Devolution of Power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland:The Inner History

Devolution in principle “is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area, thus granting them a higher level of autonomy.”¹ The constitutional historian Vernon Bogdanor puts the definition more concretely. Devolution, he writes, “is a transfer of power. It seems to imply the removal of powers from a superior layer of government to a lower layer of government. It seems to create new independent layers of government. Yet, in reality, it creates not independent but new interdependent layers.”²

Now we must ask the questions: Why devolution at all? Why do people want it? It is an innate principle of human nature to preserve and to cultivate personal identity. Whenever and wherever individuals have the feeling that their identity is being threatened by an over-dominating state, they seek to reaffirm themselves. A government, writes Locke, is “not free to do as it pleases … the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others”. The state, Locke maintains, must be ruled by the “law of nature”, a body of rules which, at all times and in all places, is a guide to govern the conduct of men. Its arbiter is reason, and reason shows that, in a natural state of being, all men are equal.³ Should a sovereign power overstep the boundaries of reason, resistance becomes a natural right. It is evident that people desire to be ruled justly, with due attention to their local concerns; hence we come across the conception of Home Rule. Those subjected to the dominance of a greater nation feel that, since they have been deprived of their native tradition, they are entitled to have their own government. Why is this so? David Hume offers an answer. Refuting the idea of any original social contract, he insists that almost all the governments “which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in history, have been founded originally on usurpation, or on conquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people”.⁴ We do not have to look much further to see that he is right: the history of how Wales, Ireland and Scotland became part of the United Kingdom is evidence enough.

Unlike the Scots or the Irish, the people of Wales seldom sought separation from England during the modern period of history. The essential things they came to want were recognition of their linguistic identity and decentralization of political power – namely, they believed that local power should be exercised in Cardiff rather than in London. These solutions would meet their needs. So far as the English ruling classes were concerned, Wales was to be treated as just one other region of England. Almost all the major political parties – the Conservatives, Liberals and Labour – opposed any division of authority, wishing it to remain in Whitehall.

When a Welsh national consciousness began to develop with the Cymru Fyd (Young Wales) movement in the second half of the nineteenth century, it failed to establish roots among the Welsh population as a whole, and there was no strong movement to oppose rule from England, though upsurges did occur now and then, with demands for more autonomy. It was not till as late as 1964 that the then Labour government felt persuaded to establish a Welsh Office. This new creation was “Whitehall’s smallest ministry and was therefore at the bottom of the ministerial pecking order. This meant that the Welsh Office was always the junior partner in ministerial negotiations”.⁵ Devolution for the Welsh meant local government reform. In 1972, with this in mind, the Labour Party recommended the establishment of a directly elected Welsh Council. But nothing happened. Wales had to wait for more than two decades to be allowed to elect its own Assembly.

The Scots have been characterised as a brave people, extremely jealous of their independence. They have never felt British, certainly never English, and have never given up their desire to be an independent state. A recent historian tells us how the Scots view their subordination: “English kings and English government have often been portrayed as predatory and imperialistic, seeking to impose an alien rule.” The English, in turn, inherited the contempt for the Scots already shown in the Middle Ages: “From the twelfth-century Norman point of view, the Scottish kingdom seemed an anachronism and an anomaly.”⁶ Was it perhaps in this spirit that the Treaty of Union came to be signed in 1706? The Treaty preserved the Scottish legal system and guaranteed the preservation of the Presbyterian Church, but the legislative power lay in the Parliament at Westminster. The Treaty made no political or juridical provisions by which the Scots could express their wishes, except through their representatives there, in England. A Scottish Secretary was to administer Scotland. The whole object, Lord Salisbury is said to have remarked (in 1885), was to “redress the wounded dignities of the Scotch people”.⁷ From 1892, the Scottish Secretary was assigned membership in the Cabinet, with a brief to look after Scottish affairs. In 1926 the holder of the post was made a Secretary of State.

In reality, ever since the Treaty of Union, the Scots have felt that their country has been reduced to being a mere colony of England, and have held the belief that they can recover their separate identity only as an independent state. A Scottish Home Rule Association came into existence in May 1886, vociferously claiming national equality with England. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century Labour and Liberal leaders proposed Scottish Home Rule Bills before the House of Commons. These Bills did not even reach the committee stage.

