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Update 18 July 2008: A New Politics of Devolution?

Discussion of the politics of the new devolved systems in Politics and Governance of the UK is largely confined to a single chapter, 11. A key theme of that chapter is the extent to which in the new devolved systems we are seeing a mode of politics and governance which is distinctive, compared with the dominant mode of the Westminster system. But because the book was published in 2005 hardly anything said there draws on experience after 2004: in other words, I could only draw on five years of the practice of devolved government in Scotland and Wales, following 'vesting day' of 1 July 1999. (There was even less experience from Northern Ireland to draw on, since for much of the period after the formal establishment of devolved government the system was in suspension.) A small amount of supplementary discussion can be found in update 9 (January 06) which summarises changes in the status of Welsh devolution, and update 15 (January 07) which summarises the state of the parties in devolved assemblies following the 2007 elections. However, we now have the experience of several more years, and it is a full decade since the passage of the original legislation to establish devolution in Scotland and Wales. This is therefore an appropriate moment to attempt a summary account of the experience.

From the beginning, some proponents of devolution argued that there was indeed to be a 'new politics' of devolution: a pattern of politics, in other words, which would mark a departure from the established politics of the London based Westminster system. That claim obviously rests on a notion that there is, indeed, such a distinctive Westminster system, but also on expectations about how the devolved systems were likely to behave. There are four main areas where expectations of a 'new politics' can be tested.

• 18.1 A new politics of leadership recruitment
• 18.2 A new political style
• 18.3 A new politics of leadership
• 18.4 A new politics of policy innovation

18.1: A new politics of leadership recruitment?

This is probably the domain where the new devolved systems have the strongest claim to distinctiveness. We can see two particularly important ways in which they have 'enriched' the political gene pool from which political leaders are drawn. First, they have been significantly more successful than the Westminster system in recruiting women to positions of political leadership. However, the two main legislatures created out of devolution still have different experiences. In both 2003 and 2007 a majority of returned Assembly Members in Wales were women. Scotland has been less 'successful': in 2007, 35% MSPs were women. A second source of recruitment distinctiveness is less commonly remarked: the new institutions have broken the increasingly strong grip which elite English universities had come to establish over the Westminster system.

The break with Westminster patterns is due to a complex range of factors, but a key influence comes from the different electoral systems in operation under devolved government. The single most important consequence has been to increase central control over legislative recruitment, and thus to allow central leadership to 'steer' the system in the direction of centrally approved aims, such as an increase in the recruitment of women into leadership positions. Women prosper more under devolved government not necessarily because Wales and Scotland are more 'women friendly' cultures but because leadership recruitment is more centralised. Within the new legislative elites created in Scotland and Wales by the new electoral systems the creation of two 'classes' of member under the new system (details in Politics and Governance in the UK, p. 224) has also created tensions between members with territorial constituencies and those selected from the 'Additional Member' list. (See Bradbury and Mitchell 2007 below.)

18.2: A new political style?

Much of the institutional substance and the symbolism of the new systems is designed to impart a sense of distinctiveness from perceived features of the Westminster system - in particular, to create a distinctive political culture for the new systems that breaks with the highly adversarial mode of party competition in the Chamber of the House of Commons. Symbolically, the freshly designed chambers for the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament departed from the physical confrontation between a governing party and an opposition in the layout of members' desks. Procedurally, the business of both institutions is more self-consciously 'businesslike': hours of business more closely resemble conventional office hours (in the process increasing the extent to which they are 'women' or 'family' friendly.) Because they are less like 'total' institutions functioning round the clock there is also less of the 'club like' atmosphere which characterises, in particular, the House of Commons. This is reinforced by voting procedures, which have dispensed with the physical voting in opposing 'lobbies' of the Westminster Parliament, in favour of electronically registered votes cast from members' desks, thus symbolically reducing the physical 'confrontation' involved in expressing differences. But by far the most distinctive feature of the new systems is also imposed by the electoral arrangements, which over the cycle of three elections (1999, 2003 and 2007) has failed to deliver what has been the norm at Westminster: stable majorities for a single governing party. Even rule by a single party has been the exception, and when it has occurred (as presently in Scotland) it involves a party (the SNP) without a majority. The norm has been some form of cross party coalition, and in the brief intervals of single party rule the expectation of cross party coalition in the near future. In short, political leaderships in the devolved systems are obliged to cooperate with each other to an unusual degree. This consensual culture should not, however, be overstated. Party competition can be vicious, and the instability of government can make it more so. In June 2008 Wendy Alexander was obliged to resign as leader of the Scottish Labour Party after a ferocious campaign against her led mostly by members of the SNP in the Scottish Parliament - a campaign in which the minority SNP administration saw an opportunity to strengthen its weak parliamentary position arising from its minority governing status.

18.3: A new politics of leadership?

The constraints on political leadership just referred to have also impacted on the way government functions at the very top in the devolved systems. At least three of the last four Prime Ministers in Whitehall - Thatcher, Blair and Brown - have been powerful centralisers, determined to build up the capacity of the core executive to control the making and presentation of policy. This 'strong core executive' model is very different from that developing in the devolved systems. In the case of Northern Ireland the elaborate model of power sharing precludes anything like it. But in the case of Wales and Scotland too there are powerful constraints, especially on the role that can be played by the First Minister in the two systems. (Lynch 2006 below is a very good summary of this.) First Ministers are, by comparison with the leader of the core executive in Westminster, much less able to intervene in the details of policy making. But above all they are constrained by the politics of government making, and especially by the fact that coalitions are the norm. One of the first and most important effects of coalition making is to remove from the hands of the First Minister a key instrument of control and patronage that is wielded by the Westminster Prime Minister: the ability to hire and fire is constrained by the need to accept as ministers those chosen by coalition partners.

18.4: A new politics of policy innovation?

These differences in recruitment, style, and political leadership have, unsurprisingly, begun to produce systematic differences in policy outcomes. The sketch of some early differences in this field in Politics and Governance in the UK (pp. 226-7) can now be more completely filled out. Although some of the distinctiveness lies in detail, it is in the detail that public service provision is felt by individual citizens. Scotland and Wales, for example, have no city academies, no foundation hospitals, no school league tables and no 'beacon councils.' Even where there is some commonality - for instance in public-private partnerships or transfer of housing stock from local authority control - the scale and speed of change is markedly differently under devolution. In the case of Scotland we have also seen the abolition of up-front tuition fees for students in higher education and the institution of free long-term personal care for the elderly. As these references to Wales and Scotland show, we have more experience, and therefore more knowledge, of how devolution works in Wales and Scotland than in Northern Ireland, and our understanding of Ireland is complicated by the very special history of devolution there. But there are early signs that in respect of social policy (for instance in education) and in respect of public sector management reform the province is also not embracing many of the priorities of the Westminster government.

Conclusion

This analysis of the new politics of the devolved systems is inevitably preliminary and sketchy, but enough has been said to suggest that some highly distinctive patterns of politics are emerging. The second edition of Politics and Governance in the UK, now in preparation, will examine these matters in depth.

References:

Lynch, P. (2006). 'Governing Devolution: Understanding the Office of First Ministers in Scotland and Wales.' Parliamentary Affairs 59:3, 420-36.

Bradbury, J. and Mitchell, J. (2007). 'The Constituency Work of Members of the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales: Approaches, Relationships and Rules'. Regional and Federal Studies, 17:1, 117-45.

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