Background to Devolution

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Background to Devolution

• A potted history

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Why is the history important?1

• Responsibilities of Scottish Parliament resulted
  from those of Scottish Office
• Scottish Office developed in ad hoc fashion. It
  grew much more than anticipated
• Scottish Office introduced to address home-rule
  grievances
• Home rule grievances takes us to nationalism
• How do we explain nationalism?
• This takes us to some discussion of Scotland as a
  stateless nation.

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Why is the history important?2

• Administrative devolution is one justification
  given for political devolution, as is
• Scotland as a stateless nation
• Scottish difference in terms of voting behaviour
  and social attitudes
• The Thatcher experience

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3 Questions to ask yourself

• Why Scotland?
• Why devolution?
• Why along these lines? E.g. why is education
  devolved?

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Scotland as a Stateless Nation

• See Keating (2001)
• Scotland one of the least disputed examples of a
  stateless nation
• Playing England and France off each other
• English side strengthened by Scottish Reformation
  
• Union of 1707

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Scotland as a Stateless Nation

• For England benefit was securing Protestant
  succession in both countries and to stop Scotland
  being used as a base for Jacobite plots and
  French intrigue
• Reason for Scottish agreement? Economic,
  military, religious
• So the UK is a Union state and Scotland can
  leave?
• Precise consistent borders exist (see Jordan,
  2004)

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Integrated but distinctive

• Retention of a number of distinct features
• Presbyterianism
• Legal system (NB public/ private distinction
  need to adapt UK legislation to Scottish
  circumstances)
• Education more open, less specialist, more
  participation?
• Local Government (deriving from early church
  provision)

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Integrated but distinctive

• Kellas the 3 bulwarks of Scottish culture
  (church, law, education) are recognised as
  indestructible
• Keating No forced assimilation with the UK
  suppression of catholic/ clan culture in
  Highlands lessened internal ethnic division

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Nationalism and Home rule

• Initial points
• Pro-home-rule does not necessarily mean
  nationalist
• Types of nationalism ethnic and civic
• Where to begin? AD80? Declaration of Arbroath
  in 1320? 1707? Jacobite risings of 1715 and
  1745?

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Nationalism and Home rule since 1707

• Society of the Friends of the People in the 18th
  century
• Demands for a Scottish Parliament which
  accompanied industrial struggles in the 19th
  century
• A demand for a Scottish Parliament by the
  Chartists in the 1840s
• The formation in 1853 of the National Association
  for the Vindication of Scottish Rights
• Formation of the Scottish Home Rule Association
  in 1886
• Keating general feeling against assimilation by
  professional classes
• In 1934 the National Party of Scotland combined
  with the Scottish Party to form the Scottish
  National Party

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Scottish demands

• Useful not to assume that such movements demanded
  independence
• Eg The NAVSR petitioned for the reintroduction of
  a Scottish figurehead (e.g. Secretary of State)
• Home-rule often presented as a form of devolution
  (and often to support the empire i.e. a high/
  low politics argument)
• Home-rule arguments retreaded as independence
  arguments (Jordan)
• Attitudes of major parties and organisations
  fluctuated

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The effects of Scottish demands? The significance
of the home-rule movement

• Mitchell (2003 5) suggests that the home rule
  movement was not significant as a serious
  political force until after the first world war.
• SNP sporadic success from 1945 emerges as an
  electoral force by late 1960s

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The effects of Scottish demands? Why do levels of
nationalism rise and fall?

• If we associate the rise in nationalism by the
  rise of SNP success, then we can cite the
  following reasons
• Keating - Scots increasingly doubtful of the
  economic benefits of the Union
• Feeling of relative deprivation compared to SE
  England
• Labour could not guarantee full employment
  Conservatives presided over decline of
  manufacturing
• Protest vote
• Independence argument based on exploiting the new
  significance of oil
• Common market?

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Addressing Nationalism

• Why have levels of nationalism been so low?
• Post-Union
• No forced assimilation
• association of Britishness with progressiveness
  and enlightenment
• Scottish culture as parochial (until linked to
  broader European picture)

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Addressing Nationalism

• 2. Imagined communities need print capitalism and
  mass education
• 3. Nationalism as a consequence of the expansion
  of the modern state which impinged on traditional
  modes of self governance
• 4. Factors common to Britain first religion,
  then universal suffrage and class ties
• 5. The post-war welfare state fostered social
  solidarity
• 6. The Scottish Settlement

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The Scottish Settlement

• Most relevant reason for present purposes
• Nationalism addressed with changes to
  administration and parliament
• Feeling of assimilation came to a head with 1870
  Education Act
• The response was incremental rather than radical
  constitutional change
• appointment of a Secretary of State for Scotland
  as a symbolic gesture
• gradual development of a Scottish Office as a
  safeguard against continuing assimilation

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The Scottish Settlement

• Mitchell 2003 - Scottish Office was a response
  to Scottish grievances rather than a desire to
  devise a scheme for administrative efficiency
• Grievances include lack of Cabinet
  representative, little attention to adaptation of
  UK legislation, Scottish MPs outvoted.

