. This would comprise senior representatives from both governments, and it would meet to promote bilateral co-operation on every matter of mutual interest. Finally, a consultative Civic Forum would come into existence. This would comprise representatives of business, trade unions and other sectors in Northern Ireland. It was envisaged that this Civic Forum could act as a consultative mechanism on social, economic and cultural issues.

The Good Friday Agreement and respect for all The peace process had sought to foster understanding between the different political, cultural and religious groups in Northern Ireland. Allied to this, more empathy had to be encouraged between people in Northern Ireland and those outside its borders. The GFA asked all the participants in the peace process and the GFA to

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affirm their commitment to achieving mutual respect through the upholding of the civil rights and the religious liberties of everyone in Northern Ireland and beyond. To embed this element of respect, the GFA brought forward measures to establish a new Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and to legislate for the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into Northern Ireland’s law. Following on from the section on human rights, the GFA turned its attention to the issue of the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. It is this section that has proved to be the most contentious – as indeed it was from the outset – and difficult to apply. As will be mentioned later, the timescale for decommissioning, and the manner in which it is to be conducted, have proved to be very problematical. In similar terms, the GFA’s position on policing in Northern Ireland, and the early release of paramilitary prisoners, assuming that the organisation to which they are attached were maintaining their ceasefires, has proved to be controversial.

The devolved assembly in Northern Ireland The electorate of Northern Ireland endorsed the Good Friday Agreement in a referendum held on 22 May 1998. On the same day, voters in the Republic of Ireland accepted the changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic’s constitution, which cast aside any territorial claims that the South may have had to the North. Table 10.1 shows the results. The referendum’s endorsement paved the way for the introduction of the Northern Ireland Act (1998). The act defined the future institutions of government in Northern Ireland, and laid down the principles for collaboration between the governments of Britain, the Republic of Ireland and the devolved assembly at Belfast. On 25 June 1998 elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly were held with 108 Members being elected using the single transferable vote (STV) form of proportional representation (PR). Six representatives were returned from each of Northern Ireland’s eighteen Westminster constituencies. Those elected are known as Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). The figures for the 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly Election are shown in Table 10.2. The political parties that took part in the election will be analysed at length in the following chapter.

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The assembly’s powers The assembly has full executive and legislative authority for all ‘transferred matters’. These transferred matters include areas such as education, health and agriculture. Policy fields, such as defence and taxation, remain ‘excepted matters’, or ‘matters of national importance’ and are therefore not devolved to the Belfast institution. Similarly to the Scottish Parliament, but unlike the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly has the power to enact primary legislation for Northern Ireland. Proposals for legislation (or draft legislation) are referred to as ‘bills’ until they are firstly approved by the assembly, then accepted by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and, finally, given royal assent. When this process is complete the bills become Acts. Ministers, committees and individual members can propose a bill to the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly for consideration by the assembly. If the Speaker is content that the proposals are within the assembly’s competence the bill is then introduced and debated in the chamber. It is also scrutinised by the appropriate statutory committee. The committee then reports back to the assembly allowing members to consider the details of the bill and to propose amendments. It is then considered further by the assembly and a final vote is taken. If approved, the Table 10.1 The Good Friday Agreement referendums, 1998 Yes

Percentage

No

Percentage

Turnout (percentage)

Northern Ireland (to support/ reject the GFA)

676,966

71.1

274,879

28.9

81.1

Republic of Ireland (to amend Articles 2 and 3)

1,442,583

94.4

85,748

5.6

56.3

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Table 10.2 Northern Ireland first Assembly election, 1998 Party

First Preference Votes Votes

Percentage

Seats

SDLP

177,963

22.0

24

UUP

172,917

21.3

28

DUP

145,917

18.1

20

SF

142,848

17.7

18

Alliance

52,636

6.5

6

UKUP

36,541

4.5

5

PUP

20,634

2.6

2

NIWC

13,019

1.6

2

47,452

5.8

Others Total

824,391

Turnout

3* 108

69.95

* Three independent Anti-Agreement Unionists

Speaker will ask the Secretary of State to seek royal assent to enable the bill to become an Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Executive powers Executive powers are concerned with the administration of public services, such as health and the environment. These are discharged by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s government departments (the Northern Ireland Civil Service). The assembly delegates these executive powers to an executive committee made up of the first minister and deputy first minister together with one minister for each of the ten government departments. Members of the executive committee are appointed from the 108 MLAs, according to party strengths. Once in place, the executive committee forwards proposals for new

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legislation. It does this in the form of ‘executive bills’ that can be considered by the entire assembly. The executive committee also sets out a Programme for Government each year with a budget that has to be agreed by the assembly. Similar to Acts passed by the other devolved bodies in the United Kingdom, those in Northern Ireland are: • • • •

within the defined competences of the assembly set down by Westminster; subject to judicial review; cannot go against either European Union law or the European Convention on Human Rights; pay particular attention to Northern Ireland’s past by not discriminating against individuals on grounds of political or religious beliefs

At the end of the legislative process a Northern Ireland Assembly bill must then receive royal assent in order to become law. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland also plays a monitoring role on the assembly’s law-making process and can refuse to submit a bill for royal assent if he/she believes it goes against the assembly’s constitutional powers. The assembly carries out its work in plenary (full) meetings of the assembly and by the work of assembly committees. Box 10.2 provides more information on these committees. A first minister and a deputy first minister are elected to lead the Executive Committee of Ministers. They must stand for election jointly and, to be elected, they must have cross-community support by the ‘parallel consent’ formula. This means that a majority of both the members who have designated themselves nationalists and those who have designated themselves unionists, and a majority of the whole assembly, must vote in favour. This is a prime example of the quid pro quo character of the Good Friday Agreement and the consensual nature that has now become a mandatory part of Northern Ireland’s political environment. One criticism of this ‘parallel consent’ formula, however, could be that, in its requirement that MLAs designate themselves along traditional nationalist/ unionist lines, with the third category being a fairly nondescript ‘other’, they are merely perpetuating their own, and invariably their communities’, embedded prejudices. This form of ‘designation’

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could therefore be seen as stifling, as it does not allow politicians, and perhaps even communities, to alter and realign their ideological positions. If the GFA was all about creating a ‘new politics’ in Northern Ireland then, it could be argued, the ‘designation’ and ‘parallel consent’ clauses may not be its finest achievements. The first minister and deputy first minister head the Executive Committee of Ministers and, acting together, they determine the total number of ministers in the executive. Having done this, the parties elected to the assembly choose ministerial portfolios and select ministers in proportion to their party strength. Each party has a designated nominating officer and the ‘d’Hondt procedure’ is used for the appointment of ministers.

The d’Hondt route to consensus politics With a premium being put on inclusive, consensus politics in the ‘new’ Northern Ireland, the GFA decided to adopt the ‘d’Hondt procedure’, or ‘highest average method’. Named after a nineteenth-century Belgian lawyer, the idea is that a party’s total vote is divided by a certain figure which increases as it wins more seats. As the divisor becomes bigger, then the party’s total in succeeding rounds gets smaller, allowing parties with lower initial totals to win seats. By initiating d’Hondt, no single party should be able to dominate or control the proceedings of the assembly. In reality the method of appointing ministers by this allocation system has come in for some criticism from observers of the process. It is not so much that the idea of achieving a fair balance is wrong in itself, it receives criticism because certain ministers, feeling secure in their new posts, have gone on to use their departments as ‘power bases’ from which they have pursued their individual agendas, or those of their party, rather than associating their department with the agreed line of the executive or the assembly. This goes against the notion of the co-operative, collaborative, ‘joined-up’ government that the Good Friday Agreement envisaged. The early days of the Northern Ireland Assembly were marred by a series of political rows and delays. Despite the failure to form an executive by July 1999, the assembly met on the fifteenth of that month to activate the d’Hondt procedure. Alas, only Sinn Fein and

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Box 10.2 Northern Ireland Assembly: meeting and committee structure • •

•

• •

Plenary meetings of the assembly are usually held twice a week (on Mondays and Tuesdays) in the assembly chamber. Departmental committees A statutory committees shadows each of the ten Northern Ireland government departments plus one to cover the first and deputy first ministers. The committees have the power to examine and to recommend changes to departmental policies. They can also initiate legislation. Furthermore, statutory committees may carry out independent investigations into any current issue that ministers may be considering. Standing committees Six standing committees were established by the assembly to assist it in its work These cover issues such as audit, procedures, and assembly business. Ad hoc committees These are set up, as and when they are needed, to undertake a specific task or piece of work. Office holders Committee chairs, and those who wish to act as members of the various committees, are appointed using a selection system that ensures each party in the assembly is represented according to the votes it received in the election. The eleven members of each statutory committee, including the chair and deputy chair, are also appointed in a way that reflects party representation in the assembly, and the chair and deputy chair do not normally belong to the same political party as the relevant departmental minister.

the SDLP made nominations. Since ministers could hold office only if their nominations included three designated Unionists and three designated nationalists the conditions for the appointment had not been met and the assembly was adjourned. This is an example of where the ‘designation’ principle succeeded in halting, rather than progressing, the operation of the assembly. The above case is just one example of the extremely long teething time that the assembly underwent. United States Senator George Mitchell was called in to oversee a review of the political process, and things appeared to get moving when the assembly met on 29 November 1999, and ministers and chairs were agreed upon. The following day, 30 November, the Secretary of State issued the

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Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Commencement Order No. 5) resulting in the devolution of powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2 December 1999. Upon the final granting of devolution, Lord Alderdice of the Alliance Party was confirmed as Speaker and he continued in that capacity until his retirement on 29 February 2004. Compared with other legislatures, the Northern Ireland Assembly is unusual in that there is no official Opposition. The two main Unionist and nationalist parties have always been involved in the government. The Alliance Party, Green Party, Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and smaller Unionist parties remained outside of the government. In 2010, however, the Alliance Party joined the government and, with the demise of most of the smaller Unionist parties and the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, by 2012 only the single Green Party member and the member for the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) were in opposition.

Up and running! The assembly after devolution With the assembly now sitting, and with its powers devolved from Westminster, it may have appeared that this would be the assembly’s ‘honeymoon period’. Many issues still remained unresolved, however, not least of which was the issue of weapons decommissioning. On 11 February 2000, the then Secretary of State, Peter Mandelson MP, signed an order to suspend the assembly and restore ‘direct rule’. Mandelson was forced into taking this action because David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and first minister, threatened to resign and throw the devolution process into further disarray. It took until May 2000 for the deadlock to be broken. On 6 May the Provisional IRA released a statement saying that it was ready to begin a process that would ‘completely and verifiably’ put its arms beyond use. In fact, it would be another fifteen months, in August 2001, before the International Commission on Decommissioning, headed by General John de Chastelain, could state that the IRA had forwarded a plan to put its weapons ‘beyond use’. Nevertheless, after the statement of 6 May, David Trimble did consult his party which then agreed that Trimble and the UUP should re-enter the power-sharing assembly. This was an early indicator of the stop-start nature of devolved politics in Northern Ireland.

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Decommissioning and David Trimble The continuing argument about decommissioning led, eventually, to the resignation of David Trimble as first minister on 1 July 2001, to be followed, on 18 October, by other UUP ministers. During this phase, many decisions were taken directly by the Secretary of State and Downing Street as this was a period of indecision and confusion. After a lot of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, David Trimble was eventually re-elected as first minister on 5 November 2001, along with the SDLP’s Mark Durkan as deputy first minister to replace Seamus Mallon who had retired. Trimble’s return as first minister came about after pro-Agreement parties had struck a deal to re-elect him by redesignating three Alliance Party MLAs as Unionists.

Open again for business! In the eleven months from November 2001 to October 2002, the Northern Ireland Assembly did make progress on a number of issues. The assembly, the executive and the committees met regularly and consensus was reached on most matters. Business transacted in this period included the following: •

•

•

•

•

The executive produced a draft Programme for Government (subtitled ‘Reinvestment and Reform’), and a draft budget for 2003–4 was agreed. The various committees published nearly fifty reports on such diverse subjects as the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Northern Ireland, child protection, tourism, fur farming, homelessness, and water management. The assembly debated and passed seventeen acts in 2001 and fourteen in 2002. MLAs also began the practice of presenting public petitions on constituency-related issues. There were many important debates on topics such as the NHS, the future of education in Northern Ireland, the work of the Children’s Commissioner, and telecommunications in Ulster. MLAs raised matters of importance in their own constituencies by means of adjournment debates.

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Communication breakdown: devolution in trouble On 4 October 2002 Sinn Fein’s offices at Stormont were raided as part of a major police investigation into alleged intelligencegathering by republicans. Ten days later, amid an environment of accusations and political tension, Secretary of State John Reid MP announced that devolution was to be suspended from midnight and that the return of ‘direct rule’ would follow. Although elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly were held in November 2003 (see Table 10.3) with the DUP and Sinn Fein topping the Unionist and nationalist community votes respectively, devolved government, in a formal sense, remained ‘on hold’. In 2004, a series of intergovernmental and cross-party talks was held in an attempt to break the deadlock and to set in motion, once again, the devolution process in Northern Ireland. Talks in Belfast were followed by three days of intensive negotiations at Leeds Castle in Kent with both the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, playing prominent roles. Though no agreement came out of the Leeds Castle talks, a more optimistic mood emerged among politicians who felt that the assembly could soon resume its business. The issue of weapons decommissioning still loomed large, however, and Unionist demands for photographic evidence of IRA decommissioning created another political row.

The stalemate continues – 2005 Despite a high-profile intervention from United States president, George Bush, at the end of 2004, to try to persuade all sides in the dispute to settle their differences and move on, little real progress was made towards resuming devolution at Stormont. In May 2005 two important events occurred in the British general election, UUP leader David Trimble lost his Westminster seat of Upper Bann, and Peter Hain replaced Paul Murphy as Secretary of State. In July 2005, the IRA declared that its armed campaign was over and talked about replacing it with democratic political activities. The response from Downing Street was to announce a two-year plan to scale down the British Army’s presence in Northern Ireland and to reduce the number of troops based in Ulster from 10,500 to 5,000. Unionists,

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unsurprisingly, claimed that the British government was playing into the hands of the nationalists.

