| THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning Mr McCrone,
can I start off by thanking you very much for coming.
I wonder would you be kind enough to introduce yourself
for the sake of the record.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: I am David McCrone, the Professor
of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh and also
the Director of the Institute of Governance at the University
which we began at Edinburgh just about eighteen months
ago. It was founded by Alice Brown and myself, Alice
Brown has since become the Public Sector Ombudsman for
Scotland and I am the Director of it but our work in
the Institute has developed over a long period of time
actually from the 1970’s when the late Henry Drucker
founded the Unit for the Study of Government in Scotland
in 1974/75 in the expectation that there would be a
Scottish Assembly as it was called then. The rest, as
they say, is history but it did mean that at Edinburgh
we had a core of people across the law and the social
sciences who had an interest in issues of the governance
of Scotland and these included political scientists
and lawyers, constitutional lawyers, political sociologists
like myself and so on so we have been at this for some
considerable time and we have build up a considerable
body of expertise.
We have also, as academics, contributed quite a lot
not only to academic papers and books but also to the
public debate in Scotland and notably through the Scottish
Constitutional Convention from the 1990’s.
It is interesting in talking to Welsh colleagues about
the process of devolution, the birth of the institution
really which has, in Scotland I think it is fair to
say, a much longer gestation period than in Wales for
obvious political as well as institutional reasons and
so our involvement in that, giving advice on electoral
systems and so on was something very strong. We take
an academic view of this although I think it is fair
to say that we were always supporters otherwise we wouldn’t
have done this work, supporters of the whole business
of what we prefer to call in Scotland and perhaps also
in Wales, home rule because we have the usual academic
discussions about what is devolution viz. a viz. home
rule and home rule seems to us a much better term because
it is much more fuzzy and open ended and has much more
to do with degrees of self government and to get away
from rather sterile debates about categories of independence
and devolution, blah, blah, and devolution anyway it
seems to us is a concept which implies that of course
theoretical sovereignty resides at the centre and that
the Scottish Parliament is but the agent of the centre.
Now, in our work, in particular an analysis of political
and social sciences, it is very clear that people in
Scotland see the Scottish Parliament as... essentially
trying to have an input into the whole political constitutional
debate in Scotland through the Scottish Constitutional
Convention and then after 1997 through the Consultative
Steering Group which was set up by the late Donald Dewar
to advise on the detail of setting up the Parliament
and its procedures so we have been heavily involved
in that and have watched the development of the Parliament
itself with a great deal of interest. For myself I am
the Adviser to the Procedures Committee which is carrying
out the review of the Consultative Steering Group principles.
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I put to you one or two specific
points on the legislative programme. It is very interesting
if one looks at the way in which Scotland has used its
primary legislative powers. The figures I have show
that that 44 acts were passed in the first three years
of the Parliament. Of those 31 were on subjects which
could be devolved to Wales, I appreciate this is not
your direct interest, 7 are on matters of Scots private
law, 6 are on Scottish criminal law and in addition
to all that lot you have then got civil procedures.
It has prompted one academic in England not in Wales,
may I say, to say that he thought Scotland had got the
best of both worlds, the power to legislate yourself
in Scotland, and the power to piggy back Westminster
legislation. It seems to me in my slightly naive view
to be an admirable situation.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Okay. Let me make two prior points
which I think are important to make vis-à-vis that sort
of statement and it has also been said that perhaps
that the Scottish Parliament has been too obsessed with
legislation. One, Scotland has always of course had
its own system of law and as you know better than I
do Lord Richards, the need to pass Scottish legislation
through Westminster was always a bone of contention.
It was always squeezed out to, as we would say in Scotland,
the coo’s tail, the tail end of Westminster legislation,
so a lot of people were convinced about the merits of
home rule for Scotland on a purely pragmatic level which
is that the political system, the constitutional system
was not delivering law for Scotland under the old system
and in many respects the powers of the Scottish Parliament
are not that different from those powers which the old
Scottish Office had prior to devolution.
In a sense the distinction between devolved and reserved
powers is pretty commonsensical, insofar as virtually
all of those powers which the Scottish Parliament has
control over were in the hands of the Scottish Office
before so in that respect it was not a big step, and
the recognition too that Scottish legislation was squeezed
out in Westminster.
Secondly, there was also in large part because of that
a catching up process and the first three or four years
of the Scottish Parliament has indeed been the business
of catching up. I do not predict that in the next four
or next four and so on the same rate of legislative
progress will be made because of the huge backlog of
stuff that had to be done in that respect so I do not,
I am not one of these people who I would argue with
that if you give the Parliament powers inevitably it
will use it to the exclusion of all else.
