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Bear in mind the distinctive background to devolution north of the border.
Scotland was an independent European state with its own parliament till 1707. Since then it has
been an integral part of the UK with the supremacy of parliament accepted as the paramount constitutional principle. Note the long history of executive devolution, with Scotland having its own administrative department for most domestic matters since 1885 and its Secretary of State with a seat in the UK Cabinet since 1926. There were substantial accretions to the responsibilities of the Scottish Office from the 1950s onwards but growing frustration with being the only separate legal system in Europe without its own legislature, High expectations of executive powers being matched by legislative powers were dashed in the bitterness of the failed devolution scheme in 1979. The election results of the 1980s increasingly failed to reflect the balance of political opinion within Scotland hence the demands for a separate parliament – political/legislative devolution to control the executive administrative machinery already in place. By 1995 the Constitutional Convention had provided a blueprint on how it should be done. BLAIR PROJECT Having failed to deliver devolution in the 1970s, New Labour was firmly committed to delivering next time round. Bear in mind that New Labour came to power in 1997 committed to a wide programme of constitutional reform of which devolution to Scotland and Wales (and later Northern Ireland) was simply a first step. ECHR, FOI, Greater London, RDAs, Electoral Reform, Parliamentary Reform were all part of New Labour’s modernising and empowering agenda. |
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