Time for action – the St Andrews Agreement By 2006 there was an air of desperation about government circles in London and Dublin. In April 2006, after another breakdown in talks between the interested parties, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern attempted to set out a timetable for restoring devolution for Northern Ireland. In the timetable, the assembly would be recalled on 15 May with the express purpose of electing first and deputy first ministers and agreeing an executive within six weeks. MLAs would then be given until 24 November to set up a new power-sharing executive. If this did not materialise, then MLAs’ salaries – £41,321 per MLA per annum when the assembly is sitting but £31,817 during suspension – would be stopped and the British and Irish governments would then work on partnership arrangements to implement the Good Friday Agreement. Summarising the plan, therefore, the restoration of devolution would occur only if three conditions were met: • • •

a first and deputy first minister were elected with cross-party consent; an executive was elected with similar cross-party support; all persons elected affirmed the terms of the assembly’s pledge of office.

To show their commitment to this plan, Blair and Ahern issued a joint statement at Navan Fort, Armagh. Secretary of State, Peter Hain, then announced on 18 April that emergency legislation would go before the Houses of Parliament. The bill received royal assent on 8 May. On 15 May, in an assembly meeting that lasted just fourteen minutes, Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, talking in Gaelic, nominated Ian Paisley as first minister and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister. Unsurprisingly, Paisley dismissed this suggestion and the meeting came to an end. Secretary of State Peter Hain’s response to these events was to talk of initiating a ‘virtual assembly’ to overcome the impasse. Here, the assembly could meet and debate but it would not pass legislation. Hain’s hope was that a level of trust would build up among the MLAs and, out of this,

0.8

–

0.4

2.9

TUV

Green

Independents

17

SDLP

UKUP

22.7

UUP

1.2

23.5

Sinn Fein

PUP

25.7

DUP

3.7

Percentage of the Vote

Party

Alliance

2003

Year

1

0

–

1

1

6

18

25

24

30

Number of Seats

2003

2.8

1.7

–

0

0.6

5.2

15.2

14.9

26.2

30.1

Percentage of the Vote

2007

1

1

–

1.5

1

7

18

18

28

36

Number of Seats

2007

2.3

1.7

2.5

0

0.6

7.7

14.2

13.2

26.9

30.1

Percentage of the Vote

2011

Table 10.3 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, 2003–11

1

1

1

0

0

7

16

16

29

38

Number of Seats

2011

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would come a compromise that would see the ‘real’ assembly coming back into play. There was a breakthrough that October when all of the parties agreed to, and then held, talks at St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. In this St Andrews Agreement Sinn Fein accepted the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the DUP committed itself to power-sharing with the Republic and nationalists The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 was then enacted which amended the Northern Ireland Act 1998 that had set up the original Northern Ireland Assembly. The purpose behind this new Act was to give the assembly power over justice and policing and, at the same time, plan for the establishment of a new Northern Ireland Executive after the March 2007 assembly elections. It also stated that the first minister would always come from the largest political party and the deputy from the second largest party.

The DUP–Sinn Fein-led administration In the assembly elections of March 2007 both the DUP and Sinn Fein consolidated their positions as the leading two parties by both becoming the top two political parties at Stormont (Table 10.3). In the process, Sinn Fein surpassed the Ulster Unionist Party, led by Sir Reg Empey, which lost nine seats at this election. In accordance with the St Andrews Agreement an executive had to be formed by 26 March which the four main parties duly did. The DUP’s Ian Paisley became first minister and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness then became the deputy first minister. In the process, two politicians, who had not even spoken to each other prior to that March, would became partners in government. Over the course of the following year, so well would Paisley and McGuinness get on that they gained the name from the media of the ‘Chuckle Brothers’. Paisley was now eighty-one years old, the oldest MP at Westminster and the oldest serving first minister. This was something that few would have ever imagined, when he started his radical Unionist career in 1950. There was also pressure within his party to have a younger leader and Paisley’s close ally and the DUP’s deputy party leader, Peter Robinson, was elected unopposed as the new leader of the DUP and with it he was appointed to become Northern Ireland’s second DUP first minister, on 31 May 2008.

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Robinson’s stable instability Peter Robinson came into office with a long-established political pedigree in Northern Ireland’s politics. He had been a founder of the DUP, then the youngest Westminster MP in 1979 and later the longest-serving Belfast MP. Despite this extensive political record, he became involved in a political scandal connected to his wife, Iris, that damaged his own reputation and resulted in a period of instability in his own tenure as first minister. Peter and Iris Robinson had been Northern Ireland’s first husband-and-wife Westminster MPs. They had enjoyed a close personal and professional relationship which was to be rocked by revelations that became public in late 2009. Prior to a BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight documentary examining Iris Robinson’s personal and business life in late December 2009, Iris announced that she would retiring from politics because of the mental strains of Northern Irish politics. The television programme revealed that Iris Robinson had lobbied for £50,000 funding for a teenage man she was having a sexual affair with. Connected with this were further allegations of financial impropriety involving Iris taking £5,000 in cash from her lover. Although it was alleged that Peter Robinson had tried to persuade his wife to return the money, he had not informed the relevant authorities and therefore breached his duty as first minister to act in the public interest. Peter then stood down from his post on 11 January 2010 to address the issue of the possible breach of the codes of conduct. The deputy leader, Arelene Foster, then took over as first minister. Although this was only for a short period, in the process, it made her the first female from any of the devolved nations to hold the post of first minister. On 4 February Peter resumed his post as first minister, stating that legal advice indicated that he had not breached any codes of conduct. Subsequent enquiries by the DUP and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) indicated that there was not sufficient evidence to lead to any prosecutions though enquiries into the affair by both the Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster Parliament continued. Though Peter Robinson seemed to survive the scandal by remaining as first minister, it did seem to have its impact electorally when Robinson lost his Belfast East Westminster seat to the Alliance Party’s

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Box 10.3 Reform of the RUC and introduction of the PSNI The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force that sought to maintain law and order in Northern Ireland from 1992 until it was renamed and reformed in 2001 as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Strongly supported and staffed by the Protestant community, many of its officers lost their lives during the course of their duties in ‘the troubles’. The nationalist community believed that the RUC, staffed mainly by Protestant officers, was deeply biased towards the Unionists. It was seen also as the instrument of oppression of Roman Catholics by the Protestant-led governments of Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, chaired by Lord Patten, recommended some 175 measures to report the RUC. These involved among other things: • • • • • •

renaming it, the eventual name being the Police Service of Northern Ireland; ensuring officers followed a new code of ethics emphasising human rights; creating an inclusive Policing Board of Northern Ireland politicians and independent members to monitor and investigate the policy; removing overt symbols of Britishness; creation of a police ombudsman and complaints procedures; a 50–50 recruitment policy between Protestants and Catholics.

All of these recommendations were introduced, as well as measures to ensure that there was close co-operation with the Irish police (Garda Síochána na hÉireann). The PSNI, together with the Northern Ireland Prison Service and the Northern Ireland Courts, remain the responsibility of the Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Naomi Long in 2010. Just as his earlier stepping down from the post of first minister had elevated a woman into the post and into the history books, his parliamentary loss was also to benefit another woman and make history. Naomi Long became the first directly elected ‘Liberal’ affiliated MP in Northern Ireland since 1914. In the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, however, Peter Robinson’s electoral fortunes returned when he was elected to Belfast East once more. There

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he topped the poll with 28.3 per cent of the first preference votes in this STV election. This was more than twice the amount of his nearest rival and enabled him to win on the first count. Despite the instability in his personal and his political life on occasions, Peter Robinson has held the office of first minister for far longer than any of his predecessors and, in the process, headed the most stable government in Northern Ireland for nearly half a century.

Post-St Andrews Agreement politics When republican dissidents blew up and killed a young Catholic PSNI constable, Ronan Kerr, Stormont ministers united in condemning his murder. It was a sad reminder that Northern Ireland had not yet fully and permanently exorcised the political violence. Yet it was no longer violence and death that shaped Northern Ireland’s politics. Like that of the other nations in the British Isles, politics in Northern Ireland was dominated by the after-effects of the credit crunch that started in late 2008. The people of Northern Ireland were made even more aware of this because of their close relationship with the Irish Republic whose economy had suffered a severe economic decline. The economy aside, the biggest crisis to hit the Northern Ireland Assembly concerned the tens of thousands of people whose water supply was cut off during the winter freeze of 2010–11. Some people were without water for several weeks. The problems of many years of underinvestment in Northern Ireland Water, caused in part by the overshadowing of infrastructure improvement by ‘the troubles’, now brought the political parties together to try to resolve the problems. The subsequent fallout from this resulted in resignations, demotions and inquiries. As a sign of a moving on from Northern Ireland’s troubled past, however, it was a non-partisan issue which was dealt with solely within Northern Ireland without recourse to violence or sectarianism. The Northern Ireland government also agreed to reduce the twenty-six local authorities to eleven, despite the SDLP wishing to see fifteen councils. This was the biggest cross-party agreed reshaping of the political landscape in Northern Ireland’s history. As we will see in the next chapter, the changes to Northern Irish politics over

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the post-St Andrews Agreement period has also meant an evolution of the way the political parties themselves operate.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

The Good Friday Agreement was not universally welcomed across Northern Ireland.

•

While the peace process is considered to be an event of the 1990s, in reality clandestine talks to end the troubles had been going on since the 1970s.

•

The fact that referendums on differing, but very much related, issues had to be held in Ulster and the Republic on the same day in 1998 demonstrates the historically political complexities of the situation in Northern Ireland.

•

There has been an electoral shift away from the moderate nationalist and Unionist parties. At the same time Northern Ireland has developed into a five-party state with a few minor parties holding the odd MLA seat.

•

Cross-party co-operation in Northern Ireland was exceptionally difficult to achieve but, after the St Andrews Agreement, this changed.

•

The reform of policing in Northern Ireland was essential for long-lasting peace to occur.

•

Despite his troubled personal and professional life, Peter Robinson has presided over the most stable Northern Ireland Assembly government.

/

Glossary of key terms Designation Part of the assembly process whereby MLAs categorise themselves in ideological terms. They do so, predominantly, along nationalist and Unionist lines. D’Hondt procedure A method for electing ministers that is meant to ensure a fair allocation of seats based on a party’s actual strength in terms of the number of votes it secures. Excepted matters Policy areas that are not devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly but remain the preserve of the Westminster government. Good Friday Agreement The concord that was signed on Good Friday 1998. It was designed to ensure a peaceful future for Northern Ireland through inclusive democratic government. Lasting peace The idea that any ceasefires or intentions to disarm by paramilitary forces should pave the way towards the demilitarisation of

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Northern Ireland in order that the province may live peacefully for the foreseeable future. Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) MLAs are the elected representatives who sit in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Peace process The term ‘peace process’ generally refers to the period in the 1990s which saw political dialogue at party, community and governmental level that was aimed at achieving a ‘lasting peace’ in Northern Ireland. Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) The policing body that replaced the Royal Ulster Constabulary which was part of a major reform of the way the law and order were run and managed in Northern Ireland Power-sharing A built-in mechanism that operates in an institution to make sure that no one group or party dominates proceedings. St Andrews Agreement An agreement made in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland in 2006 between the British and Irish governments and political parties in Northern Ireland. It resulted in the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly in which the DUP and Sinn Fein took the dominant positions in the multiparty government. It was enabled by Sinn Fein’s decision to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the courts and the rule of law with Ulster. Stormont The Stormont building in Belfast is the site of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Transferred matters Policy areas, such as education and health, that have been devolved from Westminster to Stormont.

?

Likely examination questions What were the key events that led to the signing of the St Andrew’s Agreement? To what extent has the shift away from the moderate Unionist and nationalist political parties aided the peace process? Provide the reasons why devolution has proved to be such a stop-start process in Northern Ireland.

¡

Helpful websites www.niassembly.gov.uk The Northern Ireland Assembly. www.northernireland.gov.uk The Northern Ireland Executive (government). www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk Newspaper website for more information about politics in Northern Ireland.

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Suggestions for further reading P. Dixon, Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace, Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. A. Edwards and C. McGrattan, The Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide, Oneworld, 2010. J. McEvoy, The Politics of Northern Ireland, Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

CHAPTER 11

Political Parties within Northern Ireland Contents The genealogy of political parties in Northern Ireland The two main Unionist political parties Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) The other Unionist parties Nationalist political parties The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Sinn Fein (SF) Non-aligned, or non-sectarian, political parties The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (Alliance) Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) The Green Party Conclusion

224 224 224 226 229 230 230 233 236 236 237 238 239

Overview The political parties operating within Northern Ireland differ in several respects from those in existence in other parts of the United Kingdom. The crucial element missing within mainland Britain is the religious one. As is the case with Scotland and Wales, however, Northern Irish politics also differs in other ways which will become apparent in this chapter. This chapter will analyse the history, key players and ideologies of the major political parties in Northern Ireland.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • • • •

The genealogy of the political parties in Northern Ireland Unionist, nationalist and non-aligned parties Party ideology and identities Key players: Martin McGuinness, Reverend Ian Paisley, Alasdair McDonnell and David Ford Coalition, co-operation and the centre ground The evolution of Northern Irish political parties

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

The genealogy of political parties in Northern Ireland Most political parties in Northern Ireland have been formed from within the religious communities in Ulster – hence their link to sectarianism – and their formation has often been in response to some political or historical event. For instance, the formations of Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party at the beginning of twentieth century were indicative of the rising political and religious tensions that were evident at that time. Likewise, the arrival of the SDLP, the DUP, and the Alliance Party at the start of the 1970s highlights that period’s turbulent political environment. Later on, new Unionist parties and non-sectarian parties, such as the Green Party, TUV and UKUP, would also develop on a much smaller scale. With this as a backdrop, this chapter will now look in more detail at some of the specific parties operating in Ulster.

