The first devolved Scottish Parliament sat for the first time in May 1999 with Labour and the Liberal Democrats forming a coalition. The new Parliament building at Holyrood opened in October 2004.
2. The Scottish Parliament and Executive P.4
Although Scotland has its own parliament it is not an independent nation. It is not a sovereign nation with control over its own borders and the protection of those borders. Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. Like Westminster, all bills passed b the Scottish Parliament have to receive the Royal Assent by the monarch before they can become law.
Devolved and Reserved Powers
There are areas over decisions making that have remained at Westminster, these are called reserved powers. The powers which have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood are called devolved powers.
The devolved powers are:
Health Education
Local government Social Work
Housing Planning
Tourism Economic Development
Some transport Courts and legal system
Police and fire services Environment
Natural and built heritage Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Sport and the arts Public registers and records
Reserved powers are:
Constitutional matters UK foreign policy
Defence National security
Common markets Trade and industry
Some transport Employment law
Social security Gambling and National lottery
Data protection Abortion
Equal opportunities Broadcasting
Guns and weapons Drug laws
Energy-coal, oil, gas. Elections
Due to the devolved and reserved powers, this has led to disagreement among some about the effectiveness of the Scottish Parliament.
An example of this was the Dungavel detention centre. In the 2003, opposition MSPs attempted to have the detention centre in Dungavel, South Lanarkshire, closed down. They
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claimed the treatment of the asylum seekers was inhumane. However, immigrations a reserved power and although the centre is in Scotland it was out with the control of the Scottish Government.(Grayson,2010).
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament receives its money from Westminster. The Scottish parliament has the power to vary tax by up to 3p in the pound but has yet to do so. Scotlands budget is determined by the ‘Barnett Formula’. In 2008 the average public spend per head under the formula was £9,631 for Scotland.(Scottish Parliament,2012).
The Scottish Parliament votes on bills and passes laws on devolved issues. It also scrutinises the work of the Scottish Executive. The relationship between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive is similar to the relationship between the UK Government and the UK Parliament at Westminster.
Scottish Executive
In practice the Scottish Executive members are chosen from the party or parties holding most seats in the Parliament. The Scottish Executive is in essence the Scottish Cabinet. It is made up of the First Minister, who appoints a ministerial team and decides their responsibilities. The Scottish Law officers of the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General are the Law Officers. They advise the Executive on legal matters. The Law Officers do not need to be MSPs.
3. Impact of Devolution in Scotland P.6
Devolution has had a significant impact in Scotland. When Scotland was given its own parliament and Donald Dewar became First Minister of Scotland in his statement on the legislative programme for the Executive he made the statement of ’’Scottish solutions for Scottish problems’’(bbcnews,1999). This statement paved the way for how the Scottish Parliament would go about its business and what it set out to achieve.
Due to the deliberate way that the Scottish Parliament voting system was set up, it brought about more influence for the smaller parties. This condition of devolution has had a great impact in Scotland.
An example of this is when the Labour government in Westminster introduced tuition fees in 1998, the Scottish Government introduced legislation to abolish tuition fees for higher education in Scotland making it free for all full-time Scottish students. But the decision to introduce this legislation in the Scottish Parliament was heavily down to the Liberal democrats, who were in a coalition government in Scotland with Labour. This is were the impact of devolution comes in because firstly if Scottish devolution never ascertained the power over education from Westminster then the Scottish Parliament would have not been able to bring in the law to abolish tuition fees. Secondly because of the deliberate way the voting system was set up it meant that Labour had to go into coalition with a smaller party, the Liberal Democrats. It was pressure from the Liberal Democrats to abolish tuition fees and Labour had to concede to it in order to maintain a governing majority in the Scottish Parliament.
This piece of legislation different from Westminster has had a major impact on the lives of Scottish people because it gives a greater number of people the chance to go to University who other wise could not afford to do so without incurring substation debt.
4. The Scottish parliamentary electoral system P.7
How are MSPs elected ?
Each person in Scotland is represented by one constituency MSP. All MSPs have equal status in the Scottish Parliament.
The voting system used is known as the Additional Member System(AMS) and is a type of proportional representation.
