Scottish Labour Embrace the Logic of Independence

One of the problems with the Scottish parliament is that all gathered there must pretend it is more influential and vital than it really is. In fact, as has been observed often enough, it has few powers that were not previously available to the Secretary of State for Scotland. What the parliament did, then, among other things, was establish a clear and plainly Scottish link between the electorate and the people charged with those responsibilities.

Now the parliament is here there is a tendency to argue about, for example, the annual budget as though the Finance Minister at Holyrood is in some way comparable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Westminster. Thus Ken MacIntosh – remember him, Mr Miliband? – complained during today’s budget debate that:

John Swinney talks of a budget for jobs and growth but there is no sign in this budget of a government grabbing the economy by the scruff of the neck – no sign of the dynamism needed to galvanise the economy, no sign even of a government taking all possible steps to protect jobs and create employment.

Well then! The obvious rejoinder to this is that the Scottish government cannot possibly take “all possible steps to protect jobs and create employment” for the very good reason that it lacks the powers to take many steps at all, far less all those that might be deemed possible. (Granted, politicians’ powers to do this kind of thing are routinely exagerrated anyway. That’s a perennial but different matter.) Even if you accept that Mr MacIntosh was complaining about a failure to take whatever steps might, given Holyrood’s limited powers, be deemed possible at present it remains the case that, again, there are few of those steps in the first place and most of those that can be identified are of the baby variety.

Not that Labour, as best I can tell, offered a compelling alternative to Mr Swinney’s budget*. But then how could it, given that today’s discussion was largely a hamster-wrangle over approximately 1.3% of the £30bn block grant. It is tinkering at the edges. How could it be otherwise when the present funding arrangements for Holyrood ensure that the budget debate is conducted within sharply-constrained parameters. It is a question of shuffling relatively modest sums from one department to another.

You could, I think, reasonably complain that the Finance Secretary could have frozen health spendig and diverted some of that money to capital investment. You could also argue that freezing council tax (again) makes local government even more dependent upon central government or that it could have an adverse impact on services. On the other hand, it is pretty much the only supply-side tool available to Mr Swinney and, while inefficient, could be considered a modest stimulus. Nevertheless, most of this is squabbling at the edge of anything that really matters.

Absent control over taxation and welfare and borrowing it is hard to see how the Scottish government is supposed to “galvanise” the economy. (Again: would those powers be used sensibly if Mr Swinney had them? And would he not be severely constrained by external factors anyway? Different matters and ones upon which your confidence is liable to vary according to your political affiliation and prejudices.)

When Donald Dewar was Secretary of State, I doubt many people thought he had the ability to “galvanise” the Scottish economy. This would, quite properly, have been regarded as a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and the Bank of England). Doubtless it is true that Labour’s rhetoric at Holyrood is both a consequence of their being in opposition and the gradual irresponsibility-creep** that’s been one of the features of devolution; nevertheless the logic of Mr Macintosh’s own remarks suggests the Scottish Labour party should be in favour of “devo-max” at least and, perhaps, even independence. Doubtless too, Mr Swinney has made more promises than is sensible but his position benefits from being at least notionally logical.

*Quick guide: Modest Increases, in the next three years, for Health, Finance & Employment, Education. Pretty Much Frozen allowances for Infrastructure & Capital Investment, Local government, Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal, Scottish Parliament. Real Cuts for Justice, Rural Affairs & Environment, Culture & External Affairs, Administration

**Originally “responsibility-creep” but changed on the suggestion of Ian Smart.