Scottish Parliament
The
Scottish Parliament (
Pàrlamaid na h-Alba in
Gaelic,
Scots Pairlament in
Scots) is the national
unicameral legislature of
Scotland, in the capital
Edinburgh. The original
Parliament of Scotland (or 'Estates of Scotland') merged in
1707 with the
Parliament of England, through the
Act of Union, to form the
Parliament of Great Britain. The current
parliament was established by the
Scotland Act 1998. The first meeting of the new parliament as a
devolved legislature was on
12 May 1999.
Constitution and powers
The modern Scottish Parliament was created to deal with matters that have been devolved to it by the
UK Parliament. The devolved matters over which it has responsibility include
education,
health,
agriculture and
justice. A degree of domestic authority, and all foreign policy, remains at present with the UK Parliament in
Westminster. The Scottish Parliament has the power to pass laws and has limited tax-varying capability. Another of its roles is to hold the
Scottish Executive to account.
The public take part in Parliament in two ways that are not the case at Westminster: a public
petitioning system, and
cross-party groups on policy topics which the interested public join and attend meetings of alongside MSPs.
Legislative Powers of the Scottish Parliament
*Devolved matters: all subjects which are not explicitly stated in the Scotland Act as
reserved matters are automatically devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Most importantly, this includes agriculture, fisheries and forestry,
economic development, education, environment, food standards, health, home affairs,
Scots law -
courts, police and fire services,
local government,
sport and the arts,
transport, training,
tourism, research and statistics and social work. The Scottish Parliament has the ability to alter
income tax in Scotland by up to 3 pence in the pound.
*Reserved matters: subjects that are reserved to and dealt with at Westminster (and where Ministerial functions usually lie with UK Government ministers). These include
abortion, broadcasting policy,
civil service, common markets for UK goods and services,
constitution, electricity, coal,
oil, gas, nuclear energy,
defence and national security, drug policy, employment, foreign policy and relations with
Europe, most aspects of transport safety and regulation,
National Lottery, protection of borders,
social security and stability of UK's fiscal, economic and monetary system.
Current members
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The Scottish Parliament's logo in English and Gaelic. |
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Enric Miralles' Scottish Parliament complex in Holyrood Park during construction. The building was completed in 2004. Above and behind the new parliament is the neoclassical Royal High School, which was prepared for a previous devolved Scottish parliament, but never used. |
There are currently 129
Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The current (
2005) state of the parties is as follows (1999 seat totals are given in italics):
The
Independent MSPs are
Dennis Canavan (Falkirk West),
Margo MacDonald (Lothians), Dr.
Jean Turner (Strathkelvin and Bearsden),
Campbell Martin (West of Scotland), and
Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife). These Independent MSPs, plus the sole representative of the
Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party, form a party group in the Parliament and so are entitled to propose items of debate for their few debating slots and to sit on the
Parliamentary Bureau, which selects business and is made up of the party whips plus the
Presiding Officer.
Voting system
Elections for the Scottish Parliament were the first in the United Kingdom to use the
additional member system (AMS), which is a method of
proportional representation (PR). (Various other forms of PR had been used already, however, in
European Parliament elections, and in
Northern Ireland for local council elections and
Northern Ireland Assembly elections.)
Of the 129 MSPs, 73 are elected to represent
first past the post constituencies, whilst the remaining 56 are elected by the additional member system. These 56 are elected in eight different
electoral regions, of which constituencies are sub-divisions.
Each region returns seven additional member MSPs. The eight regions are:
Highlands and Islands;
North East Scotland;
Mid Scotland and Fife;
West of Scotland;
Glasgow;
Central Scotland;
South of Scotland; and
Lothians.
One MSP is elected by the other MSPs to be
Presiding Officer, the
speaker. The current Presiding Officer is the
Rt Hon George Reid.
The Parliament also elects a
First Minister, who heads the
Scottish Executive. In theory the Parliament also elects the members of the Executive, but in practice it is the First Minister who chooses them. The current First Minister is
Jack McConnell of the Labour Party.
Building
Since September
2004 the official home of the Scottish Parliament has been a new
Scottish Parliament Building, in the
Holyrood area of Edinburgh, designed by
Catalan architect
Enric Miralles with leaf-shaped buildings and a grass-roofed branch merging into adjacent parkland,
Gabion walls formed from the stones of previous buildings, and many repeated motifs such as shapes based on
Raeburn's Skating Minister, stepped gables, and the upturned boat skylights of the Garden Lobby. The
Queen opened the new building on
9 October 2004.
Whilst the building was being constructed the Parliament's temporary home was the
General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. Official photographs and TV interviews were often held in the courtyard adjoining the Parliament, which is part of the
School of Divinity of the
University of Edinburgh. This building was vacated twice to allow for the meeting of the Church's
General Assembly. The Parliament was temporarily relocated to the former
Strathclyde Regional Council debating chamber in Glasgow in May 2000 and to the
University of Aberdeen in May 2002.
In
March 2006, one of the Holyrood building's roof beams slipped out of its support and was left dangling above the
Conservative and Unionist back benches during a debate. The debating chamber was subsequently closed, and MSPs moved to
The Hub for one week, while inspections were carried out. During repairs, all chamber business was conducted in the Parliament's committee room two.
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Scottish Parliament, window detail |
Prior to the
Act of Union 1707, Scotland was an
independent state with a legislature known as the
Three Estates. Initial Scottish proposals in the negotiation over the Union suggested a devolved Parliament be retained in Scotland but this was not accepted by the
English negotiators.