The third point I think is that in the Consultative
Steering Group which was an appointed and not an elected
body, but was representative of a wide range of opinion
in Scotland, there was the view that the Parliament
should not just be about legislation and that reviews
and the analysis of evidence was a very important part
of that process and that, it seems to me in my assessment
of nearly four years of the Parliament is likely to
be the case. Whether that is the best of both worlds,
I think you would have to talk to the politicians about
that. I am not so sure insofar as there are clearly
areas in which the Scots certainly I think feel somewhat
constrained in being able to pass
legislation which is actually having an impact.
THE CHAIRMAN: What areas?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well there will be certain areas,
particularly of fiscal responsibility, or indeed issues
or matters of social security which are always going
to be seen to be problematic between macro and micro
economic powers and as regards where social security
legislation ends and issues of social welfare begin,
such as for example free personal care for the elderly.
That was an area where there was and continues to be
a division of responsibility, where the British Department
clawed back substantial sums of money in attendance
allowance for example which were due notionally to people
in Scotland and they were not prepared to pay. Now that’s
a matter it seems to me of politics or pragmatic administration
or whatever rather than purely of having that legislation
so, yes, I mean devolutionists would argue that of course
this is having your cake and eating it, maximising autonomy
within the Union is that but of course I would say that
is a moot point.
THE CHAIRMAN: Well it looks a pretty good cake for
Cardiff, I tell you that.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well indeed, indeed. As you say,
it depends very much on where you stand on this but
the capacity to deliver on legislation, to have legislation
is something that in Scotland is simply taken for granted
and it is unthinkable that we wouldn’t have that
and if one could do a experiment, survey and say if
we had an Assembly with weaker powers in 1979 compared
with the Parliament of 1997 are these the same animals
or not, the Parliament is clearly a much stronger animal
not only in legislative terms but also in political
constitutional terms.
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I just ask one question on civil
procedures. Clearly, when the civil procedure was inaugurated
nobody expected it to be used in the way it has been.
Does it work, do you think it works?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes, I mean does it work? The criticisms
would be that the Sewel motions are squeezing out proper
legislation, that’s the position which the Scottish
National Party would take but if one looks at it analytically
it is not a particularly strong view. The Sewel arrangements
will insinuate, will articulate the two systems rather
well and the remarkable thing I suppose with hindsight
is how well those procedures have worked over three
or four years than perhaps many people predicted in
1997 and that has bee in a sense, this
is clearly some kind of revolution, a constitutional
revolution. The capacity of the Sewel motions it seems
to me have worked rather well. The difficulty will be,
I come back to this issue, that a lot of the working
of the Parliament and a lot of the sense in which the
institution has bedded down relates also to party political
issues and the fact that the two Governments north and
south of the border are not identical but have a degree
of complementarity. The issue comes when there is going
to be tension in the future, and the Sewel motions work
because of the political arrangements of complementarities.
MR ROWLANDS: Following the Chairman’s observations
about your evidence to the House of Lords, can I just
read out a rather striking statement you made. You said
(this is on page 18 of the Lord’s evidence), "The
key thing to establish in my view is that devolution
as an idea is clearly a very complicated thing in these
islands anyway. There is no game plan, there is no template
and personally I don’t think there can be because
of the rather interesting, somewhat curious historical
nature of the territory of these islands and in Scotland’s
relationship to the rest of the United Kingdom". Unfortunately
you didn’t get any opportunity to discuss these
comparative analyses and you have tempted me now to
probe you further on this idea because we are being
continually told the Scottish model is the ideal model
- you are saying there is no such thing as a devolution
model which everybody should take or that we should
take off you. I would like to explore that thought.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Right, okay. Well let me just elaborate
as clearly as I can. One is that historically, constitutionally,
historically the relationship of the territories of
these islands have been very complex. You are a political
historian, Lord Rowlands. Home rule all round might
have happened in the 1880s, driven by Ireland but it
did not happen and therefore it was off the agenda as
what we would call symmetrical federalism ever after.
It seems to me that what lies behind my statement is
that there is no possibility of symmetrical federalism
in these islands for various reasons of course including
the relative size of England and the lack of a plan,
if you like, or the lack of demand south of our border,
and also the fact that to us at least the Union, the
Treaty of Union, the Treaty of Union between Scotland
and England in 1707 was between those two sovereign
states of Scotland and England, parts of Wales and at
that time Ireland and that is the historical background.
The contemporary point is that empirically the present
Government in Westminster it seems to me has no game
plan for it, That does not imply that I think it should
but it is a kind of muddling through exercise, it is
reactive to demand and I think one can see that in all
sorts of other constitutional arrangements or the failure
to reform constitutional things in different parts of
the UK. The Scots were always driving forward in large
part because of course the demand for home rule was
much greater in ‘79 and in ‘97 than it was
in the Principality and that I think is reflected in
the powers in part of the Scottish Parliament.