The two main Unionist political parties Unionist political parties are those that support maintaining the Union between Ulster and mainland Britain. These parties are mostly, though not always, supported by members of the Protestant community. Thus, they tend to reflect all the different shades of Protestant political and religious thinking.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was formed in 1971. Its was dominated from then until 2008 by Lord (Ian) Paisley former first minister, MP, MLA, and MEP. Paisley is also a Presbyterian minister and his political and religious oratories were often interwoven. Indeed, Paisley’s unique position in Northern Ireland politics and society was assured through his founding of the Free Presbyterian Church, in 1951, and the Democratic Unionist Party. After 2008, however, the leadership of the DUP transferred to Peter Robinson (see Chapter 10).

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Box 11.1 Formation and ideology of political parties in Northern Ireland • • • • • • • • • •

1905: Ulster Unionist Party (unionist/traditional conservative) 1905: Sinn Fein (republican/socialist) All-island party 1970: SDLP (nationalist/social democrat) 1970: Alliance Party (non-sectarian/liberal) 1971: Democratic Unionist Party – DUP (unionist/staunchly patriotic) 1979: Progressive Unionist Party – PUP (loyalist/proletarian) 1981 The Green Party – Comhaontas Glas (ecocentrist) Allisland party 1996: UK Unionist Party – UKUP (moderate loyalist/Eurosceptic) 1996: Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (non-sectarian/radical) 2007: Traditional Unionist Voice – TUV (breakaway group from DUP/anti-St Andrews Agreement)

The fight for God and Ulster The DUP had previously presented itself as the only alternative to Sinn Fein, and it had contended that Sinn Fein would become the largest party in Northern Ireland if the Unionist vote is evenly split. Therefore, Ian Paisley and the DUP campaigned by declaring that the only way to preserve Unionist and Protestant culture in Ulster was to vote DUP in order, as Paisley saw it, to marginalise the ‘soft’ Unionist stance of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and to counteract the republican agenda of those in the nationalist camp. This was the party’s message for years, and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement because it said that the deal, if implemented in full, would mean the end of the Union between Britain and Northern Ireland. For the DUP, therefore, the fight throughout the peace process had been about maintaining political and religious traditions and values. To paraphrase, it was about ‘God and Ulster’. Yet, after the St Andrews Agreement, despite decades of declaring that Sinn Fein could never be accepted in government, the DUP came to an agreement with them and led the new Northern Ireland government with Ian Paisley as first minister. The DUP had carried out a large consultation with its membership who had endorsed power-sharing.

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

Not everyone was happy with power-sharing, however. The DUP’s sole MEP, Jim Allister, resigned from the party and formed an anti-St Andrews Agreement splinter group (Traditional Unionist Voice). The TUV did not fair well at elections and, in the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, only Jim Allister himself managed to retain his seat. The DUP, however, remains Northern Ireland’s strongest party politically. Currently it has one MEP, nine MPs at Westminster, thirty-eight MLAs and 175 councillors. Thus, it is currently the leading party in Northern Ireland, both in terms of Unionism and in the overall number of votes cast and seats won. The most remarkable thing about the DUP is its political shift away from extreme Unionism towards moderate power-sharing, something that few observers of the Northern Ireland political scene could have predicted.

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Formed across the whole of Ireland, in 1905, in order to counter the threat posed by the Home Rule movement, the UUP has been, until recently, the dominant Unionist grouping in Irish politics. It ruled Northern Ireland, in the old Stormont parliament, from 1921 to 1972. Though it saw itself as driving a pro-monarchist and prounionist agenda during that period, its policies were actually seen by many commentators as heavily favouring the Protestant community over the Catholic one. This anti-Catholic bias helped to instigate the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s. The UUP has long been seen as the most traditionalist and establishment-based party in Northern Ireland. This is due in part to the fact that many of its leaders have come from the armed forces or from the professions. From Colonel Edward Saunderson in 1905 through to Sir Basil Brooke after World War II to Captain Terence O’Neill in the 1960s, a patrician-style of leadership has been in evidence. The UUP and moderation Despite its conservative stance on most issues, until the DUP moderated its position and formed a government with Sinn Fein, it was the UUP which was seen as the most conciliatory party within the

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Box 11.2 Key figures: Reverend Ian Paisley (Baron Bannside of North Antrim) • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • •

Born 1926. Ordained as a minister in 1946. Founded the Free Presbyterian Church in 1951. Demanded the removal of an Irish tricolour in Belfast in 1964. Regularly criticised the practices of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. 1971: established the intransigently loyal Democratic Unionist Party. 1974: elected to Westminster. 1979: became a Member of the European Parliament. Vehemently opposed any alliances between North and South that were being suggested in the 1980s. Opposed the Good Friday Agreement but had been forced slightly to moderate his position about ‘power-sharing’ with nationalists. Elected as an MLA in 1998; re-elected in 2003. June 2004: retired from the European Parliament having had the largest personal mandate of any MEP. May 2006: turned down the chance to become first minister of Northern Ireland after being nominated for the post by Gerry Adams. October 2006: supported the St Andrews Agreement and new elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly. May 2007: became the first minister of Northern Ireland. September 2007: became the oldest MP at Westminster, aged eighty-one. January 2008: retired as a religious leader. May 2008: stepped down as first minister. May 2010: stepped down as an MP. June 2010: ennobled as Baron Bannside of North Antrim. May 2011: stood down from Northern Ireland Assembly.

Unionist grouping. It was the first Unionist party to accept that arguing for the status quo in Northern Ireland was no longer an option. Therefore, the UUP’s willingness to negotiate with various bodies, such as the government of the Irish Republic, the SDLP, and even Sinn Fein, was seen at the time as being both pragmatic and an acknowledgment that the party’s ideological positioning was

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becoming more moderate. Much of this negotiation was undertaken by the party’s leader and former first minister of Northern Ireland, (Lord) David Trimble. Yet the electorate of Northern Ireland did not reward this more moderate Unionist stance. After ten years at the helm, Trimble was obliged to step down from office in May 2005 following the UUP’s disappointing showing at the 2005 General Election when it returned only one MP. Also, in 2005, after decades of having a close working relationship with the Orange Order, the order distanced itself from the UUP. Commentators read this as a sign that the Orange Order had lost patience with the UUP, and that many Orangemen disliked the UUP’s moderate stance towards ‘power-sharing’ with republican politicians. Under its new leader, Sir Reg Empey, the party continued to decline in popularity. In the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly elections the UUP lost nine seats and was left with just eighteen MLAs. In the first Northern Ireland Forum elections in 1996 the UUP had won thirty seats. Sir Reg Empey became the Minister for Employment and Learning between 2007 and 2010. It was during this period that the UUP established closer relations with Conservative Party. In June 2006 David Trimble, the former leader of the UUP, had became a member of the House of Lords. The following April he left the UUP to join the Conservative Party. The Conservatives did not have an elected representation in Northern Ireland. As the UUP was a Conservative, Unionist and Eurosceptic party, it agreed to have an electoral alliance with the Conservatives. In 2009 the ‘Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force’ (UCUNF) was formed. It became known as the ‘Conservatives and Unionists’. Those MPs elected under this alliance would have also been eligible to sit in a Conservative government. Although, under this banner, Jim Nicholson won a European parliamentary seat in 2009, the success was not transferred to the United Kingdom general election the following year. The party’s sole Westminster MP from the 2005 General Election, Lady Sylvia Hermon, disagreed with the arrangement, left the UUP and fought the 2010 General Election as an independent. After the poor showing in the 2010 General Election, Sir Reg Empey resigned and was replaced by the Fermanagh and South Tyrone member, Tom Elliott. He was unable to improve on the UUP’s fortunes at the next Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

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The UUP withdrew from the UCUNF for the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election. At these elections in 2011, the UUP’s representation fell further back to sixteen seats, compared to the DUP’s thirty-eight seats. In November 2011, Lord Feldman wrote to the UUP suggesting that they disband and merge fully with the new Conservative and Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. They rejected this offer and Lord Feldman then announced that this new party would in future field its own candidates separate from the UUP. While the UUP still remains sceptical of this new party, it did attract some of its disaffected members. Whether this trickle in time becomes a flood remains to be seen.

The other Unionist parties Over the last few decades, there have also been smaller Unionist parties. They have seen their support fade over recent years and have mostly withered way electorally as their supporters have moved their allegiance to the DUP. The most prominent of these parties are outlined below. The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) is one of the smallest Unionist parties functioning in Northern Ireland. It is the left-wing party of Unionist politics and brands itself as being ‘democratic socialist’. The PUP was formed in 1979 out of the Independent Unionist Group whose base was in the Shankill Road area of Belfast. The PUP differed from the larger Unionist parties in that it had links to the paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). It was, in effect, the UVF’s political wing. The PUP continues this link and, though the UVF declared a ceasefire in 1994, it has continued to be linked to acts of violence, rioting and murder. Owing to the PUP’s close identification with the Protestant working classes, it is sometimes referred to as the ‘left-wing’ party of Unionism, Unionism tending to be associated with more traditionalist and conservative ideologies. With the reconvening of the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2006, albeit in ‘virtual’ form, the leader, David Ervine, pledged to join the UUP assembly group while remaining a PUP MLA. This ‘marriage of convenience’ would entitle the Ulster Unionists, under the d’Hondt formula, to an additional place on the Northern Ireland Executive.

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Devolution in the United Kingdom

In January 2007 David Ervine died. Ervine had proved to be one of the strongest supporters of the Good Friday Agreement. He had represented the constituency of Belfast East. It was Dawn Purvis who had replaced Ervine as both leader and the MLA for East Belfast. She, however, resigned as leader and MLA for East Belfast in June 2010 because of the PUP’s relationship with the UDF and the murder of Bobby Moffet which the Independent Monitoring Commission had attributed to them. The PUP then had a quick succession of leaders including David Erving’s brother, Brian and the former UVF member Billy Hutchinson. None of these leaders was able to increase the PUP’s electoral appeal and, as of 2012, its only elected representation consisted of two councillors. The United Kingdom Unionist Party, which was an antidevolution Unionist party that contends that Northern Ireland should become ‘more British’, ceased to exist as a political party in 2008. Its splinter party, the Northern Ireland Unionist Party, also discontinued itself in 2008. The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) therefore remains the only Unionist party outside of the DUP and UUP with representation in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Its one elected member and leader, Jim Allister, is a former DUP MLA who had resigned from the party when they had entered government with Sinn Fein. Allister had been instrumental in the setting up of the TUV. Ideologically, the TUV is a pro-unionist, conservative and Eurosceptic party.

Nationalist political parties Nationalist political parties take the opposite line to Unionist parties when it comes to the preservation of the Union between Ulster and Britain. Nationalist political parties wish to see an eventual united Ireland; they disagree among themselves, however, on the pace and method of achieving this goal.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) was formed in 1970 by activists operating within the Labour movement in Northern Ireland and in left-of-centre politics generally. Many of its

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first members were also experienced in the campaign for civil rights for Roman Catholics. From its formation in 1970 up to the 2001 General Election, the SDLP was the dominant voice of nationalist politics in Northern Ireland. From 2001 onwards it became the second nationalist party, after Sinn Fein. In terms of its ideology, the SDLP is a social democratic party that believes in the parliamentary and constitutional road to a united Ireland; hence, the party’s persistent opposition to the paramilitary campaign of the Provisional IRA. As its name suggests, social democracy is crucial to the party’s objectives but, from time to time, it is also keen to stress its nationalist credentials. For example, from the early 1970s onwards, the SDLP laid emphasis on what it called the ‘Irish dimension’. Controversially, so far as Unionists were concerned, this called for the Republic of Ireland to have not only a say in Northern Irish politics but a defined constitutional role. The perpetual nationalist/socialist debate has claimed its victims throughout the SDLP’s history. Most notably, in 1979, Gerry Fitt, the SDLP’s first leader and formerly leader of the explicitly socialist Republican Labour Party, resigned, claiming that the party had become more nationalist than socialist for his liking. On a Europe-wide level, the SDLP is associated with the Party of European Socialists while, in global terms, it aligns itself with the Socialist International. Nearer home, the SDLP has traditionally had close links with the British Labour Party. In 2010 the SDLP considered merging with other political parties, notably Fianna Fail or the Irish Labour Party but the then leader, Margaret Ritchie, rejected this move. John Hume and inclusive politics The leading figure in SDLP politics has been John Hume. A longtime advocate of a joint-authority approach to Northern Ireland’s governance, where both the Republic of Ireland and Britain would exercise political power, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hume was instrumental in pushing the moderate nationalist case. Similarly, during this period, he ensured that the SDLP supported the AngloIrish Agreement, and he managed to persuade Sinn Fein to become more closely involved in constitutional politics. For his efforts, and with co-recipient David Trimble, Hume was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his substantial contribution to the peace

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process and to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Hume stepped down from office in 2001, and the SDLP leader and deputy first minister was then Mark Durkan (2001–10), the MLA for the Foyle constituency. Durkan and the SDLP argued that if, or when, a United Ireland comes about, the rights and protection of Unionists must be guaranteed. The party supports the idea of a referendum to determine whether the people desire the establishment of a unified Irish state. They are clear, however, that any fundamental change in Northern Ireland’s status should come about only with the agreement of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland – the ‘principle of consent’. In the first Northern Ireland Assembly election this stance was rewarded by the voters and the SDLP gained three ministerial and one junior ministerial posts in the Northern Ireland Executive compared to Sinn Fein’s two ministers. SDLP still central to Northern Irish nationalism Despite losing some electoral ground to Sinn Fein, the SDLP is still a major player within the politics of Northern Ireland. The collapse in the support for the UUP and the fact that Sinn Fein abstain from Westminster politics means the SDLP with three Westminster MPs remain the second party of Northern Ireland in Westminster after the DUP. Since devolution, and more specifically since Durkan took on the leadership reins, the SDLP has been talking more and more about ‘outreach’ into the Unionist communities to ensure that Protestants and Unionists are reassured about their future roles within the politics of Ireland. Viewed with a great deal of suspicion by many Unionist politicians, the SDLP has failed to make an electoral breakthrough. The party has its electoral strongholds in two areas, Londonderry and South Down. It was in South Down that the former leader, Margaret Ritchie (2010–11), held her seat. Her successor, Alasdair McDonnell (see Box 11.3), has held his seat in South Belfast away from the SDLP’s centres. McDonnell’s leadership saw an initial rise in SDLP grass-roots activity, especially in the youth movement. The party, however, did not follow Sinn Fein in breaking into Southern Irish politics. It is also the junior nationalist party in terms of representation in the Northern Ireland Executive, holding just one ministerial post, Environment, compared to Sinn Fein’s five posts.