The Scots came to believe that their grievances could be satisfied only by native Scottish representation. So, in 1934, John MacCormick founded the Scottish National Party (SNP). In doing so, he aimed not to create an independent Scotland, but to secure Home Rule for Scotland through a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom. However, the members of his party totally rejected this plan, removed MacCormick from the leadership of the SNP and opted to be a separatist movement. The SNP has gone on to become a major political force in both local and general elections in Scotland. The Scots, therefore, have opted for constitutional means to regain their identity. Until recently the SNP acted not so much as “the party of independence or separatism, but as the party that could speak for Scotland against the London parties, the party of Scottish identity”.⁸ However, the party has now changed its policy, which has significantly shifted “in the direction of Scottish independence”.⁹

The major political parties at Westminster have maintained different approaches on how to solve the grievances of the Scottish people. The Liberals have long championed Home Rule for Scotland but, as a minority party in the Commons, have rarely succeeded in securing much support. The Conservatives have traditionally been Unionists, opposing any sort of dismemberment of the United Kingdom. However, a radical change occurred when Edward Heath became Prime Minister. In a speech at the Conference of the Scottish Conservatives in 1968, he stated that the Scots ought to have their own directly elected Assembly. The art of government, he said, was to reconcile divergent needs. He cited: “The need to modernise our institutions so as to cope with our complex changing society. And the need to give each citizen a greater opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect him, his family, and the community in which he lives.” But he also pointed out a need to find a balance between two contrasting principles: the principle of the unity of the United Kingdom and belief in a fair devolution of power.

Heath set up a Scottish Constitutional Committee to consider the possibility of establishing a directly elected Scottish assembly while preserving “the essential principle of the sovereignty of [the Westminster] Parliament”. The Scottish Constitutional Committee met under Alec Douglas-Home and produced a report in March 1970. This proposed that the Scots would directly elect their own assembly, which would be called the Scottish Convention. The Convention would handle Bills “certified by the Speaker as exclusively Scottish measures and considered by the Scottish Grand Committee and a Scottish standing committee. The Convention would thus consider the second reading, committee and report stages of Scottish Bills, leaving only the third reading and House of Lords stages to be taken at Westminster. The Secretary of State for Scotland, however, would remain responsible to Westminster and not to the Convention.”¹⁰ The proposals invited much criticism but, despite this, in their election manifesto of 1970 the Conservatives promised that their future government would undertake measures to give the Scottish people “a greater say in their own affairs”. The Conservatives, Vernon Bogdanor notes, thus “became he first of the two major parties to commit themselves to devolution”.¹¹ The attempt failed.¹²

The Labour Party was generally in favour of some sort of Scottish assembly, but nothing concrete was proposed until it published a White Paper on 17 September 1974: Democracy and Devolution: Proposals for Scotland and Wales (Cmnd. 5732). The proposals contained the following principles:¹³

1. 1. There would be directly elected assemblies in Scotland and Wales.
2. 2. The Scottish Assembly would have legislative powers, the Welsh Assembly only executive powers.
3. 3. The Assemblies would be elected by the first-past-the-post system.
4. 4. The Assemblies would be financed by a block grant allocated by Parliament. There would be no devolution of revenue-raising powers.
5. 5. There would be no reduction in the number of Scottish or Welsh MPs at Westminster.
6. 6. The offices of Secretary of State for Scotland and Wales would remain, and the office-holders would continue to sit in the Cabinet.
7. 7. Devolution in England would be postponed for further consideration.

A more detailed list of proposals was published by the Labour government in November 1975. This was in a further White Paper, Our Changing Democracy: Devolution to Scotland and Wales (Cmnd. 6348). At the time, the government held an overall majority of just three in the Commons and, even within its own party, there were widespread differences of opinion. Those pushing for devolution could not command full support from Labour members,¹⁴ and therefore sought assistance from other parties in the Commons. The Scotland and Wales Bill passed its second reading there on 13 December 1976 by 294 votes to 249. The composition of the majority was “ominous and showed that the Bill would not enjoy an easy passage through the Commons” as it went further.¹⁵ Dissent within the parties began when an amendment was introduced to hold a referendum in Scotland under the “40 per cent rule”, by which, if fewer than 40 per cent of Scottish electors voted Yes, the amendment required a repeal order to be laid before Parliament. The referendums took place in Scotland and Wales on 1 March 1979. In Wales the turnout was 58.8%, and 243,048 (20.3%) voted Yes while 956,330 (79.7%) voted No, a definite snub to the proposal. In Scotland the turnout was only 32.9% – less than the required number. Of those who did vote, tantalizingly 1,253,502 (51.6%) registered a Yes, narrowly outstripping the 1,230,937 (48.5%) No voters.

The results of the referendum – a No and an inadequate turnout – were so damaging that the Bill lost its credibility. The Conservative government that came to power in May 1979 repealed the Scotland and Wales Bills in June of that year. The Conservatives remained in power from 1979 to 1997 and during that time ensured that the Bill “was not resurrected”.