The other two things to say: because there is a unwritten
Constitution and I think I said this to the House of
Lords Select Committee as well, because there is an
unwritten Constitution actually for these purposes it
is easier to get things done.
I have talked to colleagues in Canada who tell me that
the whole thing is bedevilled by constitutional Courts
and I have no reason to doubt them. The business of
pragmatically getting things done along various lines
and of course creating or having to handle contradictions
which abound such as the West Lothian question. All
these obstacles are there in order to derail the train
not to be overcome, but that’s another issue, so
the ability to muddle through it seems to me works quite
well and, you know, people are very critical of the
British capacity to muddle through but I think in this
one it has worked quite well so far.
Secondly, I think that, in analysing public opinion
in Scotland, Wales and England there is no opposition
to the devolution settlement to speak of. We now ask
consistent questions in the four, in the three territories
about the preferred option for the rest of the UK or
the other territories and they are remarkably similar
and it is not as if the people of Wales are...
THE CHAIRMAN: These are the sort of questions people
ask of you?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: No, the responses are remarkably
similar. If, for example, you ask people in England
what their preferred constitutional option for Scotland
is or indeed Wales and Scotland or Scotland and Wales,
whatever it would be, they are remarkably similar to
the native responses so as regards the English preferences
for devolution, there is not a great degree of demand
for Scots to be independent any more than there is in
Scotland or indeed for going back to the status quo
so I suppose mischief made by bits of the Press just
fall flat because clearly the opinions in the different
territories of this island are remarkably similar and
relaxed about what people want and ultimately there
is much recognition in the sovereignty of each, the
Welsh and the Scots to work out things as they wish
and that seems to me a very often un-commented on issue
in terms of how we manage actually to get through four
years of devolution without the roof falling in - not
that I ever expected the roof to fall in.
MR ROWLANDS: But if we were to think of Scotland as
the template - it’s simpler, everybody says it’s
simpler than the Welsh settlement, except when we look
at schedule 5 it isn’t that simple. Two questions
I would like to ask you. One, there are ragged edges
in the settlement, quite significant ones, not to do
with foreign policy but to do with transport issues,
and I would be grateful if you could tell us what has
been your experience about these ragged edges, and secondly,
if we were tempted to buy the Scottish model what would
you tell us not to adopt?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well, big questions. I think the
ragged edges have to do with the obvious ones. I think
transport is, we have had an interesting report in today’s
Herald newspaper which is probably, with due apologies
to the newspapers published in this city, the premier
serious newspaper in Scotland. The Herald, reported
that certain feathers had been ruffled with regard to
Scotrail for example and Scotrail is the responsibility
of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Executive and
not the strategic transport authority etc, so there
is a lot of mis-conception south of the border; it is
not done wilfully, it is done out of ignorance. One
of the striking things I think in general has been the
divergence in terms of attention spans, particularly
from south of the border into Scottish affairs, I mean
the media in general does not report Scotland at all
and therefore, the kind of error made
by strategic rail authority is not understandable but
recognisable in terms of what goes on. Ragged edges
mainly come over, are driven largely by I think political
differences. It is interesting that in many respects
the politics of Wales in terms of whatever you have
called it, clear red water or something, the sense in
which the creation of a separate agenda both with regard
to schools and perhaps the obvious one which comes to
mind economic development, are likely to develop differently.
Now the Scottish Office as was, and the Scottish Executive
and Scottish Parliament have always had responsibility
for these things so they are not problematic. The difficulty
I think for Wales is I suppose, is that you don’t
start from where we start . we get
to where we are now because Scotland
was a highly autonomous legally independent territory
of the United Kingdom and therefore Wales’ trajectory
of political legal development is bound to be different
and simply I suppose translating the Scottish experience
to the Welsh experience, given that it grows on a different
history and political culture, is tricky and therefore
it seems to me Wales has to find its own. The ragged
edges relating to social security over free personal
care for the elderly, over tuition fees and so on are
the inevitable fact of proportional representation in
a Government but those are where the tensions lie rather
than being derived from the kind of institutional settlement
and the mechanics as such of that.
My strong message then is that Wales has to find its
own way out of that. I mean having legislative responsibility
is an enormous advantage but we have always had it,
indeed constitutional historians tell me if the Treaty
of Union in 1707 had not allowed that degree of autonomy
and indeed not allowed that degree of autonomy to grow,
there would not have been a Treaty of Union as far as
the Scots are concerned and that’s where we begin
and that has framed everything in terms of where we
are seeing things. What not to adopt. I would be a little
leery of simply following by rote the Scottish experience.
