Home rule hill has fine view of welfare state

To get a sense of distance travelled, ask yourself this question: what Westminster policies have offended Scotland most in the past 30 years? I would suggest three have been particularly pernicious.

First, the poll tax. This was almost medieval in its iniquity. Scotland resented and resisted this imposition.

Second, the bedroom tax. The way the Department for Work and Pensions treated the disabled and the vulnerable was despicable. This policy was Dickensian in its cruelty and lack of compassion.

Third, cuts to tax credits for the working poor. I still find it astonishing that George Osborne thought it was a clever idea to punish those who made the effort to go out to work every morning for poverty wages.

All three of these Tory policies were an offence to a good society. They have something else in common: none of them could now be imposed on Scotland. Holyrood already has — or is about to get — the power to protect Scotland from these Tory excesses, and more.

For a sign of how far we have come, look no further than this week’s big moment for Alex Neil, SNP cabinet secretary for social justice and communities. On Tuesday Mr Neil got to his feet at Holyrood to announce the setting up of a Scottish welfare state. Let me repeat: a Scottish welfare state. As home rule milestones go, this is a biggie. As Mr Neil said: “This is an historic day for the parliament and Scotland.”

Just two years ago the very idea of devolving welfare was anathema to most pro-UK politicians. I remember arguing about this with Gregg McClymont, Labour’s shadow pensions minister and one of the party’s biggest brains, to whom the welfare state was indivisible, like Christ’s seamless robe. It was only after the independence referendum that Labour frontbenchers such as Douglas Alexander gave the idea a more sympathetic hearing — especially the notion of Holyrood having the power to vary benefits that otherwise remained reserved to Westminster.

The Smith Commission proposals only began to stack up when they included aspects of welfare. Any package without it would have failed to protect Scotland from the Tories. I am glad to say common sense prevailed. Holyrood now has control of £2.7 billion of welfare payments a year, including all benefits for carers and the disabled, as well as the work programme. The levels of all other UK social security payments, including pensions, can be varied by MSPs.

Yet at Holyrood on Tuesday, when Mr Neil was making history, the SNP desks behind him in the parliament chamber were almost empty. Many Nationalists have yet to embrace the potential for Scotland of the new era of home rule within the UK.

The more fundamentalist Nats have for a long time traded in serial scepticism about Holyrood becoming a powerhouse parliament. No progress was possible. The Labour party would never be in favour of devolving income tax. Labour would never agree to devolve welfare. The Smith Commission proposals were a trap. Scotland would be screwed by the Treasury during the fiscal framework negotiations. There would never be a satisfactory deal.

Often some scepticism was justified, but I was left with the strong suspicion that many Nationalists did not want this process to be successful. They were willing it to fail. It would better have suited their independence narrative if these efforts had collapsed in chaos, with no advancement for Scotland within the Union.

And yet here we are. The nay-sayers have run out of excuses. Each obstacle was removed on a hard slog up the home rule hill by those committed to making it work, in the Scottish national interest. And in that group I now include the SNP leadership and the Scottish cabinet.

In October last year I suggested in this column it was time those at the top of the SNP embraced Holyrood’s new powers. That is now happening.

There has been a change of tone in the past two weeks, following the deal on the fiscal framework. A new positivity can be detected in the SNP attitude, evidenced by Mr Neil’s thoughtful proposals to increase benefits for carers.

It will become clearer still when John Swinney announces his income tax proposals in the SNP manifesto. That positivity has yet to filter down to Nationalist parliamentarians and the party’s grass roots, whose attitude to enhanced devolution remains surly. But it will happen eventually.

My hope is that we have turned a corner. Since the independence referendum came to dominate Scottish politics post-2011, the very idea that a devolved Holyrood within the UK could change Scottish lives for the better has been unfashionable with a large chunk of the Scottish population and the politicians who represent them. It is time this changed.

The enormous positivity about Scotland’s potential that emerged during the referendum campaign cannot simply be contingent on one specific form of constitutional government. Surely this is a state of mind that transcends such strictures. Surely it recognises that politics is the art of the possible, using whatever tools are at hand.

The level of home rule about to be enjoyed by Scotland is not perfect. My view is it is not yet quite enough. There are still flaws, omissions and anomalies. The ideal level of self-government for Scotland is, I believe, several notches up from where we are now. But I voted “no” in the referendum because I believed it was better to move towards that optimal level of self-government by gradually accruing more powers, rather than going for full 19th-century nation-state independence and then surrendering them. My logic was it was better to move forward as a nation with minimum possible risk and maximum possible unity.

Since the referendum we have gained much, at little cost. The view from here on the hill is a fine one. On a good day you can see the future.