Devolution 'mistakes were made'

On 1 July, Scottish devolution will celebrate its 10th birthday.

In the latest of a series of articles for the BBC news website by Holyrood veterans, Liberal Democrat MSP and former environment minister Ross Finnie reflects on some of his personal highs and lows over the last decade.

There were, of course, the cynics who predicted the parliament would not be up to the job because they alleged it had very limited powers. They were wrong.

Any objective assessment of the first 10 years will reveal that mistakes were made but, over the piece, the Scottish Parliament has made a real difference to people's lives and Liberal Democrats are proud of the part we played.

Personally, it has been a privilege to serve the people of Scotland as an MSP during the first 10 years of a Scottish Parliament and to have been a minister for eight of these years.

For Liberal Democrats, the election itself was an achievement.

Due to our advocacy of proportional representation, the political parties won the number of seats in the new parliament that reflected the number of votes cast by the people of Scotland.

The Liberal Democrats entered into coalition government for the first eight years of devolution and were pleased to introduce ground-breaking social health policies like free personal care for the elderly and free eye and dental checks.

We led the way for the rest of the UK in banning smoking in public places.

In Scotland, students stopped paying tuition fees and the elderly and disabled enjoy free travel on public transport across the country.

It wasn't all plain sailing - we had our fair share of problems to deal with

Our land reform legislation gave Scots the absolute right of responsible access to the country side and paved the way for community ownership of land.

Scotland repealed the discriminatory Section 28 in Scotland, three years earlier than the rest of the UK and introduced ground-breaking freedom of information laws to make the public bodies open, transparent and accountable.

One of the major benefits of the parliament has been the ability of stakeholders and the public generally to engage with ministers and parliamentarians.

As a minister, it kept your feet well and truly on the ground.

I recall holding a meeting with farmers to try and get a better match between Scotland's excellent meat production and consumer needs.

A Highland farmer saw things somewhat differently: 'Forget the consumers, minister, it's these supermarket people who are the cause of the problem. Where I come from, we make an excellent product, the only problem is no one is buying it at the moment.'

Then there was my attempt to raise the issue of black fish landings with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation: 'Blackfish?' asked one of the skippers present. 'Illegal landings', I replied.

'Strengthening devolution'

'Oh if it's illegal, we wouldn't know anything about that.'

But of course it wasn't all plain sailing - we had our fair share of problems to deal with.

As agriculture minister, I was in charge of responding to the massive foot-and-mouth outbreak and keeping a lid on the threat of bird flu.

I was also in charge of fisheries at a time of the worst ever scientific evidence on the state of the cod stocks.

The farmers, the fishermen and the rural communities responded magnificently to these crises, making the job of being minister so much easier.

The 10th anniversary of our parliament is a chance to look to the future, to see how we can strengthen the existing devolution settlement.

The parliament has made great strides, but there are still areas where we could do better.

From a Liberal Democrat perspective, the biggest piece of a truly home rule Parliament still missing is greater financial powers.

The current financial crisis shows that economic independence is a bit of a myth, but a parliament needs to have more control over its tax raising to make it more responsible and accountable for its spending.

It needs to have borrowing powers to allow it to determine the timing and amount of that spending.

I am confident the parliament will continue to develop and will continue to serve the people of Scotland well.

I hope the report of the Calman Commission will provide the ammunition for more powers - especially financial powers - to be devolved and allow the parliament to represent Scotland as part of the UK as part of the EU and on the world stage where Scots have excelled over the years.

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