It is a question of finding the levels and translating
that into the particular problems and issues for Wales
itself in both politics and indeed you know economic
development and so on but the other thing that strikes
me too is the remarkable similarity in the two countries,
given that we have come at this from a different position,
the similarity of outcomes and the similarities of those
kind of debates seems to me a very healthy one but there
is no template for you to adopt. I think ,
my strong message would be that Wales has to evolve
its own way of doing that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Has there been a serious boundaries dispute
anywhere near the Courts?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: No, no, these things have been essentially
sorted out in the political process. I think it would
have only come to that if there were major political
differences north and south of the border.
MR THOMAS: Could I invite you to carry on that particular
analysis because earlier on you did say that there had
been a benefit in terms of a sharing of parties both
sides of the border. What would come under attention
do you foresee with this current settlement if there
was a Government of a different hue in Westminster?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well, it would depend on what kind
of Government in Westminster and what kind of Government
in Scotland but if one got a UK Conservative Government
of a hue that was not dissimilar before 1997 then there
would be tensions, particularly over economic development.
I think the whole relationship between the macro and
the micro economies is clearly one that is one of the
most problematic. It is managed at the moment because
I suspect the Chancellor of the Exchequer is who he
is and all sorts of things are done informally but clearly
if there was a Government in Westminster committed to
cutting severely public expenditure it would clearly
have an impact on the Barnett formula and in a sense
the Barnett formula is the grit in the oyster I suppose
we live in unusual times, insofar as public expenditure
has been rising. The really interesting period will
come after 2005 when it does not rise and indeed when
there is convergence which of course is built into the
Barnett formula and that is where the really interesting
politics will occur, not in this session of Parliament
but in the next session of Parliament.
It would also come, if one assumes for the moment according
to most of the evidence that the ruling coalition in
Scotland would not change, certainly after May 2003.
2007 is of course an iconic year but who knows by then,
all sorts of things might change, but if one assumes
the ruling coalition will survive 2003 perhaps in a
different mix, then the status quo will continue until
2007. If by 2007 there was a Government committed in
some way to negotiating a way out of the Union, an SNP
led Government, then I think there would be much more
tension but the tension would come over political issues
and over issues of referendum rather than over particular
bits of legislation.
MR THOMAS: Have you any comments on the role of the
Secretary of State in this. To what extent does the
Secretary of State play a part in Scotland as opposed
to representing in Westminster?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: It’s a good question. People’s
expectations, even among the political classes after
1997 was that the role of Secretary of State for Scotland
and indeed for Wales would disappear and there would
be a kind of territorial Minister or something and that
has not evolved, that has not happened. It would be
difficult for the Secretary of State for Scotland’s
post to be abolished easily now. Perhaps the window
for doing that has gone. There are all sorts of comments
about what it is for, what is the Secretary of State
for Scotland for and what exactly does she do, what
is the post about. The best I think one can say is that
it is a question of smoothing things and doing the kind
of rubbing off the sharp edges that were there. It is
the case that under her predecessor, the Scotland Office
was built up very significantly which surprised many
people and indeed raised questions about the use of
the thing anyway. I think the present Secretary of Scotland
for Scotland is a bit more astute but there is a general
question about whether that post should continue because
it doesn’t seem to have a proper function.
MR JONES: What about the ragged edges surrounding Europe.
Has Scotland, since the coming of the Parliament, extended
its influence in Europe in any way?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well, that’s a bit of a bone
of contention really, over fisheries, and I am glad
you raised that because it does allow me to talk about
fisheries. Scotland had a much larger apparatus in Europe
in Brussels in terms of negotiating economic development
and all sorts of things like that which were both very
beneficial and continue to be very beneficial to us,
so the present Executive is strongly in favour of pushing
that forward. Fisheries is interesting because we talked
earlier about the coming up against the obstacles, it
is a UK responsibility but the fishing industry in the
UK is largely a Scottish industry, the White Fish Authority.
The White Fish industry is essentially based on the
north east coast of Scotland and, it is interesting
too that this week there was to be a debate on this
which was taken off the agenda in the Scottish Parliament
and accusations about running away from these sorts
of issues. I mean it was always said of course that
when the Treaty of Accession was negotiated Fisheries
was a weak point. Not that the Scots necessarily were
sacrificed on this but it was always going to be a bone
of contention, because most of the UK waters are Scottish
waters. It is fair to say that the Scottish Minister
for Fisheries and Agriculture, Ross Finnie, has fought
his corner well but he still has come up quite hard
against the limits of the UK and of course the Scottish
Executive is having to find £50 million to buy out boats,
Scottish boats from the North Sea which properly the
UK Government perhaps should have done by re-negotiating
its arrangement with Brussels but was unwilling to do
so over substantial differences in our economic situation.
A lot of these kind of conflicts have come up. They
would not be solved by legislation, they would only
be resolved clearly and simply by Scotland being an
independent state and one is always going to get that.
If there is an all UK responsibility for Agriculture
and Fisheries then we are in the hands of the UK Minister.