For the next three hundred years the Scottish Parliament remained an important element in
Scottish national identity, and suggestions for a 'devolved' parliament were made before
1911. The discovery of
oil in the
North Sea in the late
1960s caused an increase in support for
Scottish independence. The
Scottish National Party argued that the funds from this oil were not benefiting Scotland as much as they should.
The
1979 Scotland referendum to establish a devolved Scottish Assembly failed. Although a majority of those who voted voted for the Assembly, the referendum failed to reach the 40% of the total electorate threshold deemed necessary to pass the measure. Throughout the
1980s and
1990s demands for a Scottish Parliament grew, in part because the government of the
United Kingdom was controlled by the
Conservative Party while Scotland itself elected very few
Tory MPs. Devolution became part of the platform of the
Labour Party which, in May 1997, took power under
Tony Blair.
In September
1997 a
referendum of the Scottish electorate secured a large majority in favour of the establishment of a new devolved Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers in Edinburgh. An election was held in May
1999, and on
1 July 1999 power was transferred from Westminster to the new Parliament in its temporary home in the
Church of Scotland's General Assembly Hall on the
Royal Mile in
Edinburgh.
Debate over historical connection
At the first meeting of the parliament on
12 May 1999,
Winnie Ewing (the
Mother of Parliament or "Oldest Qualified Member" as she was described in the Official Report of debates) declared that "the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on 25 March 1707, is hereby reconvened."
Critics of this view argue that the old Parliament of Scotland remains merged in the
Parliament of the United Kingdom, because the United Kingdom parliament continues to represent constituencies in Scotland, and Scotland remains subject, ultimately, to a
government responsible to the United Kingdom parliament. The new Scottish parliament has adapted and adopted, however, some of the ceremonial traditions of the old parliament, including the
Riding of Parliament.
The Parliament has been criticised for various reasons, both pragmatic and ideological. Since
1999, the death in office of
Donald Dewar, Scotland's first First Minister, and the resignation, brought on by an
office expenses scandal, of his successor
Henry McLeish, have meant that the first years of the parliament have not been easy.
The escalating costs of the construction of the new parliament building led to widespread criticism. Popular arguments against the parliament before the UK general election of
1997, levelled mainly by the
Conservative and Unionist Party, were that the Parliament would create a "slippery slope" to
Scottish independence, and provide the pro-independence Scottish National Party with a route to power.
John Major, the Tory prime minister before May
1997, famously claimed the parliament would end "1000 years of
British history", although the political entity of the
Kingdom of Great Britain was still less than 300 years old at the time. The equally
pro-Union Labour Party met these criticisms by claiming that devolution would fatally undermine the
SNP, and remedy the long-felt desire of Scots for a measure of
self-government.
Perhaps the main criticism of the parliament is that it has not changed Scotland enough. For many the entire point of devolution was that things could be done differently. Expectations that Scottish government would dramatically change as a new, non-confrontational, politics took hold in
Holyrood have been disappointed, but were arguably based on naïve perceptions of the nature of politics. Adversarial politics are still commonplace after devolution, and frequently overshadow events at Holyrood. Moreover, the electorate has twice chosen a moderate
centre-left (some would claim
centre-right)
Scottish Executive, in voting predominantly for the Labour Party. The acid test in judging the success or failure of the parliament may not be to measure whether it is well-loved by Scots, but whether, given the opportunity, they would vote to abolish it. Polling continues to show that they would overwhelmingly vote to keep it. Regardless, the Scottish Parliament has proved able to act quickly to deal with longstanding issues that repeatedly escaped action at Westminster.
Hunting with dogs was banned (
2002) with hardly any of the controversy seen in
England and
Wales,
feudal land tenure was abolished (
2000) and a far more generous subsidy for
old age care was implemented (2002) than that seen south of the border. In addition, a ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces came into force in March 2006.
Miralles' new Scottish Parliament building opened for business on the
7 September 2004, three years late. The estimated final cost was £431 million. The White Paper in
1997 estimated that a new building would have a net construction cost of £40 million, although this based on the presumption that the old
Royal High School would be used, as had long been assumed. After the devolution referendum it was quickly announced that the high school, which is smaller than many council chambers, was entirely inadequate for the parliament, and negotiations began for a new building on a new site. This led critical media and politicians to claim the final building was "ten times over budget". Miralles' building was in fact costed at £109 million, prior to major increases in space. £431 million for a national parliament might still be argued to be within reason when compared to
Portcullis House - a new parliamentary office block in Westminster - built for use by 200 MPs, which cost £250 million, including £100 million spent on
bronze cladding.
Lord Fraser's Inquiry reported on the
15 September 2004 and identified the choice of the construction management procurement route as the main factor in the fourfold increase in estimated costs establishing that a £270 million value building ended up costing £431 million, an identifiable waste of £181 million. This was portrayed as clearing
Donald Dewar of any blame. The cost of the building remains more controversial than any of the legislation so far passed by the parliament.
*
Politics of Scotland*
List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament from 1999*
Scotland referendum, 1997*
Scottish parliamentary election, 1999*
Scottish parliamentary election, 2003*
Scottish parliamentary election, 2007*
Members of the Scottish Parliament, 1999-2003*
Members of the Scottish Parliament, 2003-2007*
Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office*
Secretary of State for Scotland*
Sewel motion*
West Lothian question*
Official website*
Official website (Gàidhlig version)*
Official website (Scots version)*
Our Scotland - Discuss Scottish Parliamentary Issues. Scottish Politics Forum
*
Scotland Act 1998*
The Scottish Parliament Project,
University of St Andrews*
Holyrood Inquiry homepage*
BBC News explanation of the powers of the Scottish Parliament
