Deciding Scotland’s future

Ten years on from devolution and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament, it is entirely fitting that discussion of the arrangements by which Scotland is governed should again be high on the agenda.

The Scottish Government’s National Conversation continues to engage with thousands of people across Scotland in discussing the future of our nation. A white paper on its findings and the case for independence will be published on St Andrew’s Day with a referendum planned for 2010. Meanwhile, the Calman Commission has reported ahead of schedule with a number of recommendations for changes to the devolution framework.

The Calman Commission’s report contains some proposals that people of all political persuasions can surely get behind. Devolving air gun legislation to Holyrood will allow the Scottish Government to address a problem that the UK Government has thus far failed to tackle. Similarly, devolving control of drink-driving limits would allow legislation to be tightened in Scotland in order to make our roads safer and save numerous lives every year.

Yet the most prominent recommendation that the Calman Commission has made is for a new system of financing the Scottish Government and sadly it is one that can only be regarded as a missed opportunity.

The report recommends a system of devolving the control of certain taxes generated in Scotland to the Scottish budget, lowering the income tax collected by the UK Government by 10 pence in the pound and then setting a Scottish income tax that would go directly into the Scottish budget. The block grant that makes up the Scottish budget would be lowered by £6 billion to reflect these changes.

Unfortunately, the recommendations expose the Scottish budget to the uncertainty of fluctuations in how much tax is generated without the financial levers to fully affect economic policy. The income tax being proposed would be a flat rate across all the tax bands with no opportunity to make it progressive or alter the banding thresholds. The proposals have been branded as ‘seriously flawed (if not illiterate)’ by one of the financial experts involved in the Commission, Professor Andrew Hughes Hallet, demonstrating the level of disquiet they have caused amongst experts. With the Scottish Government only gaining the power to borrow for capital projects rather than short term revenue shortfalls under Calman’s recommendations, the inevitable result of income tax takes falling – as they currently are – would be for schools and hospitals to close.

Scotland certainly needs more responsibility for generating the money that is spent here, but the proposals the Calman Commission have made are the worst of both worlds. What is needed for Scotland is full fiscal autonomy, something that only the SNP will deliver through independence.

Ultimately the decision on whether to adopt the Calman Commission’s recommendations or not, or indeed to move towards the status of a normal independent country, must be ones taken by ordinary people not politicians. The referendums on whether the Scottish Parliament should be reconvened and whether it should have limited tax varying powers firmly established the principle that it is for the people of Scotland to decide their constitutional arrangements.

There can be no question of making the kind of changes that Calman recommends without giving people in Scotland their chance to have a say in another referendum. The SNP Government is determined to put the decision on our preferred option of independence in the hands of ordinary people through a referendum. If the unionist parties believe in the strength of the recommendations made by the Calman Commission, they must be prepared to do the same.

Building for Scotland’s future

For many years Scotland’s housing situation grew steadily worse as more and more people found themselves unable to get access to council housing or move onto the property ladder. Shortages in council housing got worse year after year as more homes were purchased and taken out of the system without replacements being built. In the last four years of the previous administration, just 6 council houses were built – none of them on mainland Scotland.

Significant numbers of Banff & Buchan residents and people across Scotland have faced problems with the waiting lists for council housing; problems exacerbated by the previous administration’s unwillingness to address the shortages in housing availability. Now with the SNP Government, that situation is beginning to change for the better. In our first year in Government, work on more public sector homes was started than at any time since the early 1990s and we have done even more since then.

In order to kick-start construction of a new generation of council housing, the Scottish Government is investing £50 million in the sector, the most spent in 30 years. As well as enabling the construction of new council housing across Scotland, this money will also help to support around 3,000 jobs in the construction industry at a time when such investment is needed most.

This money for new council housing comes as part of a record £1.5 billion over three years invested in Scotland’s affordable housing sector by the SNP Government. Of that, £644 million has been provided for housing association investment this year alone, a record high that will play an important part in our economic recovery during the current downturn. Thanks to this investment, an unprecedented 8,100 affordable homes will be approved for construction across Scotland this year.

As well as investing such significant amounts of money, it is also imperative that needed reforms to right to buy legislation are carried out. Local authorities will not be motivated to build new homes if they fear that they will be taken out of the market at a loss to them. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on much needed reforms that could potentially retain between 10,000 and 18,000 homes for low cost rent that would otherwise be lost through right to buy legislation. With the right changes to the current framework, we can see the improvements to council house provision that Scotland so desperately needs.

Brown must back down on Royal Mail privatisation

It will not be news to anybody that Gordon Brown is continuing to have a disastrous few weeks as he lurches from one crisis to the next. Yet he has it in his power to avoid the next damaging blow by dropping his poorly thought out plans to privatise part of the Royal Mail.

The universal service obligation that ensures daily postal deliveries across the country is vital to people in rural communities, like parts of Banff & Buchan, and it is intolerable that it should potentially be put at threat for the sake of the Prime Minister’s pride. It is no surprise that the Conservatives are intent on doing further damage to Scotland’s communities in their fanaticism for privatisation, but the fact that Gordon Brown seems likely to be reliant on their support to get his changes through should tell him how ill-judged they truly are.

The service the Royal Mail provides is too important to be taken out of public hands and it is essential that Gordon Brown realises this and backs down before he causes irreparable damage.