MR JONES: To try and deal with that problem do the
Scottish Ministers seek to influence or clarify the
arrangements, or get better effective deals out of the
UK Minister’s presence in the Brussels office.
Does the Scottish Executive itself seek to strengthen
it’s voice in Brussels in that way as well as the
UK?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes, I mean it is tricky, the present
First Minister is very, very pro-active in building
up Scotland’s relationships with the rest of Europe
and the European Union and has been pushing very hard
for the Brussels office to be strengthened, and also
making common cause with the other territories, regions,
nations in Europe and that is clearly it. But then you
can come up hard against the contradictions of Member
State status of the Union and what the role is now of
relatively prosperous but small non-States such as Scotland,
Wales, Catalonia, Flanders, whatever, at the same time
as the enlargement. But ultimately this will be decided
not by what Scotland could do independently in Brussels
but what its relationship with the rest of the United
Kingdom is and there is not a lot one can do about that.
MS McALLISTER: Going back to this issue, you mentioned
some of the criticisms of how it is operate by the SNP
and to a lesser extent the Conservatives, and you pick
up on the obvious issue of allowing political complaint.
Can you elaborate a little bit about some of the more
procedural complaints about the Sewel arrangements which
we have heard about in some of our reading. One of them
relates to the communication levels and scrutiny opportunities
once legislation is amended. Can you explain how that
has been seen?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well it has been seen, it is a bit
of a black box and I have to confess it is not an area
that I can say anything particularly useful on. I don’t
know what evidence you will be taking either from John
Sewel himself or other people.
MS EVANS: I think Professor Page might help with that.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Alan Page? Oh I see, yes, yes, sorry.
Absolutely. Not a lot I can add. I mean Sewel, the Sewel
Convention operates purely as a kind of device. I am
not au fait sufficiently with how that is done inside
either from the Executive to the UK Government to comment
sensibly on that.
MS SUGAR: You said earlier there had been a general
opinion that the Parliament should not be about legislation,
and you commented it was being said that the Parliament
was now too obsessed with legislation, and that maybe
it was a catching up exercise. Can you talk a bit about
the non legislative parts of the Parliament and how
you see those working because one of the areas we are
interested in is how the Committees of the Welsh Assembly
work, and whether there is a proper degree of scrutiny?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes. I gave - Carys, you probably
have this anyway, Bills enacted and the list of Bills
in progress which is just to bring that up to speed.
It is obviously the case that in Scotland the Committees
can promote legislation on their own. This has not really
happened because of the catch up and most of these Bills
are coming through from the Executive but nevertheless
the Committees themselves have a particular capacity
to carry out research and recommendations, and a lot
of that so far has been pretty low key. A number of
the Committees I think it is fair to say have been better
than others. Some of them have got off to a rather slow
start but Committees have substantial budgets to generate
their own reviews and research and so on and that’s
what they have done. There is also a much greater willingness
I think now than perhaps right at the very beginning
to recognise the importance of not rushing into legislation.
Inevitably I suspect that the relationship between the
Parliament and the Executive is always going to be fraught.
The complaint is that the Scottish Executive has driven
too much through the Parliament. I remember when we
did a survey of the Members of the Parliament for the
Consultative Steering Group Review the particular opposition
Members, as one might expect, were very critical of
the rubber stamping of the Executive legislation through
the Parliament and so on which perhaps is an inevitable
thing, but although to date it is the case that, as
you say, so many Bills have been passed.
The other thing that is very clear, and I am sure this
is true of Wales too, is the sheer demand for consultation;
a huge amount, both to the Executive and through the
Parliament and organisations just cannot cope with that.
Civil Society in Scotland is very rich and very deep
but it has limited resources. One of the interesting
features I think to take a slight step back and slight
step forward is that in many respects the creation of
the Parliament was in many ways at the behest of the
wider society, particularly in the last decade, the
failure of for example the political system to deliver
devolution in ‘79 and in the 80’s and in the
90’s, particularly after 1992, gave to a lot of
these organisations and associations, Civil Society
organisations, a considerable head of steam to push
for the Parliament in their own right and to create
the kind of Parliament that they would wish. I think
it is slightly a tongue in cheek question, but whose
Parliament is it anyway?
In Scotland it is seen very much to be a people’s
Parliament. There has been a lot of the criticism of
the Parliament, its perceived failure to deliver but
it also has to do with levels of expectation about the
role of a Parliament, with regard to the rest of the
political process. The debating function of the Parliament
has been enormous and the consultative effect, if one
looks, for example, I have also handed over a document
which we produce on a monthly basis at the Institute
of Governance, which is the Parliament News ,
which looks at the sheer amount of consultation and
research which is generated in the system anyway. It
is always there because of the Scottish Office; people
used to say of course that there were more Civil Servants
in the Scottish Office than in the European Commission
which is interesting. It is one of these spurious statistics;
one never knows how you check it, but nevertheless there
is a huge bureaucracy. Scotland was always devolved.
