Over the last fourteen years, Holyrood magazine has given readers a front-row seat for Scotland’s greatest political moments.
Landmark legislation, careers created and crushed – all reported alongside the latest domestic news.
Flicking through the first edition, it is striking not only how much we politicians have matured over the intervening years but, much more agreeably, how much Scotland’s democracy is maturing and improving with age.
The last 14 years have been a remarkable and positive period in our country’s history. Writing for the first edition before Scotland went to the polls in May 1999, a youthful Brian Taylor described the “defining moments” in the election campaign. Since then this magazine has reported every defining moment as the reconvened Parliament used its current powers to improve lives across Scotland.
Police and justice reforms have helped to cut crime and reoffending, with my own administration’s delivery of 1,000 extra police officers helping ensure that crime has now fallen to a near 40-year low. We have begun to tackle Scotland’s longstanding public health problems through the public smoking ban and legislation for alcohol minimum pricing.
And throughout the Parliament’s history under successive administrations, we have used our powers for progressive purposes – such as free personal care, pioneering homelessness legislation, an end to tuition fees, and protecting the National Health Service.
All of these policies, whether pursued in the Labour/Lib Dem coalition years of 1999 to 2007 or during the years of SNP Government since then, have reaffirmed and entrenched the concept of a social contract between the people of Scotland and their elected representatives.
But that social contract is under threat as never before. Not because we in the Scottish Government do not remain utterly committed to it, but because our political opponents, whether here in Scotland or at Westminster, seem determined to undermine, attack and ultimately erode the building blocks on which that social contract is founded.
Scotland is not, and never has been, a something for nothing country. We are a something for something society where people rightly expect to receive something in return for the contributions they make.
The first decade and a half of home rule has shown that with a measure of independence on health, on education and on law and order we have done what we can to make Scotland a better place.
We have also shown, even within the limited powers we currently have, that Scotland can play a leading role in the joint international efforts to tackle global problems such as climate change.
Founded on transparency and inclusiveness, and elected proportionately, the Parliament has brought government much closer to the people we are mandated to serve. Two coalition administrations, a minority and now majority government have proved devolution was never an event and always a process.
While devolution took a century to be delivered, the last 14 years have embedded the Scottish Parliament as the focal point of public life and Scottish democracy. Devolution might have been born to let Scotland find peace with herself, but much of what was held up as a problem needing a solution in 1999 stays that way – a problem that requires a solution.
The democratic deficit which existed before 1999, and which was so compelling in persuading the people of Scotland to vote overwhelmingly for the restoration of our national Parliament, still exists today.
A simple glance at how policies affecting Scotland are imposed against the will of this nation’s elected representatives shows how deeply that democratic deficit still runs.
A majority of MSPs and of Scotland’s Westminster representatives have made clear they oppose the renewal of Trident, but the UK Government is pressing ahead with the basing of a new generation of weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde.
Similarly, the draconian Westminster welfare cuts such as the ‘bedroom tax’ are being pushed through despite around 90 per cent of Scottish MPs voting against these measures.
It is worth remembering that in 1999 comparatively few additional powers were granted to the Parliament in Scotland that had not previously been devolved to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The shift from administrative to legislative devolution was, of course, momentous in itself.
But it still left Scotland with fewer powers than the German Länder, most American states, parts of Spain such as the Basque Country or Catalonia, or, within these islands, the Isle of Man.
After 14 years of limited home rule, our nation is reflecting on how we can meet the challenges ahead. The momentum and direction of the people of Scotland is unmistakable. While there are different visions of Scotland’s constitutional future, the ongoing discussions and debate must focus on what is best for the people of Scotland.
For example, let us consider what we could do with full control of our own economy and natural resources, of international representation and of security.
We know that last year Scotland stood £4.4 billion better offthan the rest of the UK – that is more than £800 for every man, woman and child in the country. But we don’t have the ability to invest or save that money to the benefit of our future generations.
On international representation, why would we wish to be represented by the sceptics of Europe when we could be influential and respected?
On defence, why would this nation of five million people elect to waste billions on weapons of mass destruction, when we still have thousands waiting for a decent home and a life chance?
This magazine recently broke the story which revealed, through the interview with former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, the extent to which the Westminster establishment went to in the 1970s to conceal Scotland’s economic potential as an independent nation.
Revelations like this are important in the debate on our nation’s future because they mean that the people of Scotland will not be fooled by the current scare stories which abound from the No campaign and which are increasingly crumbling away. Westminster tried to say an independent Scotland would not have a triple-A credit rating until their own was stripped away, and also tried to question our future in Europe until it became clear that the biggest threat to Scotland’s future in the EU comes from Westminster’s own in-out referendum.
Scotland has vast potential as an independent nation, and the prospect of independence is doing nothing to deter foreign investment – indeed, it appears to be attracting it as the recent report from Ernst & Young noticed.
The choice facing the people of Scotland in September next year is one of two futures: a No vote means a future of governments we didn’t vote for imposing cuts and policies we don’t support. A Yes vote means a future where we can be absolutely certain, one hundred per cent certain, that the people of Scotland will get the government they vote for.
Figures published by the United Nations in 2009 showed that out of all the world’s most developed nations, income inequality in the UK was among the highest.
This Parliament can and will continue to take decisions to try and mitigate the very worst of the ill-thought-out Westminster policies which are perpetuating and deepening that inequality. But the key word is mitigate. Until we have the full powers of independence, we cannot prevent them from being foisted on the people of Scotland.
The choice becomes clearer with each passing day – the opportunity to use our vast resources and talent to build a better country, or to continue with a Westminster system that simply isn’t working for Scotland.
It is worth reflecting just on the opportunity Ben Curtis/PA Archive/Press Association Images that this nation and this generation will have – nothing less than choosing the future course of our country, in a democratic referendum made here in Scotland.
Scotland has been on a home-rule journey for more than a century now. And from 1999 – since the restoration of our Parliament – this magazine has reported the growing confidence and increase in democratic accountability.
As I said in that first edition of this magazine back in May 1999, the core belief of the SNP is to make a better society. We do not believe in constitutional growth for its sake alone, but because it will bring responsibility and the opportunity to improve our health system, our schools and our housing.
That remains true, which is why I believe that on September 18th next year the people of Scotland will vote Yes to create a better country than we have today – one we can pass on with pride to the next generation.
And I look forward to reading about that next great chapter in Scotland’s story in the pages of Holyrood magazine.
