IT’S a rare government legislative programme that is not described by its proponents as “ambitious”. It’s the first word cut and pasted from all the previous announcements, and yesterday’s programme by the Scottish Government was no exception.
So how ambitious was it? Reasonably so, but the problem with this administration of late has been matching the delivery to the ambition. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described her Government as being on a “national mission”. But is it Mission Possible?
Tory leader Ruth Davidson reminded the chamber that, of 15 bills proposed last year, only two have passed; just three have progressed beyond stage one. In other words, this year, there are 13 bills hanging over from last year. Ms Sturgeon said this year’s programme flows from the “vision” of last year. Certainly, the lack of legislative progress has been something of an eye-opener.
That said, much of the programme announced yesterday was inoffensive enough to find support across the chamber. Even the Tories said they were in broad agreement with measures to be taken on mental health, increasing exports, funding conversion to electric vehicles, domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, child poverty, and animal welfare. More problematic was the planned headteachers’ charter, devolving decision-making on the curriculum, staffing and budgets. Oddly enough, that was the gist of the dropped education bill, which the administration thought it could not get past parliament. The Tories, backing the empowerment of parents and teachers, still wanted a proper legislative measure, for which they promised qualified support.
They’d less to say about the new Scottish social security system which, in Ms Sturgeon’s uncharacteristically ill-chosen phrase, was “now open for business”. Ill-considered, too, were Labour leader Richard Leonard’s awkward attempts to score points on sexual harassment and referendums, but he was right to highlight several areas ignored in the programme, including P1 testing, teachers’ pay, and capping NHS agency costs. Patrick Harvie, for the Greens, was also right to suggest that business support should be tied to the living wage. However, the defining aspect of this stage of the SNP’s long stewardship was, as highlighted by LibDem leader Willie Rennie, the feeling that this Government had “run its course”. This may be the sort of thing that oppositions say. It may not even be borne out by opinion polls. But all administrations tire eventually. This one – admittedly hampered by the “shadow of Brexit” (Ms Sturgeon’s words) – has roughly 1,000 days till the next Holyrood election. Time enough perhaps to get a second wind. Yesterday’s programme came with the title “Delivering for today, investing for tomorrow”. In many areas, delivering any time soon would be more than welcome.
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