I mean devolution is not new to Scotland because it
was always administratively devolved. The problem was
democratic accountability of that enormous bureaucracy
spread about this city in particular. Since devolution
the consultation process particularly in the Executive,
but also from the Parliament, has grown enormously and
all of that is in the public domain and the legislation
is there and even legislation itself. If one takes one
of the most recent pieces of legislation, the Land Reform
Act, the Land Reform Bill, as it still is, which went
through its stage 3 just the other week, that was the
result of a huge amount of research, consultation and
debate and so on going back, certainly four years, possibly
fifty years, possibly one hundred and fifty years and
so on. The questions in our two countries are very important
but the end process of legislation is but the tip of
a very large iceberg of debate and consultation. I would
counsel caution simply to see legislation on the one
hand and all the other things that the political process
gets up to on the other.
MS McALLISTER: You said there was now more awareness
of the need not to rush into this.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes.
MR PRICE: Can you give us any examples of where you
think people consider a piece of legislation was ill
considered or not sufficiently scrutinised, why is that
feeling there?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well I think it has to do more with
the sheer amount of legislation which squeezes out other
things. It is a bit like, you know, the late unlamented
Dangerous Dogs Act. We don’t have that many UK
examples but there is not that amount of really bad
legislation. There was the issue over the Wild Mammals
Bill, hunting of foxes to you and me, in Scotland which
was driven through the Parliament pretty easily in that
respect with a lot of noise and fury but it was passed.
Now it’s a moot point as to whether that piece
of legislation is workable and there was a lot of criticism
of the Private Member who later became a Minister, Mike
Watson, in terms of the workability of that and I mean
if you look at the Rural Affairs Committee across the
board they were quite critical of the viability of that
piece of legislation and I suspect that is certainly
one that has land mines in it, which has the potential
to create problems in the future but it clearly was
driven by political will. Whether it is a reasonable
piece of legislation - talk to lawyers- I have my doubts
in terms of its viability in certain areas and that
would be one. There are others too, for example Private
Members Bill in Scotland comes to mind, a bizarre Scottish
thing, the abolition of poindings and warrant sales,
which probably doesn’t mean a lot to you but warrant
sales do. It is the sequestering of people’s assets
as a result of the non-paying of bills and this was
also a Private Members Bill from one of the more radical
Members of the Scottish Parliament with Back Bench support
from the Government, or from Government Members. Now,
it’s a moot point again, whether that is a particularly
useful thing or whether it has more symbolic than practical
value in terms of effecting the aim of that piece of
legislation which is not to sequester people’s
assets which don’t amount to much. So there are
one or two areas but none, I think with the exception
of the Rural Mammals Bill, there is not a huge amount
of bad legislation on the statute book.
MR PRICE: You mentioned a moment ago about criticism
having moved to the policies of the Government and the
Executive and the Parliament. To what extent can one
sum up the debate amongst the public and indeed the
media in Scotland as having entirely moved from the
structure and systems of Government to a debate about
the policies and the different potential views that
people hold.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Okay. At one level it is impossible
to dis-aggregate those. We follow very closely public
opinion which appears to have fallen quite significantly
from the very heady days of 1997, 1999 and people say
well, it has all been a disaster and there is a building
down the road and when are we going to get into it -
at least we have a building down the road. January 2004
is now, according to yesterday’s meeting, the likely
date, so it is very difficult for people to disaggregate
the institutional arrangements from actually what it
does. Nevertheless, it is also the case that from public
opinion even although there have been disappointed expectations
in particular areas, and people are critical of the
Parliament as an institution and whether they make a
distinction between the Parliament and the Executive
is a moot point. I am not sure people do; it is a political
system and whatever label you stick on it, whether it
is Parliament, Executive is not meaningful as a word.
One of the things the CSG Review I think will recommend
is finding a more suitable word. It was used because
the Westminster Government didn’t want to use the
‘G’ word which was Government, so there are
all these kind of words that rattle around. It is difficult
in that respect to square the perceived disappointment
in what has been achieved so far with the very clear
evidence that not only are people happy with the devolution
settlement as a settlement but also want the Scottish
Parliament to have more power. 75% of people in Scotland
consistently and it has actually grown, want the Scottish
Parliament to have more power of a diffuse nature. Now
if the whole thing was going pear shaped, and they thought
it was a bad idea, not only would you see a rise in
the people who wish to abolish the Parliament, which
you don’t, less than 10 per cent of people in Scotland
think the whole thing should never happen and wished
it would go away, but actually there has been a significant
increase in people who believe the Parliament should
have more powers because its perceived limitations have
to do with the constraints over what it can do. Now
many of these are diffuse but they also relate to things
like economic development and education and social security
and so on but surveys are limited in this respect, you
cannot ask people detailed aspects of legislation in
a survey. It is not very meaningful but there is a consistent
demand for the Scottish Parliament to have more power
so has somebody once said, it is process rather than
event. There is a kind of commitment to, yet a highly
critical view of the new system but also a desire that
it has more powers, more responsibilities in the settlement.
