New voice in the north

Date: 15/01/1998

Secretary of State for Scotland, the Rt Hon Donald Dewar MP explains why he believes that the proposed new Scottish parliament will strengthen the country's union with the UK and with its European partners

A DEVOLVED parliament for Scotland is a massive, but much-anticipated step for its 5 million residents. But the fact that Scotland will have its own parliament by the end of the millennium has positive implications far beyond our borders.

This is not independence. The settled will of the Scottish people was not to leave the UK - indeed, a devolved parliament in Edinburgh will strengthen the union with our fellow members of the UK which has existed since 1707.

Neither are our plans radical or unique in European terms. The experience of our European partners shows that countries which have decentralised systems of government can be economically successful, influential on the foreign stage and constructive members of the EU.

There is much work to be done as we approach the millennium. As soon as our election victory was confirmed on 1 May, the government set in motion our long-established proposals to establish a parliament in Edinburgh with control over Scotland's domestic affairs. We published our detailed proposals in the White Paper Scotland's Parliament 12 short weeks after the election.

In the referendum held on 11 September 1997, the Scottish people overwhelmingly endorsed the government's plans. The bill to give effect to these proposals was published on 18 December. It is expected to be approved by the UK parliament this summer. The first elections to the Scottish parliament are planned for 1999, and it will take up its role early in 2000.

The Scottish parliament will have law-making powers over all matters not reserved to Westminster. That means it will be able to amend existing primary and secondary legislation in these areas and introduce new laws of its own. It will also hold to account an executive headed by a first minister which will operate in a similar way to the UK government at Westminster.

Together, the Scottish parliament and the executive will be responsible for the wide range of domestic matters which affect the Scottish people. These include health, education and training, local government, economic development, transport, home affairs, the environment, fisheries, forestry and agriculture.

Within the devolved areas, they will be responsible for implementing and enforcing EU law for Scotland. The parliament in Edinburgh will also have the ability to make spending decisions in accordance with Scottish needs and priorities, and the power to vary the basic rate of income tax by up to three pence.

Of course, Scotland will remain firmly a part of the UK and those matters best dealt with at a national level will be left there. These 'reserved' matters include the constitution, foreign policy, defence and national security, the UK's fiscal, economic and monetary system, and relations with the EU.

Westminster will continue to carry responsibility for many key aspects of national life. But devolution will give the Scottish parliament responsibility for much of the day-to-day business of government in Scotland.

Scotland is an historic nation in the UK and we believe our proposals will strengthen that historic union.

Since 1973 and the UK's entry into the Union, links between Scotland and Europe have evolved and developed steadily. Indeed, one important change since the UK last considered a programme of devolution to Scotland in 1979 is the extent to which devolution is now seen as a European issue - subsidiarity has come to matter to political life across Europe.

My own belief is that the government's proposals for devolution will build on these developments to bring Scotland (and indeed the UK) even more firmly into the European mainstream.

We are not talking about a radical or novel step in European terms. Other EU countries already have decentralised systems of government and they provide clear proof that nations adopting such a system can be successful.

The role of the member state can be complemented by the role of strong regions. European experience shows that influence within the Union starts long before the process of formal negotiations between member states, and operates through many more channels than the formal Union and intergovernmental processes.

The message is that decentralised governments can and do engage at different levels with the EU and that a devolved Scotland will play its part in the less formal discussions with the EU institutions and interests within other member states.

To this end, I and my ministerial colleagues have already had discussions with our counterparts in several of the German Länder and in Spanish regions such as Catalonia, to understand better how they see their future role. The key messages from these meetings will be important in shaping the development of our own parliament plans.

First and foremost, they told us that the relationships with their federal governments work well and harmoniously in relation to EU matters. And they made it clear that there is no secret to this.

The relationships work because they have to work. The only alternative is for the interests of both the central and regional governments to suffer, so they find a set of arrangements which work for both. Those arrangements evolve over time. They are not overly formalised and are not hedged round with sanctions. The imperative provided by common interest is all the underpinning they need.

The second lesson they shared with us is that good working relationships require regional governments to be very professional in their handling of EU matters. It is in the interests of both the central and regional government that officials of the latter are sufficiently well informed about EU issues to be able to participate effectively in internal discussions.

Far from resenting the capacity of regional governments, as developed, for example, through representative offices in Brussels, central governments have come to appreciate their value in improving regional governments' ability to engage in internal discussion.

The third lesson was that the impact of regional governments is greatest at the beginning of consideration of EU business rather than at the end. In other words, their influence is greatest in relation to the member state's position rather than in the final negotiations to balance the positions of the 15 member states.

This underlines the importance of our White Paper commitment that "the Scottish executive will be involved as closely as possible in UK decision-making on Europe".

The fourth lesson was that the key to delivering the benefits of the second and third lessons is a good early information flow to regional government officials about proposals on which member states will have to take positions.

We were able to discuss what this means in practice. It involves complementary roles for national permanent representations and regional government representative offices.

The former have a vital role to play in ensuring that regional governments get the same flow of information as departments of national governments. But that is a huge volume of material. As one of our German contacts said: "The cat could die from too much cream."

The role of regional governments' representative offices is to select key information and get it straight to the desk of the right colleague based in the region.

Although representative offices have many functions, they left us in no doubt that this was the most important. All our contacts made clear to us that, for this and several other reasons, they viewed effective regional government and an effective representative office in Brussels as two sides of a single coin.

Devolution will enable us to look forward with a confidence which builds on our past experiences and traditions and with a democratic base that is truly representative of the Scottish people's views.

The fact that Scotland will once again have its own parliament, meeting in Scotland, is obviously an historic step. But it is more important that we should see the Scottish parliament as an opportunity to meet the new demands we are facing, both within the UK and in Europe.

I believe the Scottish people are ready for this challenge. Indeed, the September referendum suggests they are eager to embrace it - and the interest which these proposals have aroused in other parts of Europe suggests our partners in the other countries and regions are equally willing to embrace the new opportunities which this challenge presents.

Donald Dewar has been the UK Secretary of State for Scotland since May 1997. Last week, he became the first senior Labour politician to confirm that he would stand for the new parliament.

Author is UK Secretary of State for Scotland. He argues that the proposed new Scottish parliament will strengthen the country's union with the UK and its European partners.