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Johnstone's View 18th January 2008

First week back in Edinburgh after the Christmas recess and the first item on the agenda is the re-appointment of the information commissioner.  Kevin Dunion was appointed for a four-year term and has been instrumental in implementing the Freedom of Information Act in a balanced and fair way, not always in the easiest of circumstances.  Prior to last years elections, as a member off the Scottish Parliaments Procedures Committee, I shared the responsibility for proposing changes to the rules which would permit the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body to asses, interview and, if it sees fit, to recommend re-appointment for a second term.  After extensively interviewing Kevin Dunion last week I have every confidence that he can go on in his second term to improve still further on the excellent record he achieved in his first.  I look forward to recommending his re-appointment to Parliament.

My responsibilities in the chamber in this first week also included participating in yet another Labour inspired debate on the spending review.  The budget procedure in the Scottish Parliament requires subject committees to review the governments spending plans and submit reports to the parliaments Finance Committee, which puts forward a final report for debate in the chamber.  With the subject committee reports completed but not yet published, it was particularly difficult for this debate to take place without parliamentary rules being breached.  Consequently this was another wasted morning in Parliament.  I look forward to the publication of the Finance Committees’ budget report in the near future.  Only then can we have a real debate on the issues surrounding the government’s budget proposals.

Another interesting debate to start the New Year was on the Gould Report.  This is the report into the fiasco that was the election of May 2007 and the count which followed it.  In a fairly consensual atmosphere there was a broad acceptance of the criticisms levelled in the report.  While all political parties were willing to accept that they may have responded to advance consultations on the electoral process with one eye on their own prospects, there was a general disappointment that the labour party were unwilling to accept that while consultation was broad, the final decisions were all made by Secretary of State Douglas Alexander.  There was however a general feeling that the Scottish Parliament must take greater responsibility for handling its own elections in future and that above all, future Scottish Parliament and council elections should never again take place on the same day.  This consensus found Conservative, Nationalist, Labour and even Green MSP’s voting together for constructive change.  Only the Liberal Democrats were left isolated having argued throughout the debate that the solution to the problem was, yet more electoral reform.  Lets not, please.

Week two of the new year saw Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney, appearing before the Transport Committee once again, this time to answer more questions on his proposal for the replacement of the Forth Road bridge which he had previously announced to Parliament in a statement the week before Christmas.  The decision to go for a cable stay bridge rather than a suspension bridge or a tunnel is one which I support wholeheartedly.  Having received a number of reports and spoken extensively to experts with a high degree of knowledge, I have no doubt that John Swinney has made the right decision.  What concerns me more is how project management and subsequently costs, will be kept under control.  His ideological opposition to   Public Private Partnership means that we will be moving forward with this multi billion pound project using a new and untried funding mechanism.  This enthusiasm for experimentation could cost the taxpayer dear.

The other big Parliamentary issue of the year so far, debated this week in the Scottish Parliament, is energy policy.  Gordon Browns announcement that there will be a new generation of nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom brought howls of derision from the Scottish National Party.  I have never made any secret of the fact that I believe nuclear power is clean, safe and increasingly vital to our economic future.  I also believe that Scotland's increasing dependence on environmentally based generation of electricity, with its obvious problem of intermittency and unpredictability, means that we will become all the more reliant on the ability of a reducing number of large power stations to fill the gap.  If Scotland does not welcome the valuable inward investment of a new nuclear power station, then we will have simply enhanced our reputation as technophobes and Luddites.  And, Scotland's new nuclear power station will be built, south of the border, ready to save our embarrassment via the national grid on days when the wind and the waves let us down.