MR PRICE: One of the ways in which people have presented
to them different policy alternatives is the major debates
in plenary, but if we move behind the plenary debate
most of the decisions in Committee appear to be taken
by consensus. Is there, as in Wales, rather a sharp
difference between the consensus spirit in Committees
and the public presentation of conflict in the plenary
- and to what extent is the difference in Wales due
to the fact that Ministers are part of the Committees
and in Scotland they are outside the Committee, merely
coming and giving evidence - an irrelevance.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Okay, good questions. I think that
the Committees operate by consensus. There are instances
where Committees divide but often I think those are
Committees which are not working terribly well anyway
in terms of the personalities involves and so on. I
mean, because of the electoral process, the ruling coalition
will be a minority anyway on the Committee, and most
of the Committees, particularly the high profile Committees
like Education, Life Long Learning, Economic Development
and so on will operate by consensus and that in large
part reflects the degree of consensus in Scotland anyway.
Even I suspect the Conservative Party is part of that
consensus and the left fringes of it are not, but essentially
there is a very high degree of consensus in Scotland
anyway because of a whole slew of matters, and it would
be very unusual if the Committees didn’t reflect
that. There is no single answer. In general I think
we live in a political world in which you know there
are no big major divides in political parties any more
which perhaps explains why political parties create
much sound and fury signifying not a lot in terms of
the actual divide when the really major differences
between them are quite small. They have got to find
something to argue about, sometimes something abstract.
The Plenaries and First Minister’s Question Time
is deemed not to work terribly well. Certainly the qualitative
studies that various people have done for Parliament
and elsewhere implies that people don’t find that
sort of shouting at each other terribly helpful or at
least in giving an account of the Parliament that is
often the thing that they point to as being pretty useless
and fruitless. It will be interesting in the Consultative
Steering Group Review document when it comes out, hopefully
next month, to look at ways in which more time is given
for Members questions, less of the more confrontational
stuff but who knows, that is theatre, I mean if you
have Plenaries then they are theatre and one has to
judge it as theatre, but it is often what people see.
That is what is on the television and so on but the
rest of it is highly consensual.
MR PRICE: The Ministers in Committee, would you say
that is really quite irrelevant or not?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: I think it is irrelevant, I mean
I think it is irrelevant because they would come and
give evidence. They are not seen as outsiders, they
would come in and to be absolutely honest with you the
turnover has been so great in Scotland actually following
the tragic death of Donald Dewar and the resignation
of Henry McLeish, the First Minister, and we are on
to our third First Minister, and all the re-shuffles
have meant that all sorts of people have bobbed up in
all sorts of Committees at different times. There are
very few people who have been there from the beginning
and that is just a part, an unfortunate fact of life.
Ministers will then appear on Committees, with vast
numbers of Ministers and so on and so on, so I don’t
think it would matter terribly.
MS SUGAR: The next session we are going to have is
with Professor David Bell talking about the free personal
care issue which you mentioned earlier. Can I ask you
a procedural question about how the financial information,
the implications of a piece of legislation are put before
the Parliament?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: You mean, could you be a bit more
precise?
MS SUGAR:: Well - the cost of implementing a piece
of legislation – we understand that in Scotland
you only found out about the Whitehall claw-back late
in the day?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes, absolutely. Well I mean there
is a lot of criticism, free personal care for the elderly
was a very contentious piece of legislation. It is thought
that the Minister for Health at the time was not at
all in favour of it and it was a piece of legislation
driven through particularly by the-then First Minister,
Henry McLeish and one of the difficulties was that it
was not properly costed out. I think that would be very
fair and all sorts of assumptions perhaps naive and
optimistic assumptions were made about the claw-back
possibilities from Westminster but essentially free
personal care for the elderly was a piece of political
legislation. There was quite a lot of debate in Scotland
about whether that was the way to go and indeed over
other issues too, for example tuition fees and all these
sort of things, a lot of fine financial details were
not it seems to me available when the decisions were
made. Perhaps they should have been but in many respects
they were not going to unfold until the implications
of that went through but when the parties in the Parliament
are steering that through, there is a political impetus
to do that, certainly over tuition fees and free personal
care for the elderly.
