Isobel Lindsay

A paper given at the Charter88/Independent 1991 Constitutional Convention. Isobel Lindsay is Convenor of the Scottish Constitutional Convention

In 1886 a Scottish academic said to Benjamin Jowett, "I hope you in Oxford don't think we hate you." Jowett's reply was, "We don't think about you." Not thinking about Scotland is no longer a sufficient response by England to her neighbour. This is not just because Scotland is discontented and politically troublesome but because Scotland offers a new opportunity to break with constitutional conservatism in the UK.

Constitutional issues have a vitality and centrality in Scottish politics which is not true of other parts of the UK. This is largely because they have been linked to feelings of national identity. But there may also be factors which stem from a longer tradition of concern for democratic rights. In the 19th century, for example, Scottish society was deeply divided over the right to democratic self-determination in the Presbyterian church.

The 1980s intensified the feeling of being deprived of democratic rights. Scotland, with its different legal, educational, administrative and local government systems, with a wide range of separate state and voluntary organisations, with a four-party system, with a substantially different press, was being governed by a political party representing less than a quarter of the electorate. This situation was aggravated by the Government's determination to push ahead with a radical right agenda in Scotland despite its questionable legitimacy.

The clash of political culture was more intense in Scotland than elsewhere. The Thatcherite brand of competitive individualism never came into fashion. Collectivist values continued to be broadly acceptable across social classes. It was within this political context that an initiative was taken to try and change the nature of the constitutional debate and to broaden its range. The debate on the Scottish government issue had gone on for over twenty years in its modern phase, stuck in a groove of independence versus a rather restricted devolved assembly versus the status quo. Those favouring reform spent more time fighting each other than they did opposing the conservative position.

There had been some interest since the early eighties in trying to resolve the demand for a Scottish legislature by establishing a Constitutional Convention to devise a consensus scheme around which reformers could rally. After the 1987 election, the cross-party Campaign for a Scottish Assembly initiated the Scottish Constitutional Convention through their "Claim of Right" report. Its function was to bring together Scotland's elected representatives in Westminster and local government with churches, trade unions, political parties, women's organisations and ethnic groups in order to see how much agreement could be reached. All but a few local authorities participated and 63 of the 78 MPs and MEPs. So did Scotland's churches, trade unions and many other organisations. Predictably the Conservatives would not take part. After initial support for the Convention proposal, the Scottish National Party withdrew before the first meeting. Several different reasons were given but the most important was probably the fear of compromise blurring their image.

There are a number of distinctive factors about the Convention initiative. It has been a genuine attempt to move the constitutional debate away from the uncooperative sectionalism in which it had been confined for the previous twenty years. It brought groups representing important interests into active dialogue with the political parties. It opened up a debate not just about the relationship between Scotland and England but about the nature of Scottish democracy and this has distinguished the Convention's work from most of the constitutional debate in the previous two decades. Electoral reform, the participation of women, a Bill of Rights, a democratic parliament, public access - these issues were all addressed in the Convention proposals.

Electoral reform was obviously the most difficult. The Labour Party gains substantially from the current electoral system in Scotland and everyone else loses. Change, therefore, requires one party to sacrifice for the benefit of others. Without the desire to make the Convention work, it is unlikely that there would have been any possibility of reform. The trade unions played a crucial role in this process, as did the fact that the churches and other groups as well as the Liberal Democrats favoured change. It was agreed that the Additional Member system should be used to elect a future Scottish Parliament. Under this system 72 members of Parliament would be elected under first-past-the-post from the constituencies and extra seats would be allocated to parties in accordance with the proportion of votes cast for each in each region. As yet there has not been an agreement on the number of "additional" members. The problem of women's under-representation in political life was accepted as a central issue and this stimulated women's groups in Scotland to produce proposals for inclusion in a new constitutional settlement. The most radical of these was a statutory requirement for gender balance among MPs in a Scottish Parliament. There are different methods of achieving this but what has been agreed is that there will be a statutory requirement on parties to put forward an equal number of male and female candidates. This is simple to achieve among the additional members but more complex among the constituency members. It may be done by pairing constituencies and obliging parties to present a male and female candidate in each. The most likely sanction to be applied if parties fail to do this is that they are disqualified from receiving any share of the additional member seats. Other proposals for hours of work, care facilities and gender balance in public appointments have been readily accepted. The challenge this will present to the parties will be to attract and develop new women entrants into formal political institutions. Scotland, like elsewhere, has many able and experienced women but they are to be found more frequently in the voluntary organisations than in government agencies or as MPs.