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Box 11.3 Key figures: Alasdair McDonnell • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Born in Derry in 1949. Joined the SDLP in 1970 when he came over from the National Democrats. Graduated as a medical doctor from University College Dublin in 1974. Elected to Belfast City Council in 1977. Became the first Catholic Deputy Mayor of Belfast in 1995–6. Elected to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum in 1996. Elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998. Became Minister for Finance and Personnel in the Northern Ireland Executive. 2001: replaced Seamus Mallon as deputy first minister. 2001: elected leader of the SDLP. 2003: re-elected to the NI Assembly. 2004: became the SDLP’s deputy leader. 2005: won the South Belfast seat at the Westminster election after a split in the Unionist vote, becoming the first nationalist ever to hold this seat. 2010: re-elected to the South Belfast constituency with an increased majority (10.9 per cent) over the Democratic Unionist but the seat was now not contested by Sinn Fein. 2011: elected leader of the SDLP.

Sinn Fein (SF) Originally formed in 1905, Sinn Féin is Irish for ‘ourselves’ or ‘we ourselves’ but is often given to mean ‘ourselves alone’. The party was founded with the aim of separating Ireland from Britain in order to establish an Irish Republic. In the 1918 Westminster elections, in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising, Sinn Fein won seventy-three out of the 105 Irish seats. While the setting-up of the Irish Republic in 1921 pleased some within the party, a sizeable minority, some were upset that Ulster had been allowed to stay under British sovereignty and continued to campaign for a united Ireland. The party, however, lost its early momentum and it became a minor force in Irish politics until the start of ‘the troubles’ in the 1960s. The most important

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development in Sinn Fein during this period was the party’s move to the ideological Left. There were splits within Sinn Fein in 1970 that saw the emergence of traditional and provisional branches. Arguing for immediate withdrawal of the British presence from Northern Ireland, Provisional Sinn Fein was more relevant at the time than the Official Sinn Fein movement and, in co-ordination with the Marxist-inspired Provisional IRA that had been established in 1969 to defend Catholic areas, a new radical activist style of politics was brought into play. From this time, on, it became the common understanding of politicians and journalists alike that Sinn Fein was acting as the political wing of the Provisional IRA. Hence the persistent Unionist references to ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’. Hunger strikes and ‘dual strategy’ Sinn Fein grew as an organisation during the 1970s and 1980s and was at the forefront of Northern Ireland politics during some of its darkest days. During the IRA hunger strikes of the early 1980s, many in the nationalist community appreciated the way that Sinn Fein represented the aims of the hunger strikers, though this did not necessarily translate into votes for the party. Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein since 1983, also came to prominence during these controversial times. It was Adams, spurred on by the election victory of one hunger striker, Bobby Sands, as MP for Fermanagh–South Tyrone, who saw that Sinn Fein could become a major political player. Adams’s own election victory in West Belfast in 1983 marked a breakthrough for the party and gave credence, as far as Sinn Fein was concerned, to the dual ‘Armalite and ballot box’ strategy. Looking back, there is no doubt that Adams’s, and Sinn Fein’s, growing popularity alarmed the London and Dublin governments, and the AngloIrish Agreement of 1985 and the subsequent peace process could be portrayed as attempts to curb republicanism. Once it became absorbed in all-party talks and in the peace process, Sinn Fein, led by Adams and supported by chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness (see Box 11.4), succeeded in dropping the ‘Armalite’ component of the dual strategy in favour of the ‘ballot box’. The vital component in this new policy, however, was the Provisional IRA’s initial ceasefire, and its declaration of an end to hostilities. As we noted in

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Box 11.4 Key figures: Martin McGuinness • • • • • •

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• • • • •

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Born 1950 in Derry. Joined the IRA and became Provisional IRA second-in-command in Derry in 1972. Imprisoned by the Republic of Ireland’s Special Criminal Court for six months in 1973 for possession of explosives and ammunition. After his release he was convicted again in the Irish republic for IRA membership but became increasingly involved in Sinn Fein. Elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont in 1982 for Londonderry. Became one of the senior members of Sinn Fein and in 1982 is banned from entering the United Kingdom mainland under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. In 1988 a six-year voice ban on British broadcast media was introduced by Margaret Thatcher to starve him of the ‘oxygen of publicity’. Between 1983 and 2005 a number of claims were made that he was still an active and senior member of the IRA. In 1996 he became Sinn Fein chief negotiator at the time of the Good Friday Agreement. In 1997 he became the MP for Mid Ulster but abstained from taking up the seat; he was re-elected at each subsequent election. Elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998; re-elected at each subsequent election. December 1999: became Minister of Education in the Northern Ireland Government and scrapped the 11-plus for entry in the grammar schools. March 2007: met with Ian Paisley face to face for the first time and he then served as deputy first minister to Ian Paisley’s role as first minister. October 2011: stood and finished third in the Irish Republic’s presidential election.

the previous chapter, Sinn Fein was able to overcome its longstanding issues with the policing and justice of Northern Ireland in the St Andrews Agreement in 2007. This paved the way for Martin McGuinness to become the deputy first minister and for the party to work closely with their former political foe, the DUP, in governing Northern Ireland. At the same time, the party continued to develop its political strength in Southern Ireland. In February 2011, the Sinn

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Fein president, Gerry Adams, was elected as a member of the Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) for Louth. He had previously resigned his Northern Ireland Assembly seat. From 2001 onwards, Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP as the major nationalist political force in Northern Ireland. The party increased both its share of the vote and its number of MLAs at each subsequent election. In the 2010 General Election, with 25.5 per cent of the vote, Sinn Fein also became for the first time the largest party in terms of votes cast in Northern Ireland. As the major nationalist grouping in Northern Ireland, at the present time, Sinn Fein has five MPs at Westminster though they do not take their seats in the House of Commons because they refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen as Britain’s head of state. Furthermore, the party has twentynine MLAs and in the Irish Republic fourteen Teachtai Dala (TDs), members of the Dáil Éireann and three members of the Seanad Éireann (Irish Senate). All this makes Sinn Fein the most successful all-island political party since 1922. At the European Parliament they have one MEP representing Northern Ireland.

Non-aligned, or non-sectarian, political parties These parties attempt to offer political, rather than politico-religious, solutions to the problems facing the people of Northern Ireland today. Some, such as the Alliance, retain close links with the Liberal Democrats though the Alliance is not formally part of that party. They are sometimes referred to as ‘bi-confessional’ which means that they reflect the concerns of both of the major communities – Protestant and Catholic – in Northern Ireland. They are also referred to as ‘centrist parties’ which contrasts them with the nationalist and Unionist parties that dominate Northern Irish politics.

The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (Alliance) Founded in 1970, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is a cross-community and non-sectarian-based political party. It is the largest and most successful of the non-nationalist/Unionist parties in Northern Ireland. Its remit, it claims, is to work on behalf of all sections of the community in Northern Ireland. To this extent, the party

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extols the ideals of equality of citizenship, diversity and social justice. The Alliance also talks about creating a harmonious and prosperous society in Northern Ireland through the championing and implementation of the fundamental principles of the Good Friday Agreement. Allied to Liberal International, the Alliance is strongly committed to the worldwide promotion of a human rights agenda. The Alliance has a tradition of encouraging multiparty agreements and compromises. The party, for example, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Sunningdale Agreement which collapsed under pressure in 1974. This was the forerunner of the Good Friday Agreement which sought a three-stranded approach to Northern Ireland’s governance that involved an executive and assembly in Ulster, crossborder co-operation and London–Dublin arrangements. Despite the collapse of Sunningdale, the Alliance’s policy of creating ‘one community’ in Northern Ireland has seen it advocate ‘powersharing’ options whenever they have arisen. Indeed, the Alliance has claimed that, despite the party’s overall support for the Good Friday Agreement, parts of it should be renegotiated or rewritten to break down the Unionist/nationalist bloc designations. David Ford is the present leader of the Alliance and Northern Ireland Justice Minister (Box 11.5). Ford, a keen advocate of internationalism, and is the MLA for Antrim South. The fact that the Alliance is non-sectarian has allowed it to use its position to help prevent particular posts being seen as being too partisan. This was done originally with the position of presiding officer (Speaker) in the Northern Ireland Assembly which was initially taken by Lord Alderdice and later on the position of Justice Minister was taken by David Ford. The Alliance has continued a steady but sure electoral progress in Northern Irish politics. In the general election of 2010 the party gained its first Westminster MP since 1973, Naomi Long, in Belfast East. Alliance holds two ministerial posts in the Northern Ireland government, eight MLAs and some forty-four elected councillors.

Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) Founded in 1996, the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) brought a fresh approach to the politics of Ulster. Despite its title, NIWC was not just a female-only organisation and it didn’t

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Box 11.5 Key figures: David Ford • • • • •

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Born 1951 in Orpington, Kent to Northern Irish and Welsh parents. Moved to Northern Ireland to study Economics at Queen’s University Belfast where he joined the Alliance Party grouping. In 1973 he started work as a social worker. Stood unsuccessfully for Antrim Borough Council in 1989 and became general secretary of the Alliance Party the same year. In 1996 he stood for South Antrim for the elections to the Northern Ireland Forum but failed to get elected but then became a key member of the Alliance’s team for the Good Friday Agreement. In 1998 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Antrim and kept the seat at all subsequent elections. In 2001 he was elected to the leadership of the Alliance Party. He was the only Alliance candidate also to be a member of the Liberal Democrats. In 2004 he worked with the other Northern Ireland centre-ground parties to support the independent candidate, John Gilliland, in the European elections. Between 2003 and 2011 he was able to prevent the Alliance being squeezed out of existence by the Unionist and nationalist parties. In April 2010 he became Northern Ireland’s first Justice Minister since 1972.

adopt an overtly feminist line. The party attracted mainly middleclass support and sought to promote cross-community politics and to reconcile differences between the cultural and religious factions in Northern Ireland. NIWC was supportive of the Good Friday Agreement. Buoyed up by its participation in the peace process, the Women’s Coalition contested eight seats at the 1998 assembly election and won two of them. By 2003, however, its vote fell substantially, and it failed to gain representation at those elections. In 2005 the NIWC lost its last elected councillor and, on 11 May 2006, it was formally wound up.

The Green Party Like Sinn Fein, until 2011 the Green Party in Northern Ireland was also represented by having elected members in the Irish

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Republic. This makes it an all-island political party. Founded originally in Dublin in 1981 as the Ecology Party of Ireland. It became the Green Alliance in 1983, and its politics, as the name suggests, is closely connected to Green ideology. In 1994 the Greens gained two Irish MEPs at the European elections. The party didn’t have a leader until 2001 when it elected Trevor Sargent, and he led the Greens until July 2007. Sargent then held the post of Minister of State for Food, Horticulture and Food Safety (2007–10) in a Dublin coalition government with Fianna Fáil. Sargent resigned as a minister after he admitted contacting the Garda (the Irish police force) unlawfully about a criminal case concerning a constituent. The remaining Green Party’s elected members in the Irish government didn’t fair much better. Unfortunately for the Green Party, this period saw the Irish Republic in its worst ever financial crisis. The electorate subsequently punished them and their coalition partners at the ballot box and the Greens lost all six of their seats in the Dáil Éireann. Having lost its European seats in 2004, the party lost most of its elected councillors in 2009, and its Irish parliamentary members in 2011. Steven Agnew MLA, the Northern Ireland Green Party leader, therefore remains the only Green legislative member in Ireland.

Conclusion Politics in Northern Ireland can be very confusing for those outside of tightly knit political communities. A number of political parties has been formed around individuals who have split from other political parties. This is particularly true of Unionist politics. As the political violence that has dogged Irish politics for centuries has faded away, the political parties themselves have moved more towards the centre. Combinations of political parties, such as the DUP and Sinn Fein, that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, have now provided to be both workable and stable. Attempts to tie the Northern Irish political parties more closely to their ideological counterparts on the British mainland, however, have so far proved to be unsuccessful. It appears, therefore, that, on some aspects of political identity, the parties of Northern Irish politics still wish to retain their own distinct identities.

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What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

Political parties in Northern Ireland have traditionally been centred on religious communities and politico-religious themes.

•

Non-sectarian political parties have a mixed history and tend to become marginalised. The Alliance Party, however, has now established itself within the mainstream of Northern Ireland’s politics.

•

In recent years, the political spectrum in Northern Ireland has swung, firstly in favour of moderation, then against it and finally for it once more. This factor has been helped by the more extreme nationalist and Unionist parties – Sinn Fein and the DUP – moving towards collaborative political government.

•

Hidden within the political parties of Northern Ireland are all of the political ideologies represented in mainland politics.

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Politics in Northern Ireland remains a male-dominated arena which has also led to the failure of the centrist Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition.

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Key political figures, such as Martin McGuinness and the Reverend Ian Paisley, have had a huge influence on the political environment of Ulster.