MS SUGAR: At what stage should that happen, if we were
to recommend primary legislative powers to the Welsh
Assembly, what procedures should be there to make sure
costs are available at an appropriate time?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: They must be there at the earliest
possible stage and on-going. It is up to Members themselves
to uncover as much as they can on that. It is very difficult
to give a definitive answer on that although it is a
good question because of course one can cost these things,
the Scottish executive, small ‘e’ Civil Servants
will provide as much as they can but that itself will
be limited but it does depend very much on the Members,
other Members, critical opposition Members uncovering
all sorts of things. There are some criticisms that
Members, non-Government Members have had difficulty
getting that kind of information from the Civil Servants
and there is a lot of criticism about the Scottish Civil
Service being still relatively unreformed, which is
probably somewhat unkind, but is answerable essentially
to the Executive and not sufficiently to the Parliament
and the Parliament has had to design from scratch its
own information service, which is clearly not as up
to speed and as properly resourced as the Scottish Executive.
MS McALLISTER: A follow on from Peter’s question
about the Committees - you did not mention in your response
although you weren’t asked directly on it, the
investigative role of the Committees in terms of enquiries
and so on. That seems to me quite different to the system
we have in Wales because there is an obligation on the
Executive to respond in some sense to the investigation,
and secondly, I wonder can you tell us something about
the scrutiny role of the Committees in relation to the
Quangos or NDPBs - how effective have the Committees
been in bringing them to account or challenging them
in any way?
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Well the investigative role is very
important but I think it is also tied to resources that
are available. Some of the Committees have been better
at it than others because I suppose they are sharper.
Some of them, for example Education and Life Long Learning
has been very important in terms of uncovering issues
over tuition fees. That has been a very, very strong
proactive Committee. It is aided enormously by having
very able convenors across the parties and also having
the ear of the Minister. That kind of scrutiny and investigation
has been strongest, paradoxically where the links with
the Executive are actually stronger. For example on
tuition fees and on Education policy generally, the
Scottish Executive has its own review and the Parliament
had its own review and although they appear to be in
parallel with each other, there is quite a lot of overlap.
This is a small country, five million people, they keep
taking evidence from the same people, and that works
well and certainly the Committees work because they
are able to do that. Other ones are much weaker, I think,
largely not because of what they are responsible for
but simply because of the dynamic of the Committee.
I think that’s inevitable.
In terms of the scrutiny on Quangos, this is a complaint
that the Committees have not had the kind of power to
investigate and to scrutinise to anything like the same
extent. I suspect that is because, it is my personal
view, these are in many respects the creatures of the
Executive and they have prior histories of devolution
and it is much harder to do that, to investigate that.
There is a ban as it were on growing new Quangos and
the desire to cut them off at their feet and then discovering
of course that you have to re-invent them and a lot
of this is in part a political noise over Quangos and
NDPB’s which would have to do the work anyway.
Clearly they have been opened up and also debates about
Members being from one political persuasion or not and
so on but that is the nature of politics. I don’t
think the scrutiny has been particularly good and I
think it is to do with the power of the small ‘e’
executive, bureaucracy, in managing that, it has been
much harder for the Committees to explore those.
SIR MICHAEL WHEELER BOOTH: You have given us a marvellous
historical base account for Scottish devolution. Given
that Wales has come behind in a way, this Commission
is doing what the Convention did, in a modest way, after
the event. Could you advise us of the things to go for
and the things not to go for when we are sending our
Howitzer bullets so to speak from behind going forward.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: Yes. It’s a good question.
I think, I wouldn’t be specific in terms of policies,
it seems to me to work with rather than against particular
political cultures. The Scottish Parliament was created
as a creature of Scotland in large part because the
political sting was taken out of it and people took
ownership. The people took ownership of the Parliament
and it was not the preserve of any particular political
party. Not to be obsessed with short term political
disputes but to take a long view, I don’t think
we are succeeding in Scotland. I think in part because
of the media that we have and of course that’s
the other thing, I always hear from people in Wales,
well, you know you have a media and we don’t have
and so on, but our media have not been particularly
kind or indeed truthful, particularly the print media
about the nature of the whole process, in part because
we have a very competitive Press system which is desperate
to sell newspapers and you don’t sell newspapers
by saying Parliament doing well, but what a fiasco etc.
etc. I think, it seems to me that Wales has made enormous
strides not only from the late 70’s but even from
1997 and I wouldn’t imply that that is a catch
up at all. Let us use another analogy, the train analogy;
having a Scottish engine to pull things along perhaps
has been quite useful but Wales must, as we say in Scotland,
go its ain gite, go its own way, in terms of developing
its own capacities, its own directions and to have an
institutional legislative system which suits it. There
is no off the peg suit that you can buy in Edinburgh
which will suit Cardiff but I am sure you will evolve
exactly to the kind of things that Wales needs.
THE CHAIRMAN: Well thank you very much indeed. It has
been very useful and thought provoking. Thank you very
much.
PROFESSOR McCRONE: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
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