It has also been agreed that the Parliament will have the power to implement its own Bill of Rights. Indeed a prototype already exists in the shape of a draft Bill produced by the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties.

Political scientists have long been concerned with the internal structures of legislatures and their relationship with the executive. This could not be described as a common concern among the electorate as a whole but there are good reasons why it should be. The excessive concentration of power in the executive makes the Westminster political process less responsive to democratic pressures and precludes a more positive contribution from backbench MPs. Public access to the political process is largely confined to casework on personal problems and party choice at elections. Only the very well organised with professional lobbyists can have some hope of contributing to the policy process. The under-representation of important sections of society - in addition to women - has been a neglected problem in contemporary democracies.

These were issues which influenced the Convention decisions on the internal structures of a Scottish Parliament. There was support for a strong committee system not only with powers of investigation and policy review but also with some power to initiate legislation. Committees would be expected to go out to different areas of the country to take evidence, particularly seeking those groups less represented within formal structures. The legislature would have substantially more power over its timetable and procedures than Westminster. The hope, which can never be legislated for, is that the combination of a more representative electoral system and strong committee system will encourage less rigid party relationships than at present. There has also been agreement on a right of petition whereby Parliament would be required to debate an issue following a request made by a specified number of signatories.

What does this recent Scottish experience illustrate and what are the implications for the rest of the UK? Certainly Scotland demonstrates that constitutional change can enter the political mainstream and be accepted. The preconditions for this were both the popular perception that the system was failing to satisfy people's democratic aspirations with real consequences for their lives, and the existence of committed organisations giving coherent form to popular discontent. There has been disagreement about the causal direction of this relationship. Those hostile to reform in Scotland and elsewhere resort to the familiar argument that it is the "chattering classes", the organised groups with vested interest in discontent, who manufacture the desire for change. However, the reformers are a product of their own culture and there has been no dichotomy between the people and activists in terms of the direction of change. Opinion polls do show quite consistently that people place such issues as health, employment and housing, considerably above a Scottish Parliament when asked to prioritise them. But constitutional issues are by their nature instrumental, a means of achieving other objectives.

Although we have only partially succeeded in creating a consensus among pro-reform groups (the withdrawal of the SNP left a major division), there has been agreement among a wide range of groups and many people now feel more comfortable about coalition politics. The experience of the Convention has been that consensus does not mean the lowest common denominator. Finding agreement has more often required innovation. The participation of non-party groups indicates that the concept of"social partnership" is one which should be developed beyond the formula of government, business and unions and should actively involve other institutions and the voluntary sector.

The implications for the rest of the UK are potentially very great. Although Wales has received no commitment from the Labour Party to introduce early legislation for a Welsh Assembly, it is unlikely that the setting up of a Scottish Parliament would not act as a stimulus in Wales. Even more interesting might be the effect on Northern Ireland. There are sections of both communities who would welcome the establishment of an Assembly if the right formula could be agreed. If Scotland had a legislature, Northern Ireland might find it easier to emulate that example rather than feel that it was acting in isolation. The real problem is England. Would it find it acceptable to have an English Parliament within a federal structure or is there some genuine potential for English regionalism? Constitutional change in Scotland may be the key element which brings that debate to life.

We should not be afraid of allowing change to take place in an apparently untidy way. Short of great traumas like war, long-established states are not likely to reinvent themselves from scratch. This is not to deny the value of constitutional models as a guide which may inform the direction of change. But once major change takes place in one part of the system, it invites or requires change in other parts. This change may be asymmetrical and traditional pragmatism should be able to accommodate that. We should see this as an evolving process - a decade of change in which reformers in different parts of the UK build on the work of each other. If Scotland makes a break-through, will others be far behind?