At a Scottish Parliament election each voter has two votes.
With one vote, people choose between candidates standing in their constituency. The candidate winning the largest number of votes will gain the seat. There are a total of 73 MSPs elected this way. This method of voting is known as the first-past-the-post system(FPTP),which is solely used for the U.K elections to Westminster.
The other vote is for a political party, or for a candidate standing as an individual, within a larger electoral area called a Scottish Parliament region. There are eight Scottish Parliament regions. Each region has seven seats in the Parliament. In each region, parties are allocated seats dependant upon the number of constituency seats they won and the number of votes they received in the regional ballot, so if a party has won two seats in the constituency but in proportion to its votes should have five, the top three candidates on its regional list are elected in addition. The members chosen to fill these additional 56 seats are known as regional members. This method of voting is the proportional representation part.
This system was designed so that it would be improbable for a party to have a majority in Parliament, thus making the parties have to work together or form coalitions in order to pass legislation.
Impact of proportional representation on the Scottish political system
The disadvantages of this system is the list representatives are not directly accountable to any of the electorate, just to their party and they also have no constituency. Also when minority or coalition governments are formed it can give disproportionate power to smaller parties especially over more popular non-coalition members.
The advantages of this system is it encourages coalition or minority governments. This encourages a less confrontational form of politics because of the need for parties to
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co-operate, also known as consensus politics, however in the 2011 election the SNP did win an outright majority. This also means that there are fewer dramatic changes in policies as the parties tend to keep a balanced 'middle way'. Also under AMS in, regions are multi-party. This means that several different parties can be represented which gives voters a choice of MSPs to talk to over issues.
From appendix 1 it is clear that parties such as the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party and the Scottish Green party heavily depend on the additional member system in order to gain seats at Parliament. For the Scottish Labour party in the 1999,2003 and 2007 elections they won most of their seats in the constituency vote, however this changed in 2011 were they relied upon the additional member system for most of their seats. Is has been the opposite path for the Scottish National Party who having relied upon the additional member system for most of their seats, in 2011 gained 53 out of their 69 seats from the constituency vote winning them an outright majority in Parliament, the first majority by one party since the inception of devolution back in 1999.
5. Concepts relating to Scotland’s constitutional position P.9
In the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, the SNP won an outright majority. This gives them a mandate to push forward with their ultimate political goal of securing independence for Scotland. The SNP plan to hold a referendum on independence for Scotland in 2014, this has brought around debate on unionism , devolution and an independent Scotland.
Unionism
The SNP are the only major party looking to break away from the union of the United Kingdom. With constitutional matters been a reserved power at Westminster negotiations have to take place first between the Scottish Executive and the UK Government in order to make sure that any referendum is legal to begin with. As under the Scotland Act 1998, in section 29 it clearly implies that sovereignty remains with the U.K Government in Westminster.
Devolution
When devolution was introduced back in 1998 and the new Scottish Parliament was created in 1999 in order to find solutions to Scottish problems. Some political commentators seen this as the first step for Scotland to have its own constitution. The effectiveness of devolution has been called into question many times, regarding the Scottish Parliament not having enough legislative powers to deal with the issues facing Scotland. The Calman report set up in 2007 to review Scottish devolution a decade on from its inception reported that Scotland should have devolution max, which effectively gives more power to the Scottish Parliament but with some retained by Westminster but crucially not promoting the break up of the Union.
Independence
The forthcoming independence referendum will ultimately decide Scotland’s position within the U.K constitution. Currently the Scottish Parliament is not sovereign in Scotland. So with many nationalists sentiment they ardently believe that Parliament or the people of Scotland should be sovereign. The debate will continue right up to the referendum on whether it is better for Scotland to remain in the U.K constitution or whether it should have its own constitution.
References and Bibliography P.10
BBC news,(1999). UK Politics Donald Dewar’s speech, [online]. BBC news, Available from: [February 2012].
Devine, T.M., (2008) The Scottish Nation 1700-2007, London: Penguin Books.
Grayson, R., (2010) British Politics, Oxford: Oneworld.
The Scottish Parliament, (2012). The Scottish Parliament, [online]. Available from: [February 2012].
