Starting off on a large majority in comparison to the Welsh Assembly it would be assumed that the Scottish Parliament would be notably more successful. However, there were problems in its implementation from the start. The building itself was claimed to be ‘a ridiculous waste of time and money’ (Glasgow Daily Record), costing around £431 million, which was at least ten times over the estimate. Not only that, but the building has only opened 4 years after construction began, giving little symbolic assurance that devolution would be a success to the Scottish people. The Welsh Assembly however, cost around £40.997 million and ‘compares favourably per square metre and per member than other published data on landmark buildings such as the Scottish Parliament’. Whilst the Welsh Assembly is thought of a building representing Wales on the World stage, the Scottish Parliament is seen as a farce and a waste of money.
One of the successes of the Scottish Parliament has to be that it has proven that coalition governments can be very effective. From the outset it was obvious that neither the liberal democrats or labour could provide a party majority and so a coalition was formed. As there has been little trouble with conflict between the two parties this can be taken as a sign for the future. However, even with the virtues of a coexisting coalition, the main criticism levelled at the Scottish Parliament is that it hasn’t really done enough to make a difference to Scotland and hasn’t reached expectation with the Scottish people. This is shown by the fact that only 76 pieces of legislation have been passed. However, an obvious counter criticism would be the question, would Westminster have done any more than this for Scotland? Unrealistic expectations of the difference between a centre left government in Scotland and also in Westminster are what has possibly been the most important disappointment.
In comparison to this, the Welsh Assembly, despite having limited legislative powers has passed 911 statutory instruments of it’s own. This is a big difference from the measly 76 from Scotland. However, due to the nature of the Assembly, the legislative passed does not give the most radical changes, such as the reintroduction of free milk for schools, although the Welsh people see it as reinforcing that the Assembly does work and does provide with changes, however small. This is important when you consider that only about a quarter of Welsh people were in favour of the Assembly to begin with.
Where the media were seen to gradually portray the Welsh Assembly as a limited yet effective force, the Scottish Parliament, who was more actively involved in the media, was seen to be a failed experiment. Every small failing was blown out of proportion, University Fee’s was recorded as being a bigger disagreement than it was leading to distrust from the Scottish people. The Welsh Assembly, attracting little media attention was given a more positive spin from the press.
Both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly suffered from leadership problems. In the Parliament, Dewar, who was elected first minister, tragically died after a year. He was replaced by McLeish who resigned after a year after a scandal about sub-letting his constituency office. McConnel became the third first minister in just over two years to the parliament and so far appears settled in the post. A changeover of this kind is never good for a parliament as it leads to unrest and distrust even if this cannot be blamed on the parliament itself. Similarly, the Welsh Assembly has had a lot of hassle over leadership problems. Alun Michael was chosen specifically by Tony Blair to be first secretary of the Welsh Assembly, arguably because it would assure him greater control over the Assembly. Michael however, did not make it onto the shortlist and only became a first minister after being added at the top of the regional list. After his first year he lost a vote of no confidence and Rodhri Morgan, a more unconventional candidate became a decidedly more popular first minister.
The aim of the Welsh Assembly was never as ambitious as the aims of the Scottish Parliament and it may be because of this that the Welsh Assembly compares arguably better than the bigger Scottish Parliament. It is important to note that the Welsh people do not want to be politically independent of Westminster, a proportion of the Welsh people did not originally believe that an Assembly for Wales was necessary as they did not believe that the Welsh people in charge would be competent enough to run it. Similar to this, the English speaking Welsh did not want an Assembly, as they believed it would empower and allow domination from the Welsh-speaking people. The Assembly has indeed passionately supported the Welsh language and produced all material in Welsh and English, furthermore uniting the language barrier. Because of this, any steps that the Assembly has made to make Wales a better place and unite the populace is labelled as a success, as devolution was not really wanted in the first place. The Welsh Assembly recently came into criticism involving the state of the NHS in Wales. There are now calls for tough sanctions to be put in place and blame to be levelled at the lenient approach of the Welsh Assembly. If this sort of thing were to happen to the Scottish Parliament, that affected such a large proportion of the electorate, there would undoubtedly be a huge backlash. But because of the limitation of powers of the Assembly and the expectation of not particularly influential legislation being passed, the Welsh Assembly is not open to blame in the same way that the Scottish Parliament is. However, this is not altogether true as the Welsh Assembly was acclaimed by the EU over a campaign to lessen the amount of teenagers that smoke; and to argue that the Assembly can come in to praise from bigger establishments makes it just as likely to come into blame from them as well.
In conclusion, I think that the point has become clear throughout the assessment of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, that both establishments have had failures and successes of their own. However, it can be argued to some extent that the Scottish Parliament has been labelled a political disappointments whilst the Welsh Assembly is seen to have exceeded expectations due to the feelings from both of the country towards devolution; and how that establishment has performed since then. The Welsh Assembly began with very little support and the Welsh people were pleasantly surprised when it started passing a great amount of legislation, whereas there was an outcry for Scottish devolution and although legislation was passed, it wasn’t in the leagues and to the effect that it was expected to be. Due to this I think that I agree with the initial statement, even though both establishments had a lot of problems through both leadership and failings in the first few years. I think that the Scottish Parliament simply needs more time to assert itself as an effective devolved institution, then it will be more obvious to people of the actual limits of the Welsh Assembly.
