Labour is beginning to assert its policy agenda and is leaving Scotland at risk of playing catch-up, writes TERRY MURDEN
On social media they call it colonisation. Creeping control of everything Scottish by the English establishment. A King Edward’s army for the 21st century ‘stealing’ the oil, gas and renewable energy from the earth and sea around Scotland and sending it by cable for consumption by urban dwellers in the south. And it’s not just energy. It’s the media, all rotten unionist supporters, apparently.
It’s a highly-charged, over-dramatised storyline being played out on the X platform, with appropriately x-rated helpings of expletives to ensure everyone knows whose side they are on.
The tone is alarmingly aggressive and adherence to sentiment rules over facts in order to feed the calls for independence. In a febrile political climate it once again has Scotland playing the role of victim when evidence suggests that, despite the Labour government’s litany of errors, there are signs that UK ministers are laying the ground rules and devolved nations are being forced to play catch-up.
If that suggests Labour is imposing its will on the Scots it’s because devolution has created, not just separate jurisdictions, but a two-tier system with Westminster asserting its position as the lead player. Policies on defence, employment, planning are being set in London. Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff either run with the plan, or pick up the gauntlet to fight what seems increasingly to be a pointless exercise in re-branding and delay.
Before anyone thinks this is just another Scotland-bashing column, let it be said that there is some justification for the frustrations being expressed by those that have turned grievance into an Olympic sport. Westminster’s apparent support for the Prax Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire compared with the failure to keep Grangemouth open has not been adequately explained by the UK energy minister and Scottish MP Michael Shanks. The delay in including the Acorn project in north east Scotland alongside other carbon capture and storage systems in England was another puzzler.
Both have reinforced the view that Westminster is deliberately running Scotland down, draining it of powers – not least by committing to the Internal Markets Act that allows Westminster to over-rule the decisions of the devolved nations. For critics, this looks like a measure aimed at undermining their capacity to run their own affairs.
Yet there has been no sustained criticism of the SNP for its part in allowing Grangemouth to close. Nor any word from the party on the Lindsey controversy. Instead, the opprobrium is reserved for Labour and for Labour’s supposedly submissive Scottish MPs, while SNP MPs who have done little to raise these concerns are allowed an exemption. All this is cast aside so that the supporters of independence can throw more metaphorical arrows at the invading English.
While the old problems of low productivity and low growth remain an ever-present challenge, the new challenge for Scotland is how much it is in danger of not keeping up with progress on a number of key developments now coming out of Westminster in an attempt by Labour’s hierarchy to prove that it really means to bring about change.
Michael Shanks has faced criticism but is playing a lead role in Labour’s energy plans
Given the cack-handed errors that Sir Keir Starmer’s team have made, it is not easy to list his party’s successes. The Chancellor is seen as the architect of the slowing economy, of 178,000 job losses since Labour came to power a year ago, and of thousands of businesses closing their doors as a result of rising costs that were avoidable.
Yet, and it almost pains me to say this, there has been some progress. The reforms to financial services were received enthusiastically as easing restrictions on a sector that now claims to have learned from past mistakes. The pledges on planning reform, housebuilding, nuclear energy and defence are yet to fully materialise, but are steps in the right direction. The Employment Rights Bill divides opinion, with businesses understandably cagey, but it has its supporters among those who see it as correcting an imbalance in the workplace.
Crucially, Labour is setting an agenda which is lacking at Holyrood where there is a sense of drift. The SNP has talked a lot about economic transformation, but it has achieved little of substance beyond setting up a few techscalers to help startups, and provide grants for inward investors wanting to establish branch offices and facilities in renewables, fintech, space technology and life sciences.
The biggest industrial letting this year, for biodegradable bottling company Pulpex, was made possible, not by Holyrood, but by Labour’s new National Wealth Fund providing four times the finance committed by the Scottish National Investment Bank. Labour’s GB Energy, after a slow start and amid SNP cynicism, is expected to get properly into gear in the autumn after confirming its CEO. Naval shipbuilding is growing again, also because of Labour’s increased spending on defence and in spite of the SNP’s contradictory policies.
There is now a push on more devolution for the English regions through the creation of mayoral offices, with Scotland being urged to follow suit. What has been the response? Well, there doesn’t seem to be one, even though there is growing evidence that bringing local authorities together to work on projects of mutual benefit is paying dividends south of the border.
Technology, which Scotland likes to think is one of its strong points, remains untouched in some areas of the Scottish health service, while apps and other tech developments are seen by English health boards as a key to improving the delivery of the service.
It’s not that Scotland is a poor performer. Unemployment is lower than the UK average, and it regularly outperforms all other regions outside London for inward investment. Its tech eco-system benefits from a culture of mutual support.
Labour has invested in the naval yards on the Clyde
The question now being asked, though, is how much of this would happen anyway if the Scottish parliament did not exist. It may force parliamentarians and nationalists to choke, but a serious campaign is underway to have it abolished. It costs £800 million a year to run, yet what has it really achieved that could not have been done by the old Scottish Office? Cities in England, like Manchester, are matching and in some cases beating Glasgow and Edinburgh on some measures without the apparatus of devolved government.
Devolution has not just handed decision-making to Edinburgh, it has built into the system a series of unnecessary delays and revisions to policies developed in Westminster that are otherwise good to go.
Business rates and planning reform may be on the agenda in England. No progress in Scotland. If it happens, it will likely be behind England and widen the differences that will further complicate business operations. The UK government is surging ahead with building nuclear energy plants to meet future need. The Scottish government is digging in its heels and relying on wind and wave energy which is unlikely to provide enough power.
The tax system is another burden, with the financial services sector this week naming higher Scottish income taxes as a brake on recruitment. As we reported recently, plans to unify a tax relief on property funds is a small step to recognising that these discrepancies often do more harm than good.
Scotland has much in its favour, but it does not need a government that dithers because it feels a need to give every Westminster initiative a tartan wrapper. It does not need ministers seeking out difference for the sake of trying to show it can do things better, when the evidence suggests it often makes matters worse.
Terry Murden held senior positions at The Sunday Times, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and The Northern Echo and is now editor of Daily Business
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