Introduction: the Distinctiveness of Scottish Politics

Abstract

‘There shall be a Scottish Parliament’. So began clause one of the 1997 Scotland Bill. The election of a Labour government in May 1997 with a record majority — after 18 years of Conservative rule — provided the opportunity for constitutional change which many political activists in Scotland had campaigned for over a long period of time. The White Paper on a Scottish Parliament published in July, soon after the election, corresponded very closely to the proposals for constitutional reform discussed and agreed during the years of the Scottish Constitutional Convention and contained in the Convention’s final report, Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right (SCC, 1995). Anxieties were allayed surrounding Labour’s decision in 1996 to hold a two-question referendum on a Scottish Parliament and on its proposed tax powers, if elected, as were fears that the party would not honour many of its pre-election promises on the issue (see Chapter Two). The results of the referendum which followed in September were, according to Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, beyond his wildest dreams. In accordance with the government’s planned timetable, the Scotland Bill was published in December 1997 before being presented to the House of Commons in January 1998. The first elections were scheduled for May 1999 so that the Scottish Parliament could be fully operational from the year 2000. The setting up of a Parliament in Scotland, almost 300 years since the Treaty of Union, marks an important turning point and the beginning of another and significant phase in the development of Scottish politics.