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Scottish Office

• The Scottish Office was a symbolic gesture and it
  developed much more than anticipated
• Irony that something set up to address grievance
  and reduce Scottish demands actually provided a
  focal point for Scottish demands
• The settlement set a precedent for addressing
  issues with a demonstrable Scottish element with
  separate administration
• The expansion of the state led to the expansion
  of the Scottish Office

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Current relevance The blurred boundaries
between reserved and devolved issues

• The growth of the Scottish Office depended on
  successfully framing issues as distinctly
  Scottish. Classic Whitehall strategy of growth?
• Similarly, the relevant Whitehall departments had
  an interest in framing the distinctiveness as
  minimal and the expense of alternative
  arrangements significant

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Blurred boundaries

• The result was a messy compromise
• The blurred boundaries which now exist between
  reserved and devolved powers can therefore be
  seen in the Scottish Office days
• Political devolution has largely mirrored
  administrative devolution. In other words, the
  new roles and responsibilities of the Scottish
  Parliament have arisen largely from the piecemeal
  development of the Scottish Office in the 100 or
  so years which preceded devolution.

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Westminster aspects of the Scottish Settlement

• The number of Scotland MPs was increased from 53
  to 60 (of 658) in 1863 and then to 72 (of 670) in
  1885.
• The Scottish Grand Committee developed out of
  dissatisfaction with the way in which legislation
  relating to Scotland was processed in
  Westminster. Followed by Standing Committee in
  1957 and Select Committee 1969

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Break

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Voting Behaviour

• Does this explain calls for devolution?

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• SNP vote
• not particularly high until 1970s
• peaks in October 1974
• SNP vote at expense of Labour (1970) and
  Conservatives (Oct 74)
• Post 1979 referendum fall in support i.e. when
  devolution fairly unlikely

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Did Scotland get government it voted for? Labour
vote successful from 1945-51, 1964-70, 1974-79
and from 2001 1951-64 Conservative voting high
in Scotland This leaves Heath and Thatcher
governments voted Labour got Conservative
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Voting Labour getting Conservative effect is more
marked if we examine seats won.
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The Referendums

• 1979 informs our understanding of 1997
• Grievance at small yes majority but no
  devolution?
• Devolution as unfinished business
• Scottish assembly could have defended Scotland
  from Thatcherism (McCrone and Lewis, 1999 17).

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Why did the 1979 referendum fail?

• Procedural issues as a basis for significant
  Labour opposition (including West Lothian
  Question but also PR, revenue, blurred
  boundaries)
• Initial bill failed
• Labour support for referendum to support 2nd
  attempt
• Amendment for 40 threshold
• Yes campaign fragmented and hampered by
  broadcasting rules. No campaign well organised
• Bad timing Labour unpopularity

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The result

• Just over half (51.6) voted for the Scottish
  Assembly, but with a 63.8 voting turnout, the
  yes vote was well below the 40 threshold.
  Further, as Denver et al (2000 134) suggest,
  even if the threshold did not apply, the 1979
  result would have provided a very problematic
  mandate for change

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Thatcherism

• 1979 referendum followed by long period of
  Thatcherism (NB importance of definition)
• 2 nations strategy?
• Particular approach to economic decline
  (unpopular in Scotland?)
• Free market ideology unpopular in Scotland?
• Personality?
• Treating UK as unitary rather than union state.
  Impinging on established Scottish Office
  territory, leading up to Poll Tax.
• not identifying with the Conservatives is the
  most outstanding feature of those who favour
  constitutional change, even more so than
  identifying with the SNP (Mitchell and Bennie,
  1996 101).

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Why another referendum?

• Rise in Scottishness?
• Problem of Conservative support and Thatcherism
• Labour did not anticipate majority
• Lessons from past referendum for mandate
  (especially for tartan tax) before legislation
• Addresses independence argument on unitary state
  (i.e. what is granted can be taken away)

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Other reasons

• There were fewer problems of backbench Labour MP
  support.
• The fortunes of the yes/ no camps had switched.
  This time the No campaign was lacklustre and
  the Conservative party could not associate too
  closely to another losing campaign following its
  record defeat in 1997 (Denver et al, 2000
  123).
• There were fewer problems of publicity
• While the West Lothian question has never been
  successfully addressed, the Scottish
  Constitutional Convention did lend weight to the
  idea that the plans were more clear (see week 2
  new politics lecture).
• It was good timing and on the back of rising
  Labour popularity.

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The 1997 result
Yes vote 3 to 1. Turnout for 1st vote would have
been enough for 40 total threshold