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Glossary of key terms All-island party A political party, such as the Green Party or Sinn Fein, that has elected representation in the Irish parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Alliance Party of Northern Ireland The main non-sectarian political party in Northern Ireland. The party is liberal in its political outlook. ‘Armalite and ballot box’ Sinn Fein’s dual strategy of the 1980s and early 1990s that saw the party advocating the armed struggle combined with engagement with the democratic political process. Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) The Unionist political party, led for many years by the Reverend Ian Paisley, that attracts most of its support from the grass-roots Protestant community. Green Party – Comhaontas Glas was founded in 1981 as the Ecology Party of Northern Ireland. Supportive of the centre-right parties in the Irish Republic, they were also in the government in Ireland between 2007 and 2011. Internationalism The stance that other nations and cultures need to be fully respected and that people and governments of all colours and creeds should co-operate with one another. Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition Non-sectarian political party set

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up at the time of the peace process to offer the voice of women in a maledominated political environment. It ceased to be a political party in 2006. Outreach Moves by one community or political party to engage in dialogue or activities with another community or political party. Outreach is seen by many observers of Northern Ireland politics as being idealistic and ambitious. Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) Minority Unionist party whose support stems from people who would regard themselves as Loyalists. Sectarianism Community and political affiliation that manifests itself along strictly religious grounds. At the height of ‘the troubles’ murders were often referred to as ‘sectarian killings’. Sinn Fein (SF) Republican political organisation, and the largest nationalist grouping in the North, which advocates a united Ireland. Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) The mainstream Catholic and nationalist political party. Formerly the largest nationalist party. Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) was formed in 2007 as a splinter group of the DUP. It was formed by ex-DUP members opposed to the St Andrews Agreement. The party has faired poorly at elections with just one Assembly Member and a handful of councillors. Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Long-time leading political force within Unionist politics. Generally seen as a more middle-class and professionally based party than the DUP. Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Loyalist paramilitary group, formed in 1966, which has links with the Progressive Unionist Party. United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP) Small Eurosceptic Unionist party that allies itself to the UK Independence Party.

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Likely examination questions Explain the events that led to the formation of a joint government between Sinn Fein and the DUP. Assess the success or otherwise of the non-sectarian political parties in Northern Ireland. Examine why key political figures, such as Martin McGuinness and the Reverend Ian Paisley, play such a significant role in Northern Irish politics.

¡

Helpful websites www.allianceparty.org Alliance Party. www.dup.org.uk Democratic Unionist Party. www.greenparty.org.uk/ Green Party of Ireland. www.pup-ni.org.uk Progressive Unionist Party.

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www.sdlp.ie SDLP. www.sinnfein.ie Sinn Fein. www.tuv.org.uk True Unionist Voice. www.uup.org Ulster Unionist Party. www.cain.ulst.ac.uk University of Ulster web page for more information on political parties in Northern Ireland.

Š

Suggestions for further reading P. Dixon, Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. A. Edwards and C. McGrattan, The Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide, Oneworld, 2010. B. Feeney, Sinn Fein: A Hundred Turbulent Years, O’Brien Press, 2002. J. McEvoy, The Politics of Northern Ireland, Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

CHAPTER 12

Creeping Federalism or a Unitary State? Contents What has devolution achieved? What exactly is federalism? The background to desiring federalism in Britain Does devolution mean the same as federalism? Indications that Britain is not turning into a federal state Independence: an alternative to devolution or federalism? Conclusion

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Overview This final chapter seeks to answer the question posed by its title: ‘Creeping federalism or a unitary state?’ It starts by examining the extent of the changes made by devolution to the way we are governed. The chapter then defines federalism, its component parts, and those who desire it and oppose it within the United Kingdom. It asks and answers the question, ‘does devolution mean the same as federalism?’ It also examines the topic of independence with specific reference to its impact on devolution. We have seen in the previous chapters how politicians have stated that the processes of political devolution are evolving all the time. We have also seen how each of the devolved nations now has the powers to make its own laws and, in time, they may also have the powers to raise considerable taxes. The rate as which the devolved governments have evolved varies. This is what is described as ‘a rolling programme’, a process that best suits the realities of local political circumstances. In the first decade of devolution, many political commentators and politicians asserted that Britain has become ‘quasi-federal’ or that ‘creeping federalism’ had occurred. Often these assertions are made on the simple assumption that devolution is the same as federalism. This final chapter examines the extent to which Britain is becoming closer to a federal state and also the issue of potential independence for some of the devolved nations.

Key issues to be covered in this chapter • • • •

What devolution has achieved What is meant by federalism Is Britain now a federal state? Independence as an alternative to devolution and federalism

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What has devolution achieved? In January 2005, after examining the development and processes of devolution in Britain for much of the previous decade, the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Research Programme on Devolution and Constitutional Change was able to make six key points about devolution in Britain: 1. Relations between central and devolved governments reveal minimal change from the predevolution arrangement for dealing with Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish matters, relying on bilateral and informal links largely among officials and not ministers. 2. There are few meetings between British and devolved administrators, and there are special arrangements in some policy fields such as agriculture and European Union matters. 3. The Treasury retains considerable powers over devolved finance though it lacks levers, such as public-service agreements, which it can use on Whitehall departments. 4. The apparatus at the centre for dealing with devolution is small and has a limited brief, and Whitehall departments have done little to differentiate between their England-only, England-andWales, and British functions. 5. Neither Westminster nor Whitehall has sought to adapt the legislative process to create different categories of legislation according to which territories and functions they affect. 6. The pattern of minimal alteration has made a major constitutional change a straightforward administrative and legal process, but one vulnerable to disputes created by future changes of government. We saw in the first chapter that many of the points raised above have now been addressed in one way or another. Whitehall government departments are now much more attuned to devolution and its impact on government. Post-2010, with the arrival of the coalition Westminster government, and post-2011, with the SNP majority government in Scotland, there has been a significant change in the relationship between the Westminster government in London and the governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. None of the devolved governments is now represented by the same political

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parties as those in Westminster. As the devolved governments pushed for ever more powers and greater funding, one of the major fears expressed by the Conservative politicians and by other opponents of devolution was that Britain would be separated into either a series of independent states or that a ‘creeping federalism’ would occur. This would make Westminster and the government in London increasingly irrelevant to the devolved nations. In the past, the opponents of devolution were often the opponents of ‘federalism’ too. But, as we shall see, the two are very different.

What exactly is federalism? With the advent of political devolution in the United Kingdom, the question can be asked ‘Is Britain becoming a federal state?’ Interest in federalism as a political concept has been awakened. Originally the term ‘federalism’ described ‘a loose alliance or union of states for limited purposes, usually military or commercial’. Today, we would describe such an alliance as a ‘confederacy’. In the eighteenth century, however, the United States came into existence. This created a form of government in which the central government and the governments of the various states had considerable powers but, at the same time, they had independence from one another. The key components of federalism are shown in Box 12.1. Federalism has some distinct advantages. •

•

•

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It distributes power between the central body and peripheral ones. In its entirety, power is held neither centrally nor locally, but distributed between the two. The sovereignty of the state is divided among two or more levels, with each one being supreme in its own defined area. It gives regional and local interests constitutionally guaranteed political voices, within the region and nationally. Central government cannot ignore the wishes and desires of other areas. It creates a ‘network of checks and balances’ to help counteract an ambitious central government. Central government cannot have its wish on every matter unless it has the agreement of the federal states. Federalism helps unite fragmented and differing societies into one united

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Box 12.1 The components of federalism There are certain features that are common to most federal systems Two relatively autonomous levels of government. Both central (federal) and regional (state) governments possess a range of powers which the other cannot encroach upon. Written constitution. The responsibilities and powers of each level of government are defined in a written or codified constitution. Constitutional arbitrator. Any disputes between state and federal government can be settled by a supreme court. Linking institutions. To foster co-operation and understanding between federal and state-level governments each region is given a voice in the central policy-making. This is achieved through a bicameral legislature (two chambers) in which the states normally have representation in the second, or upper, chamber.

political mechanism. Some countries are so large or so diverse in their ethnic mixes that a unitary system would make government very difficult and remote. Federalism also has a number of drawbacks. The major ones are stated below. •

• •

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Over the last century, there has been a tendency towards greater centralisation of government throughout the world. This has meant that federalism has become less important. Even within the federal state, much of the power and the tax-raising ability is in the hands of central (federal), rather than state, government. Federal states can often be weak and divided by the different societies within them. This can lead to less effective government overall. By constraining the central government, decision-making can be slow or is often timid. Bold policies, which are sometimes needed in times of economic hardship, are harder to get through central government. It can be difficult to get all of the federal states to agree on important issues because of vested interest within each. Many of the federal states will compete with one another for inward investment projects with no clear arbitrator to decide to whom it should go. There are continual power battles over where sovereignty lies. Even in

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systems where the constitution appears to define the exact powers of each level, there are continual battles over who has supreme sovereignty concerning certain issues. It may not decrease the desire for independence from some of its constituent members. This is perhaps most notable in Canada where the francophone province of Quebec has held a number of referendums on independence.

The background to desiring federalism in Britain Although the Westminster Parliament has helped establish federal systems around the world, in countries such as Australia, Canada and Germany, it has never felt the desire to repeat the experiment in the United Kingdom. On the few occasions federalism has been considered seriously by governments or by Royal Commissions, it has been dismissed. The 1973 Royal (Kilbrandon) Commission on the Constitution, for instance, dismissed federalism as a viable model. Before, and since, the Kilbrandon Commission, the Liberal Democrat Party has been the most pro-federalist political party in Britain. Liberal Democrat policies have continually advocated implementing some of the measures in Box 12.1, such as turning the House of Lords into ‘an elected second chamber capable of representing the nations and regions of the UK’. The Labour Party has often been torn between those members who want devolution and those who prefer a unitary system of government. There are few within the party who have advocated a federal Britain. Currently, the official Labour Party line is that devolution in Wales and Scotland will continue to evolve and that any devolution in England should develop only on a regional basis. In the twentieth century, however, the dominant political party in Britain has been the Conservative Party. As we saw in the earlier chapters, it has always been a strongly Unionist party which had advocated a unitary system of government based at Westminster. Over the course of devolution, however, its representations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have sought their own autonomy and have increasingly advocated greater powers for the bodies they represent or are connected with. Some of their members, such as David Melding a senior Welsh Assembly Member and former director

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of policy, have even advocated federalism as a way of keeping the Union together. The vast majority of Conservatives, however, still rule out a federal Britain.

Does devolution mean the same as federalism? Since devolution has been introduced in Britain, there has been much confusion over whether or not Britain has become a federal state. This is not the case though this might occur in the future. In its present form, devolution establishes a far greater measure of decentralisation in Britain’s unitary system of government than has occurred since the Middle Ages. It stops short, however, of the transition into a federal system. Devolution, therefore, differs from federalism in that, though the political units may cover the same territorial areas, devolved bodies share no sovereignty with central government. Their responsibilities and powers are derived from, and are conferred by, the centre (Westminster). Box 12.1 shows us the component parts of federalism. None of these is apparent in the United Kingdom at present. Instead of written constitutional relationships between the assemblies, the Scottish Parliament and the government in Whitehall are ruled by a series of departmental ‘concordats’ and relevant sections of the various Acts that established them and the later ones which built up their powers. These relationships are not specified in a written constitution, as would be the case in a federal structure. The concordats are agreements between the devolved institutions and Whitehall departments concerning their respective roles and responsibilities. They set the ground rules for ‘administrative co-operation and exchange of information’. The Scotland Act (1998) created a Scottish Parliament with legislative powers over all matters not expressly ‘reserved’ to the British Parliament. Reserved matters include such issues as foreign and defence policy, the management of the British macro-economic system, European Union issues, and social security. Most importantly, Section 28 (7) of the 1998 act states that having a Scottish Parliament ‘does not affect the power of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to make laws for Scotland’. In addition to this, in the Memorandum of Understanding that sets out the underlying principles

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between the Westminster government and the devolved institutions, the first two paragraphs state: The United Kingdom Parliament retains authority on any issue, whether devolved or not. The United Kingdom Parliament retains the absolute right to debate,  enquire into or make representations about devolved matters.

Similar clauses can be found in the Acts of Parliament establishing the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies. In principle, therefore, because it retains ultimate sovereignty, the Westminster Parliament can overturn any law made by the Scottish Parliament, Welsh or Northern Ireland Assembly. In a federal structure, state and federal governments are able to make laws which can be ‘struck down’ only by the body that made them or by the Supreme Court because that law is unconstitutional (contrary to the articles of the written constitution).

Indications that Britain is not turning into a federal state There is a number of indicators that make it quite clear that British government policy is not leading Britain into a federal state. Though the previous Labour governments and the present coalition government have carried out a wealth of constitutional changes, neither have sought to go down the route of federalism, despite the fact that the Liberal Democratic Party favours such a route. This is clear from a number of decisions made by the Labour and coalition governments. •

•

A federal Britain would result in the transfer of sovereignty from Westminster to the devolved governments. Westminster has retained ultimate sovereignty on all issues relating to the devolved bodies though, in reality, it cedes these to them on many issues of domestic policy. A federal Britain would require a written constitution. There has been no attempt to write a codified constitution which states the role, function and power of the new devolved institutions and enshrine them in law. This would be a necessary step for a federal Britain

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to evolve. Although the Human Rights Act 2000 is sometimes cited as the nearest Britain has to a constitution, it does not define the mechanisms by which Britain should be governed. The devolved forms of government would need to have a direct voice in central government. This will not occur. In its report of January 2000, the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords stated that there should be a regional element in any future House of Lords. It did not say, however, that these members should come directly from the devolved institutions. Similarly, Labour’s 2007 proposals on a revised House of Lords indicated that the membership should be proportional to the population of the devolved nations; the coalition government reinforced this point in 2011. Neither government’s policy proposals planned for any representation from the devolved institutions in a reformed House of Lords. The devolved institutions would need greater fiscal independence. This would prevent the Westminster government from determining its policies by ‘holding the purse strings of finance’. Most taxation in the United Kingdom is undertaken by central government. The Scottish Parliament is now being given a variety of tax-raising powers and the Silk Commission in Wales is also examining the possibility of introducing similar powers for the Welsh Assembly. There are currently no such plans for Northern Ireland, however. Greater financial independence for the devolved institutions still has a considerable way to develop before it is similar to those of many federal states. In federal systems, such as those of the United States and Switzerland, this figure is about 15 per cent of their total expenditure. The devolved institutions would need to have their own civil services. It is said that ‘no man can serve two masters’ because he/she will have divided loyalties. In this case, loyalties would be divided between the state and the federal governments. The devolved bodies have their own administrative staffs which are independent of the civil service, though these still follow civil service pay and condition codes. Northern Ireland also has its own separate civil service. On the whole, however, those officials serving the Welsh and Scottish governments are still members of the British Civil Service. The devolved bodies should be able to determine their own policies with as little interference from Westminster and Whitehall as possible. The Westminster

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government continues to determine policy in the devolved bodies despite resistance from those bodies. Performance-related pay for teachers was introduced in Wales even though the assembly voted against the measure. Similarly, the SNP and Labour MSPs united in December 2011 against benefit cuts being introduced in Scotland, refusing to pass the required legislation. The Westminster government, however, still introduced the Welfare Reform Act 2012 despite these Scottish parliamentary objections. The devolved state parliaments would all need to have primary law-making powers over the same areas. Though Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have primary law-making powers, they are not uniform. Wales has no powers over criminal law. There are also no plans to give primary law-making powers to the Greater London Assembly. A truly federal Britain would involve parliaments for the English regions as well. Although new regional development agencies have been established in England outside London, attempts to turn these into elected regional chambers have failed. Therefore, with the exception of London, devolution in the United Kingdom, holds only for the Celtic countries. The prospect of having a lawmaking parliament for England similar to that in Scotland was permanently ruled out by the Labour Government early in 2006. Similarly the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats do not support the concept of an English parliament.