In opposition, the Labour Party was determined to pursue the principle of devolution. In 1988 a Constitutional Steering Committee was established, issuing a Claim of Right for Scotland and calling for a Scottish Constitutional Convention to draw up plans to reform the government in Scotland. A Convention founded in 1989 declared that “sovereignty in Scotland lay with the Scottish people and not with Westminster”. Labour and Liberal leaders participated in its workings. The Conservatives refused to cooperate, and the SNP declared that it would not join the Convention unless it was “prepared to draw up a constitution for an independent Scotland”.¹⁶ The Convention published two reports: – the first in 1990: Towards Scotland’s Parliament; the second in 1995: Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right. Both these reports formed the basis of Labour’s position in its election manifesto of 1997.

On 1 May 1997 the British Labour Party won a landslide victory at the general election. The dawn of a “New Britain” was promised by the dynamic incoming Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Just a year before, he had outlined his “vision of a young country”. Under his premiership there was to be “New Labour, New Life for Britain”.¹⁷ Blair promised he would “build a programme for government which embodies our beliefs and principles in strong communities and responsible citizens, in quality of opportunity and social justice”.¹⁸ New Labour would clean up politics; it was “committed to the democratic renewal of Britain through decentralization and the elimination of excessive government secrecy”. The proposed programme of change in this direction would encompass protection of the fundamental rights of every citizen, and bring reforms to the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There would be a strong investment in public service, support for a thriving private sector, an end to prejudice and discrimination, careful safeguarding of the environment, and the promotion of international solidarity. The new government would tackle “structural levels of unemployment”, regenerate “run-down inner cities and regions” and guarantee long-term investment in industry and infrastructure. It would promote modern transport and energy policies; it would help the self-employed and small businesses, while harnessing new technologies and advances in science. And, “above all”, it would foster education and the making of a skilled workforce. The National Health Service would be renationalised to “make it once more a service run for the whole nation”.

What concerns us in the present study is Blair’s pledge on devolution. He promised to bring in legislation to create a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly “in the first year of a Labour government”. He intended indeed to be “the Prime Minister who does it”. What, then, did he mean by devolution? As he explained, it was:

neither some quasi-nationalist form of government, a watered down form of separatism or a form of federalism. Scotland and Wales do not want separatism. The nationalists might want to tear our country apart and to rip up the United Kingdom. They may wish to tear asunder the common ties of kinship and friendship and the bonds of common history which tie us together in this country but that is because they mistake national pride for separatism. They mistake pride in being Scottish or Welsh and the desire for independence. People do of course feel proud to be Scottish and Welsh but they feel British too. And that sense of being both Scottish and British, or Welsh and British, lies behind the completely legitimate desire to have more control over their own affairs.

To give this increased control, Blair promised that, as soon as “possible after the election White Papers will be published outlining in detail our proposals for Scotland and Wales. We will then have referendums in both countries on those proposals. We will be campaigning for a massive Yes vote for devolution.”¹⁹

Tony Blair was equally intent upon finding a way to “let the hand of peace be active” in Northern Ireland. He was encouraged in this by a general consensus that all the democratic parties in Northern Ireland believed that their future “must be determined by the consent of the people there”.

In their 1997 election manifesto, his Labour Party revealed more about what they proposed to do:²⁰

Devolution: strengthening the Union. The United Kingdom is a partnership enriched by distinct national identities and traditions. Scotland has its own systems of education, law and local government. Wales has its language and cultural traditions. We will meet the demand for decentralisation of power to Scotland and Wales, once established in referendums.

Subsidiarity is as sound a principle in Britain as it is in Europe. Our proposal is for devolution not federation. A sovereign Westminster Parliament will devolve power to Scotland and Wales. The Union will be strengthened and the threat of separatism removed.

As soon as possible after the election, we will enact legislation to allow the people of Scotland and Wales to vote in separate referendums on our proposals, which will be set out in White Papers. These referendums will take place not later than the autumn of 1997. A simple majority of those voting in each referendum will be the majority required. Popular endorsement will strengthen the legitimacy of our proposals and speed their passage through Parliament. For Scotland we propose the creation of a parliament with law-making powers, firmly based on the agreement reached in the Scottish Constitutional Convention, including defined and limited financial powers to vary revenue and elected by an additional member system. In the Scottish referendum we will separate endorsement of the proposal to create a parliament, and the proposal to give it defined and limited financial powers to vary revenue. The Scottish parliament will extend democratic control over the responsibilities exercised administratively by the Scottish Office. The responsibilities of the UK Parliament will remain unchanged over UK policy, for example economic, defence and foreign policy.

The Welsh assembly will provide democratic control of the existing Welsh Office functions. It will have secondary legislative powers and will be specifically empowered to reform and democratise the quango state. It will be elected by an additional member system.

Following majorities in the referendums, we will introduce in the first year of the Parliament legislation on the substantive devolution proposals outlined in our White Papers.