Independence: an alternative to devolution or federalism? Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party believe that Wales and Scotland should become independent countries within the European Union (Box 12.2). Plaid Cymru’s aim is ‘to secure self-government for Wales and a democratic Welsh state, based on socialist principles . . . To secure for Wales the right to become a member of the United Nations Organisation.’ Whereas, the Scottish National Party ‘aims to create a just, caring and enterprising society in the mainstream of modern Europe by realising Scotland’s full potential as an independent nation’. Plaid Cymru and the SNP ask how the many small countries in Europe, often with populations smaller than

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them have managed to survive in the modern world. Up to 2008, they often cited Ireland as an example of how a small country could become an economic success story. After the economic crisis that enveloped Ireland and a number of other small European countries, the problem of being a small country with large economic debts has also been used by those opposed to independence. They state that Scotland and Wales would not be able to survive the kind of economic crisis suffered by those countries. Plaid Cymru is particularly keen on the concept of a federal Europe in which Europe takes over some of the key strategic roles, such as general taxation, and major economic and foreign-policy issues. Under this concept, Wales would have ‘self-determination’ or, in essence, it would become a federal state within a ‘federal Europe’. Such a notion would allow an easier route to independence by cushioning the costs associated with breaking away. The concept of possible Scottish independence became the main constitutional issue facing the Westminster coalition government from 2012 onwards (Box 12.2). If Scotland does gain independence, there will need to be a full revision of the relationship between the remaining countries of the United Kingdom. The first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, stated in 2011 that the relationship between Wales and England would need to be ‘rebalanced’ if such a Union was to survive. Independence for one country, therefore, will also have significant implications for the remaining nations of the United Kingdom. Even if Scotland does not gain independence, its people may instead wish to gain what is described as ‘Devo plus’ which would put the Scottish parliament in full control of income tax, corporation tax and most welfare spending, and take a geographical share of oil revenues, or the ‘Devo max’ alternative in which it would leave pensions, VAT and national insurance in the hands of the Westminster government. These options are being considered by the Westminster government as a way of persuading the Scottish people to stay within the United Kingdom.

Conclusion We have seen that devolution is very different from federalism. It is clear from government policy that Britain is far from being,

Creeping Federalism or a Unitary State?

253

Box 12.2 What could independence mean in practice? There is a number of factors that independent countries in the United Kingdom would have to consider. The following are among the main ones: 1. What would they put in their new constitutions? This would state the rights and obligations of the citizens of the newly independent country. The United Kingdom currently does not have a codified constitution but any new independent country would certainly need one 2. Who would be the head of state? Would it remain the Queen or would the independent nation become a republic? 3. Which currency would they use? An independent country joining the European Union would almost certainly have to join the euro. 4. Setting up new administration and legal systems. Taxes would now all be collected within the independent country and the majority of laws would also be made there. This would mean creating the administrative infrastructure to deal with this. 5. Rebalancing the remaining countries in the Union. Those countries that remain in the Union may feel dominated by England. They may well, therefore, need to set up a federal system of government to enable the Union to survive. 6. Television and radio: the independent nation would have to set up its own broadcasters; would it still rely on a television licence or would broadcasting be paid for by other means? 7. Borders controls would have to be introduced because the newly independent country would be obliged to join the European freetravel area, which Britain has opted out of. 8. The national flag: the Union Flag would go and the national flag would fly over all public buildings. 9. Defence: would the independent countries create their own armies, air forces and navies and allow the British army to remain there? 10. Nuclear deterrent: would the newly independent country still rely on the British nuclear deterrent?

or even becoming, a federal country. Central government still remains the overwhelmingly dominant political power in Britain, and political sovereignty remains in Westminster. The policies of the Conservatives and the Labour Party will not lead directly to a federal

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Britain. Though the Liberal Democrats do desire a federal Britain, they have not been able to pursue these objectives while sharing power with the Conservatives. The nationalist parties desire straight independence, or union with Ireland in the case of Northern Ireland, rather than federalism. At the same time as federalism is being dismissed within Britain, the role of Europe is growing in determining policy issues not only at a Westminster but also at a sub-Westminster level in Wales. Policy issues, such as agriculture, are often determined directly by the European Union with little direct involvement from the devolved institutions within Britain. Here, Westminster has ceded sovereignty to the European Union and, therefore, the devolved institutions must also take account of other European issues, such as the European Convention on Human Rights in their executive duties, as well as law- and policy-making. It may be the case, therefore, that there is a federal Europe well before there is a federal Britain.

D

What you should have learnt from reading this chapter •

While devolution has reshaped the way that the Celtic nations are governed, it has made little impact on the day-to-day government at Westminster. This may change, however, as the referendum on Scottish independence draws closer.

•

It has been asserted that Britain has become a federal state but there is no evidence to support this view.

•

Independence for Scotland and for Wales is still viewed as an alternative to devolution or federalism by some nationalist political parties.

/

Glossary of key terms Federalism A form of government in which both the central government and sub-central (national or regional) governments enjoy considerable power but remain independent from one another and are linked together as one ‘country’. Independence The removal of a region or the division of a nation so that the control of that area is held solely within its borders and is no longer held by the nation/region to which it was previously joined. Sovereignty The supreme power of the political institution with respect to its legitimate legal authority.

Creeping Federalism or a Unitary State?

?

255

Likely examination questions Comment on the view that devolution has had no real impact on the way that Britain is run. To what extent is it true to say that, through devolution, the United Kingdom has turned into a federal state? What will be the impact of an independent Scotland on the direction of devolution for the rest of the United Kingdom?

¡

Helpful websites http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/ University College, London’s Constitution Unit’s devolution programme which provides information on how devolution has developed in the United Kingdom. http://www.federalunion.org.uk The Federal Union has a website which details how a federal structure of government would work in the United Kingdom. http://www.independenceforscotland.com/ The campaign for independence for Scotland. http://www.notoscottishindependence.org.uk/ The campaign against independence for Scotland. The Economic and Social Research Council ran a large-scale research project from 2000 to 2005 on the ‘Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme’ which covers much of devolutionary development, including aspects of federalism. The BBC also provides comprehensive coverage of the current developments in devolution on its News website.

Š

Suggestions for further reading V. Bogdanor, The Coalition and the Constitution, Hart Publishing, 2011. J. Curtis and B. Seyd, Has Devolution Worked? The Verdict from Policy Makers and the Public, Manchester University press, 2009. B. Jones and P. Norton, Politics UK, 8th edition, Pearson Longman, 2013. B. Markesinis and J. Fedtke (eds), Patterns of Regionalism and Federalism: Lessons for the UK, Vol. 8 (Clifford Chance Lectures), Hart Publishing, 2006. D. Melding, Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020?, Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2009. W. Norman and D. Karmis (eds), Theories of Federalism: A Reader, Palgrave, 2005.

Index

Bold indicates that the term is defined A Choice for England (White Paper), 33 Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (and SNP government), 117 Act of Union, Ireland (1801), 187, 199 Act of Union, Scottish (1707), 15, 58, 72, 73, 125 Acts of Union, Wales (1536–42), 172 Adams, Gerry (Sinn Fein President), 198, 203, 214, 227, 234, 236 Additional Member System (AMS), 99 London, 48 Scotland, 87, 88, 89, 121, 124 Wales, 137, 138, 141–2, 166 Agnew, Steven (Northern Ireland Green Party leader), 239 Ahern, Bertie (Irish Taoiseach), 213, 214 Alderdice, Lord (Alliance Party), 211, 235 Alexander, Danny, 106, 111 Alexander, Wendy (Scottish Labour Party leader), 106–7 All Wales Convention, 168, 183 all-women shortlists, 136, 151, 139 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, 195, 211, 212, 217, 224, 225, 236–7, 240 Allister, Jim (TUV leader), 226, 230 Alternative Vote referendum, 12 Anglo-Irish Agreement, 196, 231, 234 ‘Armalite and ballot box’ (Sinn Fein), 234, 240 Arts Council for Wales, 180 Asquith, Herbert Henry (British Prime Minister), 189 Assembly-sponsored Public Bodies (ASPBs), 165, 175, 182, 183 Australia, federalism in, 247 B Specials (Northern Irish), 192, 193 Barnett Formula, 31, 37, 130, 161 Battle of the Boyne 191 Berry Pek Yeong, 66 ‘Best Value’ (Scotland), 97, 99 Better Governance for Wales, 166, 171

Bi-confessional (Alliance Party), 236 ‘big bang’ approach to devolution, 113, 117, 125 ‘Black and Tans’, 192 Blair, Ian (London Police Commissioner), 51 Blair, Tony (Labour Prime Minister) and Northern Ireland, 194, 197, 213, 214 and Wales, 157 Block Grant, 75, 80, 99 Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland) Saville Inquiry, 194, 199 ‘bottom-up’ devolution 70, 73 Bourne, Nick (Welsh Conservative leader), 155 Britannia, 15, 16–17 British Constitution see Constitution British Empire, 16, 17, 28, 37, 187, 198 British–Irish Council (Council of the Isles), 10, 14, 138 British National Party (BNP), 25, 48 Britishness, 11, 16–17, 18–19, 105, 218 ‘Britishness Test’, 22 Brown, Gordon (British Prime Minister), 11, 45, 105, 107, 117, 134 Browne Review (tuition fees), 135 Buchanan, George and home rule for Scotland, 59 Business, Innovation and Skills, Department of (BIS), 35 Butler, Rosemary (presiding officer), 162 ‘Cathays Park Village’, 158 Callaghan, James (Prime Minister), 6, 64, 156 Calman, Sir Kenneth, 81 Calman Commission, 81–2, 107, 162 Cameron, David (British Prime Minister), 12, 50, 117, 120, 121, 134, 135, 138, 194 Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, 66

Index

Campaign for a Welsh Parliament see Welsh Parliament Canada, independence models, 155, 247 Cardiff, 129, 134, 139, 148, 155, 156 Cardiff Bay, 174, 182 ‘Cardiff Bay Village’, 158 Carlile, Alex (Welsh Liberal Democrat leader), 132 Carson, Sir Edward (Ulster Unionist leader), 190 Catholics, Roman, 16, 200 Northern Ireland, 186–8, 191–5, 197–8, 218, 226, 231, 234 Celtic fringe, 17, 21, 58 Celtic nations, 20, 26, 254 centre ground, 109, 112, 125, 238 Chamberlain, Joseph (Liberal Unionist leader), 189 Channel Isles, 14, 204 Chichester-Clark, James (Northern Ireland Prime Minister), 193–5 Choosing Scotland’s Future, 115 Church of England, 27 Civic Forum (Northern Ireland), 204 Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (1922), 192 civil society, 66, 86, 178 Clinton, Bill (United States President), 196 Clwyd West, 134, 142 coalition government (Westminster), 12–13, 35, 63, 174, 251, 254 and ‘respect agenda’, 12, 21, 138 coalition in Scotland see Scottish Executive coalition in Wales see Welsh Assembly coalition government Collins, Michael (Irish Nationalist leader), 190–2 Colly, Linda, 16 Committee of the Regions 3, 94, 148 Communities Scotland, 97, 99 concordats on devolution, 13, 248 Conservative ‘Yes’ Campaign, 68 Conservative–Liberal Democrat government see coalition government Conservatives (Party) and Wales, 129, 130, 131, 133–5, 139, 146, 147, 150, 155, 159, 164, 168, 177, 178

257

attitudes towards devolution, 6, 9–10, 20, 29, 30, 36, 41, 43–4, 67, 70, 73, 190, 228, 245, 247, 248 Conservatives, Scottish (and Unionists), 64, 66, 71, 72, 91, 103, 104, 107, 111, 118–21 and ‘Doomsday Scenario’, 66 Constitution, 1, 5, 10, 59, 62, 174, 246, 250 Constitution, Irish see Irish Constitution Constitution Unit (University College London), 45 Constitutional Acts of Parliament affecting devolution, 8 Constitutional Affairs, Department of, 139 constitutional reform, 7, 9, 40, 67, 70, 115, 126, 160, 231, 245, 248–9, 253 Conveners’ Group (Scotland), 78, 99 Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), 96, 98, 99, 108 Cook Robin (Labour Foreign Secretary), 7 Cook–Maclennan Pact, 7 Cornwall, 17, 26, 40 Council of the Isles see British Irish Council Craig, Sir John (Ulster Unionist leader), 190 ‘Cricket Test’, 25 culture and false consciousness argument, 17 culture, British, 16, 17, 126 definition of, 15 English, 26, 27, 28 English regional, 17 Northern Ireland, 197 Scottish, 103 shaped by, 18 Welsh, 165, 178, 180, 183 Cunningham Amendment (Scotland), setting voting threshold, 63, 64 Curragh Camp Munity (Ulster), 190 Curtis, Robert, 194 Cymdiethas Yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh language society), 176, 177 Cymreictod, 178 Cymru Fydd (movement), 129, 178 Cymuned (community), 179 Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru see Welsh Assembly 156

258

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament), 203, 204, 236, 239 Dalyell, Tam, 62, 68, 69, 73 Davidson, Ruth (Scottish Conservative Party leader), 120 Davies, Andrew R. T. (Welsh Conservative Party leader), 135 Davies, Ron (Labour Welsh Secretary), 132 de Chastelain, General John (Northern Ireland weapons decommissioning), 211 de Valera, Eamon (Irish prime minister and president), 189, 192 Decentralisation, Minister for, 46 Democracy and Devolution: Proposals for Scotland and Wales (White Paper), 61 Democratic socialism, 122, 126 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 193, 213, 217, 224, 225–6, 229, 233, 239, 240 and Sinn Fein administration 216, 221, 241 Department for Communities and Local Government (England), 35, 46 Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA), 10, 139 Deputy First Minister Northern Ireland, 207, 208, 209, 212, 214, 216, 232, 235 Scotland, 85, 105, 110 Wales, 144, 157, 159 Deputy Presiding Officer (Wales), 163, 170 devolution achievements of, 244 advantages of, 2–4 benefits of Welsh, 175–6 compared with federalism, 248–51 definition of, 2 drawbacks of, 4–5 drawbacks of Welsh, 145, 167–9 positions of the political parties, 9–12 road to, 5–8 d’Hondt electoral formula, 209, 220, 229 ‘Devo max’, 115, 252 ‘Devo plus’, 252 Dewar, Donald, 99, 104, 105, 110 direct rule, 200 Downing Street declaration, 196–7

dual mandate, 138 Dublin, Irish politics in, 24, 186, 190, 195, 196, 197, 203, 204, 214, 234, 237, 239 DUP for God and Ulster, 225–6 Durkan, Mark (SDLP leader), 212, 232 Easter Rising (Dublin), 189 Edinburgh, 62, 84, 108 Edinburgh Zoo, 121 elites, political, 5, 31, 37 Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Wales, 15 Elizabeth II, Queen, 115 Empey, Sir Reg (UUP leader), 216, 228 Emyr Jones Parry commission, 167, 168, 187 English Democrats Party, 18, 26 English devolution, future of, 44 English Grand Committee, 45, 46 English regionalism, 24, 29–34, 36, 42, 64 Ervine, David (PUP leader), 229–30 ESRC Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme, 244 ethnic cleansing, 193, 200 Ethnic Minorities Communities, 66, 69 European Convention on Human Rights, 205, 208, 254 European Parliament, 3, 5, 18 European Union and Scotland, 91–4, 99, 116 and Wales, 33, 147–8, 151, 156, 169 Ewing, Margaret, 113 Ewing, Winnie (SNP MP), 60 ‘excepted matters’ (Northern Ireland), 206, 220 executive devolution, 76 Famine (Great Irish potato), 188, 199 Faulkner, Brian (Northern Irish Prime Minister), 195 federal state, 11, 110, 245, 246, 250, 252, 254 federalism, ch.12, 254 compared with devolution, 248–9 components of, 246 creeping, 245 defining, 245–7 quasi-, 243 Feldman, Lord (UUP), 229

Index

Fenians, 188 Findlay, Donald (Scottish No Campaign), 70 First Minister(s), 174, 252 Northern Ireland, 207, 210, 218, 224, 232; duties of, 208, 209, 216 Scotland, 89, 105, 114, 116; duties of, 91 Wales, 132, 142, 144, 147, 150, 158, 159, 171; duties of, 143, 144, 175 first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP), 61, 88, 119, 136, 141, 151 Fitt, Gerry (SDLP leader), 193, 231 FitzGerald, Dr Garret (Irish Prime Minister), 196 Ford, David (Alliance Party leader and Northern Ireland Justice Minister), 237, 238 Foster, Brendon, 43 Four Nations Model, 103, 126 Fraser, Murdo – future of Scottish Conservative Party, 120 Fundamentalist, 113, 116, 117, 125, 126 Gavron, Nicky (Deputy Mayor of London), 49 German, Michael, Lord (Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly leader), 135, 137, 144, 157, 158 Gillan, Cheryl (Conservative Welsh Secretary), 134, 139, 174 Gladstone, William Ewart (Liberal Prime Minister), 187–8 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, 106 Glyndwr, Owain, 129 Goldie, Annabel (Scottish Conservative leader), 120 Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland (GFA), 14, 198, 199, 203, 208, 209, 214, 220, 225, 227, 230, 232, 235, 237, 238 referendum on, 206 Government of Ireland Act (1920), 190, 191, 199 Government of Wales Act (1997), 8, 132, 139, 141, 164 Government of Wales Act (2006), 8, 142, 151, 167, 169, 171 Government Office for London, 47 gradualist, 113, 117, 126

259

Gray, Iain (Scottish Labour Party leader), 107 Greater London Authority (GLA), 34, 39, 46, 47, 51, 55, 251 chair of, 48 Greater London Authority Act (2007), 8, 54 Greater London Authority (Referendum) Act (1998), 8, 47 powers of, 52, 53 Greater London Council (GLC), 6, 29, 47 Griffiths, James (Welsh Secretary), 130 Gwyther, Christine (Labour Welsh Assembly Agriculture Secretary), 144, 155 Hain, Peter (Labour Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretary), 133, 162, 166, 213, 214 Halifax Bank of Scotland, 114 Hall, Sir John, 43 Hamilton by-election (1967), 60 Harper, Robin (Scottish Greens leader), 123 Heath, Anthony, 19 Heath, Edward (Conservative Prime Minister), 60, 134, 194, 195 Henry VIII, King of England and Wales, 129, 186, 200 heritage tourism, 18, 27, 77, 103, 163, 180 Hermon, Sylvia, Lady, 228 Herron, Neil, 43 Hillsborough Agreement see Anglo-Irish agreement Holtham Commission (Wales), 161 Holyrood (Scottish Parliament building), 4, 84, 107, 113 Home Rule, 5, 21, 24, 58, 59, 73, 118 ‘all round’, 129, 151 Liberal support for, 19 Scottish, 60 Home Rule Bill (Scotland), 59 Home Rule for Ireland, 3, 5, 19, 58, 151, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191, 199, 226 Home Rule for Ireland Bill, 189 Home Rule Movement for Ireland, 188 ‘horizontal partnerships’ (Scotland/ Europe), 93, 99

260

Devolution in the United Kingdom

House of Commons Liaison Committee of, 138 Procedural Committee, 45 Standing Committee on Regional Affairs, 45 Human Rights Act (2000), 250 Hume, John (SDLP leader), 193, 203, 231, 232 Hutchinson, Billy (UVF and PUP), 230 independence, 11, 26, 245, 250, 251, 253, 254 Ireland, 186, 187, 189, 198 Scotland, 4, 12, 20, 59, 60, 63, 67, 72, 81, 82, 107, 110, 111, 113–18, 120, 122, 124, 125, 126, 174, 251, 252 Wales, 4, 12, 20, 46, 59, 251 Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), 62, 63 Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA), 158 Integrated Regional Offices (IROs), 30 International Commission on Decommissioning, 211 internationalism, 237, 240 internment (Northern Ireland), 192, 195, 199 Ireland, Treaty of (1922), 190–1 Irish Constitution, 196–7, 203, 204 Irish Green Party (Comhaontas Glas), 238–9 Irish Nationalist Political parties see SDLP, Sinn Fein Irish Republican Army (IRA), 189, 190, 191, 193 and Libyan arms, 197 Irish Republican Army – Provisional (IRA), 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 203, 211, 213, 231, 234, 235 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), 188 Irish Unionist Party, 189 Isle of Man, 204 James I, King (known as James VI in Scotland), 15, 16, 187 James II, King of Great Britain, 191 Johnson, Boris, 12, 50, 51, 54, 55 Joint Ministerial Commissions (JMC), 13–14 Jones, Carwyn (Welsh First Minister), 160, 162, 174, 252

Kelly, Ruth (Labour government minister), 35 Kerr, Ronan, 219 Kilbrandon Commission, 5, 60, 247 Kinnock Neil (Labour Party leader), 6–7, 11 Kirk, Scottish, 18 Labour Party, 10, 11–12, 20, 31, 117, 136 and attitudes to devolution 6, 12, 29, 32–3, 36, 40, 41, 47, 54, 57–8, 247, 253 and Scottish Devolution 6, 61–5, 68, 81, 91, 95, 105–13, 116 and Welsh Devolution 6, 7; see also Wales Labour Party ‘lasting peace’ (Northern Ireland), 220–1 Law, Peter (Welsh Assembly Member), 137, 159 Legislative Competence Order, 133, 141, 151 Liberal Democrats and federalism, 249, 254 attitudes to devolution, 7, 11–12, 20, 36, 41, 44, 247 in Wales see Welsh Liberal Democrats Liberals and devolution, 5, 6, 19, 132, 134, 151, 178, 188, 189 Limerick, Treaty of, 187 Livingstone, Ken (Mayor of London), 48–50, 55 Llewellyn, Prince (Wales), 129 Lloyd George, David (Liberal and coalition Prime Minister), 24, 178, 191 Llwyd, Elfyn (Plaid Cymru Westminster leader), 135 lobby groups Scotland, 86–7 Wales, 158, 179 Local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), 35, 36, 37 Local Government Act 2004 (Scotland), 97, 98 localism, 46, 55, 128 Localism Act (2011), 8, 54 localist agenda, 31, 140 London Development Agency, 35, 52 London Mayor, 26, 35, 47, 49, 51, 53 duties of, 52

Index

London Olympics 2012, 48, 106 London Regional Select Committee, 46 London riots, 28, 51 London Underground, 48 Long, Naomi, 218 Long Kesh, 195 Maclennan, Bob (Deputy Liberal Democrat leader), 7 Major, John (Conservative Prime Minister), 6, 9, 47, 196 Mandelson, Peter, Lord (Northern Ireland Secretary), 211 Martin, Bernadette, 198 Marxist, 17, 234 Mayor of London see London Mayor McCartney, Robert (UKUP), 193 McConnell, Jack (Scottish First Minister), 85, 86, 105, 106 McDonnell, Alasdair (SDLP leader), 232, 233 McGuinness, Martin (Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister), 198, 214, 216, 234, 235 McLeish, Henry (Scottish First Minister), 85, 105, 110 McLetchie, David (Scottish Conservative leader), 113–14 means testing (Scotland), 124, 126 media, Wales, 180, 181 Meibion Kernow (Sons of Cornwall), 26 Melding, David, 163, 247 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) see Northern Ireland Assembly Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) see Scottish Parliament Memorandum of Understanding, 13, 92, 248 Metropolitan Police, 49, 52, 53 Michael, Alun (Welsh First Secretary), 132, 142, 144, 155 vote of no confidence in, 156, 157, 182 Miliband, Ed (British Labour Party leader), 104 Minister for Decentralisation, 46 Ministry of Justice, role in devolution, 10, 13, 139 Mitchell Principles, 198 Moore, Michael (Scottish Secretary), 111

261

Morgan, Julie (Labour MP and AM), 137 Morgan, Rhodri (Welsh First Minister), 132, 144, 157, 159, 160, 165, 182 Morrison, Herbert, 136 Mowlan, Mo (Labour Northern Ireland Secretary, 197 Murphy, Paul (Labour Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretary), 134, 213 Muslim Council of Britain, 18 National Assembly for Wales see Welsh Assembly National Curriculum for Wales, 140, 177 nationalism English, 5, 16–17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 36 Irish, 5, 16–17, 19, 187, 188, 198, 232 Scottish, 5, 16–17, 19, 61, 116, 124 Welsh, 5, 16–17, 19, 177 nationalistic, 17, 18, 58, 73 Nationalists Irish, 189, 190, 195, 197, 204, 208, 214, 216, 227 Liberal, 172 Pragmatic, 104, 126 Scottish, 59 Neill Commission on the Funding of Political Parties, 7 New Departure (Irish politics), 188 New Labour, 7, 126 New Leadership for London 1997 (Green Paper), 47 Newcastle United Football Club, 43 No Campaign, Scotland, 68–70 non-aligned/non-sectarian, 236 North-east (England), 30, 31, 42–4 North East No Campaign, 42 North-east referendum (England), 42, 43–5, 55 North East Says No (NESNO), 43 North East Yes Campaign, 42 North Sea oil, Scottish claims to, 61, 112, 252 Northern Assembly, Campaign for a (England), 31 Northern Ireland direct rule by London, 186, 187, 195, 196, 199, 200, 211, 213 internment, 192, 195, 199 North–South Council, 204

262

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Northern Ireland (cont.) power sharing, 195, 203, 204, 211, 214, 216, 221, 225, 226, 227, 228, 237 see also Ulster Northern Ireland Act (1998) see Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland (Elections) Act (1998), 8, 205, 211, 216 Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act (2006), 8, 216, 235 Northern Ireland Assembly committee structure, 210 consensus politics, 209 elections, 205, 215, 218, 226, 228 powers of, 206–9 Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), 192–3 Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, 205 Northern Ireland Secretary (of State), 133 Northern Ireland Water, problems with, 219 Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC), 211, 225, 237–8, 240–1 North–South Ministerial Council (Ireland), 204 Objective 1 (European funding), 146, 147, 151, 156 Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), 10, 35, 44 ‘Officegate’ scandal (Scotland), 105 Olympics see London Olympics 2012 O’Neill, Terence (Ulster Unionist Prime Minister), 192, 193, 226 Opik, Lembit (Welsh Liberal Democrat MP), 135 Orange Order, 190, 191, 192, 199, 228 Outreach (Northern Ireland), 232, 241 Paisley, Ian, Lord (First Minister and Democratic Unionist Party DUP), 193, 214, 216, 224, 225, 227, 235 Parliamentary Bureau (Scotland), 78, 95, 99 Parnell, Charles MP (Irish Nationalist leader), 188–9 Partnership for Britain’s Future (White Paper), 7

Peace Process (Northern Ireland), 196, 197, 203, 204, 220, 221, 225, 234, 238 Pitt, William (Prime Minister), 187, 188 Plaid Cymru, 4, 6, 12, 131, 132, 135–6, 137, 146, 147, 149, 156, 159–60, 162, 165, 174, 176, 251–2 Scottish National Party, pact with, 135 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004), 8 Police Service of Northern Ireland, 216, 217–19, 221, 224 political collectivism, 104, 126 Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act (2000), 8 Poll Tax, 65, 73, 122 Powell, Enoch, 62 power-sharing, 195, 203, 204, 211, 214, 216, 221, 225, 226, 227, 228, 237 Poyning’s Law, 186, 187 Pragmatic nationalists, 104, 126 Prescott, John (Labour Deputy Prime Minister), 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 42, 43 Presiding Officer Northern Ireland, 237 Scottish Parliament, 78, 94, 100, 109, 162 Welsh Assembly, 132, 146, 147, 170 Pressure Groups see Lobby Groups primary law-making powers Northern Ireland, 251 Scotland, 76, 94, 98, 99, 251 Wales, 128, 137, 139, 140, 150, 151, 160, 163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 181, 183, 183, 251 primary legislation, 11, 99, 133 Prince of Wales (Charles), 180 Prior, James (Conservative Northern Ireland Secretary), 196 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), 225, 229–30, 241 Protestant community, 189, 190–3, 196, 197, 218, 224, 226, 232, 236 Protestant state (Northern Ireland), 191, 192, 198, 199 Protestant Ulster Workers’ Council, 196 Protestantism, 16, 17, 19 Protestants, 200 Northern Ireland, settlers in Ireland, 187

Index

Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) see Irish Republican Army – Provisional (IRA) Putting Wales First: A Partnership for the People of Wales, 157 quangos, 6, 21, 31, 32, 33, 100 ASPBs, 131, 140, 167, 175 Scotland, 32 Wales, ‘bonfire of ’, 165, 177 Quebec, 247 Randerson, Jenny, Baroness (Liberal Democrat Welsh Assembly Culture and Sport Secretary), 135, 138, 144, 157 Red–Green Alliance (Wales), 162, 177 Redmond, John (Irish National Party leader), 189 referendum(s), 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 19, 21, 34, 39, 55, 63, 205, 220, 232, 247, 254 English Regional, 39, 42–4 Scotland and Wales Act, 8 Scotland independence, 82, 107, 115 Scottish Parliament, 7, 8, 9, 57, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70–2, 73, 91, 104, 109, 113 Wales (1979), 130, 131, 149 Wales (1997), 132, 149, 175 Wales (2011), 10, 151, 154, 160, 171, 173–4, 181, 183 Regional Affairs Committees (England), 45 Regional Assemblies (England), 42 Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act (2003), 8, 34, 42 Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40–2, 44, 45, 46, 54, 55 arguments against, 41 Regional Development Agencies Act (1998), 8, 42 Regional Economic Planning Boards (England), 28 Regional Economic Planning Councils (England), 28 regionalism, 64; see also English regionalism Rennie, William (Scottish Liberal Democrat leader), 112

263

Reynolds, Albert (Irish Prime Minister), 196 Richard, Lord of Ammanford , 167 Richard Commission (Wales), 154, 164, 169, 182 and STV, 166 Labour Party response to, 166, 169, 183 recommendations of, 166, 168 Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP), 156 Ritchie, Margaret (SDLP leader), 231, 232 Robertson, George, 104 Robinson, Iris, 217 Robinson, Peter (DUP leader and First Minister), 216, 217–19, 220, 224 Rogers, Lord Richard, 156 Roman Catholics see Catholics Romans, 15, 18, 186 Royal Bank of Scotland, 114 Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs, 60 Royal Commission on the Constitution see Kilibrandon Commission Royal Ulster Constabulary, 193 abolition of, 218 Rule Britannia!, 16 S4C see Sianel Pedwar Cymru St Andrew, 15, 69 flag of, 25 St Andrews Agreement, 8, 214, 216, 221, 225 St David’s Day, 136, 180, 186 bank holiday test, 141 debate (House of Commons), 136 referendum (1979), 131 St George, 15, 25, 26 St Patrick, 16 Salmond, Alex (SNP leader and First Minister), 85, 90, 107, 114, 118, 124 and independence agenda, 113, 115, 116–17 Sands, Bobby (IRA hunger striker), 234 Saville Inquiry (Bloody Sunday), 194, 199 Scotland Act (1978), 62, 65, 72 Scotland Act (1998), 8, 63, 72, 76, 83, 92, 94, 95, 248 and Westminster veto, 82 Scotland and Wales Bill (1977), defeat of, 62

264

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Scotland Bill (2012), 8, 76, 82 Scotland Office 10 Scotland’s oil, 61, 112, 252 Scotland’s Parliament. Scotland’s Right – report (1995), 67 Scottish Affairs Select Committee, 6, 45, 66 Scottish block grant, 80, 91 Scottish Conservative Party, 60, 118–20; see also Conservatives Scotland Scottish Constitutional Convention, 66–7, 68, 69, 72, 73, 96 Scottish Development Agency, 32 Scottish Executive, 78, 79, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 93, 100 becomes Scottish Government, 82 Scottish Grand Committee, 6, 45, 59 Scottish Green Party, 69, 85, 116, 123 and support for SNP government, 123 Scottish Home Rule Bill, 59 Scottish independence see independence, Scotland Scottish Labour Party, 6, 61–5, 68, 81, 91, 95, 105–13, 116 Scottish Liberal Democrats, 69, 79, 81, 83, 85, 91, 98, 105–7, 108, 109–12, 116 coalition with Labour, 81, 85, 86 Scottish Liberals, 109 Scottish local government, 96–7, 98 Scottish National Convention, 60 Scottish National Party (SNP), 4, 6, 46, 60, 62, 65, 66, 68, 80–1, 87, 96, 103, 104, 106–7, 114, 120, 121–2, 125, 251 formation of, 72, 112 and fundamentalist/gradualist debate, 117, 126 and government, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89, 92, 110–11, 115–18, 123, 124, 244 and Scottish Independence, 111, 113, 115, 120, 174 Scottish Office, 2, 5, 10, 45, 60, 66, 72, 73, 85 creation of, 58, 72 problems with, 64 Scottish Parliament, ch. 4–6, 41 committee system, 77–8, 80, 99 and Europe, 91–4 MSPs, 99

Regional Members, 88 passage of bills, 79 Scottish Parliament Election (1999), 116 Scottish Parliament Election (2003), 85, 107 Scottish Parliament Election (2007), 87, 106, 123, 124 Scottish Parliament Election (2011), 87, 111, 123, 124 Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, 94, 100 Scottish Secretary, 59, 83 creation of the post of, 59 role post-devolution, 91 Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP), 124 Scottish Socialist Party, 121–2 Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), 66, 69 Scourfield, Jonathan, 176 SDP (Social Democratic Party), 109, 131 Secretary of State for Wales see Welsh Secretary sectarianism, 241 Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, 6, 45, 137 Senedd, 156 Sewell Motions (Scotland), 95–6, 98, 172 Shadow Welsh Secretary, 132, 133, 134, 135 Shaping Scotland’s Parliament, 86 Sheridan, Tommy (Scottish Socialist Party), 65, 122 Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C), 177, 181 Silk Commission (Wales), 161, 250 Sinclair, Sir Archibald (Liberal Party leader), 111 Single Transferable Vote (STV), 98, 100, 165, 166, 183, 195, 205 Sinn Fein, 196, 233–6, 241 ‘Armalite and ballot box’, 234, 240 and DUP administration, 216, 221, 225, 226, 239, 241 formation of, 189, 190, 192, 194, 233 and the Northern Ireland Assembly, 210, 232 and the peace process 198, 203, 214, 229, 231, 234 and reform of the police service, 216 Smith, Adam, 65

Index

Smith, John (Labour leader), 7, 11, 104 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 193, 195, 196, 203, 210, 219, 224, 225, 227, 230, 233, 236, 241 Speaker’s Conference, 24, 37 Special Areas Act (England), 26 ‘State of London’ address, 51 Steel, David (former Presiding Officer Scottish Parliament and Liberal Party leader), 69, 110 Steel Commission, 110 Stephen, Nicol (Scottish Liberal Democrats), 85, 110 Stone of Destiny (Scone), 59 Stormont, Northern Ireland Assembly at, 213, 221, 226 Straw, Jack (Labour Home Secretary), 33 ‘triple lock’, 34 student tution fees and devolution, 4, 9, 105, 110, 173 Sturgeon, Nicola (SNP), 85, 90 STV see Single Transferable Vote Sunningdale Agreement (Northern Ireland), 195–6, 237 Supplementary Vote (London), 48, 56 Swinburne John (Scottish Senior Citizens Party), 124 Swinney, John (SNP leader), 90, 116 Tebbit, Norman, Lord (Conservative Minister), 25 Thatcher, Margaret (Conservative Prime Minister), 6, 28, 29, 47, 61, 64–6, 73, 118, 121, 196, 235 Thatcherism, 104 Thomas, Dafydd Elis (Presiding Officer), 132, 137, 162 Thomas Cook, 179 Tomaney, Professor Joh,n 42 ‘top-down’ devolution, 70, 73 Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), 211, 224, 225, 226, 230, 241 transferred matters (Northern Ireland), 206, 221 Treaty of Ireland (1922), 190–1 Trimble, David (DUP leader and Northern Ireland’s First Minister), 211–13

265

and the peace process in Ireland, 228, 231 tuition (student) fees, university, 9, 181 England, 111 Scotland, 9, 110, 118 Wales, 9, 135, 159, 173, 182 Ulster, 9 general strike in, 196 reasons for delay in peace there, 197 Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force (UCUNF), 228–9 Ulster Special Constabulary, 192 Ulster Unionist Council (UUC), 190 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 211, 212, 213, 225, 226–9, 230, 232, 241 political decline of, 228 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), 190, 229, 230, 241 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), 25, 43, 48 United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP), 224, 225, 241 Wales and the European Union see European Parliament and Wales Wales Labour Party, 7, 129–30, 132, 133–6, 144, 149–50, 151, 155, 158–8, 162, 165, 167, 183 rejects STV, 166 Wales Office, 10, 139 Wallace, Jim (Scottish Liberal Democrat Baron, of Tankerness), 83, 85, 105, 110, 11 Welsh Affairs Select Committee, 6, 45, 137 Welsh Assembly, ch. 7–8 coalition government in ( 2000–3, 2007–11), 157, 158–61 committees in, 145, 148, 170, 181, 206 elections to, 141, 162 legislative powers of, 171, 174, 206 lobby groups, 158, 179 measures (law-making), 137, 140, 151, 171, 181 new building, problems with, 156 plastic bags, 5 pence charge, 141, 171, 182 primary powers, operation of, 173 relations with Westminster, 174

266

Devolution in the United Kingdom

Welsh Block, 130, 161, 181 Welsh Conservative Party see Conservatives and Wales Welsh culture ‘what shapes it?’, 180 see also culture, Welsh Welsh Development Agency, 32, 165, 181 Welsh devolution benefits of, 175–6 drawbacks of, 167–9 Welsh (Executive) Government, 164, 165, 169, 170 policy differences with rest of UK, 9, 173 legislative programme (2011–16), 163 Welsh Government Cabinet, 142 Welsh Grand Committee, 6 Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC), 157 Welsh Jurisdiction, 172, 183 Welsh language, 15, 144, 165, 176–8 Welsh Language Act (1993), 178 Welsh Liberal Democrats, 129, 131, 135, 136, 138, 155–7, 158, 159, 162, 164, 166, 178, 182 Welsh MPs, gender imbalance, 136 Welsh Office, 45, 99, 139, 140, 151, 158, 165, 167 establishment of, 2, 129, 130, 150 problems with, 130, 131, 150 Welsh Parliament, 169 Campaign for, 132 Welsh Secretary, 133, 134, 150, 152, 174 establishment of post, 129, 130 role of, 139 and Welsh Assembly, 138, 140, 143, 148 Welshness, 178, 178–9

West Lothian Question, 54, 62, 63, 68, 73, 137 Western Mail, 167, 179, 180 Westminster and devolution, 4–9, 12–20, 244–5, 248–54 and English devolution, 24, 31, 41, 45–6 and Scotland, 58–66, 72, 76–7, 79, 81–4, 92, 95, 103, 105, 108, 112, 115, 121, 125 and Northern Ireland, 187, 190, 199, 200, 203, 208, 211, 220, 221 and Wales, 131, 133, 135–8, 140–1, 145–7, 150–1, 161, 165, 168–9, 171–4, 177, 181 Whitelaw, William (Conservative Northern Ireland Secretary), 195 Widgery Report see Bloody Sunday Wigley, Dafydd, Lord (Plaid Cymru leader), 137, 138 Williams, Kirsty (Welsh Liberal Democrat leader), 174 Willott, Jenny (Welsh Liberal Democrat MP), 135, 136 Wilson, Brian, 69 Wilson, Harold (Labour Prime Minister), 5, 6, 28, 61, 193 Women’s Forum Scotland, 66, 69 Wright, Kenyon Canon, 66, 69 Y Cymro (The Welshman), 177 Yes Campaign, Scotland, 68 Yorkshire, 17, 30, 31–2 Young Ireland Movement, 129, 188 Your Region Your Choice (White Paper, England), 34, 40 Your Scotland, Your Voice (White Paper), 115