The path to devolution

In Scotland :
The workings of the governing institutions set up under devolution in
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are explored in more detail in the
next chapter. What follows here is an outline of the process by which these
institutions were put in place following the 1997 referenda and the levels of
devolution granted in each case.
Of the three countries, Scotland has been granted the most extensive deg -
ree of devolved government, following the enabling legislation passed to
formalize devolution in 1998. In part, this is a refl ection of the fact that,
for complex historical reasons, the country has long had certain devolved
functions—most notably, a distinctive legal system. More signifi cantly,
however, it refl ected the growing calls north of the border after 18 years of Conservative rule at Westminster for a greater degree of autonomy from a
national Parliament that seemed increasingly remote—both politically and
geographically—from Scottish interests.
The path to Scottish devolution began in the 1960s, when a previous Labour
government established a Royal Commission to examine the arguments for
some form of home rule in the country.Unlike Wales and Northern Ireland, where (at present) the powers devolved
are much the same, the Scottish Parliament has considerable authority, with
only foreign affairs, defence policy, the welfare system, and the introduction of new taxes outside its remit. Its powers therefore include determining education,
health, environment, and transport policy in Scotland, and, perhaps
most signifi cantly, being able to ‘vary’—that is, raise or lower—Income Tax
by up to three pence in the pound.

In Wales:
Sorry,the information is not available .

In Northern Ireland :
Due to the fallout from ‘The Troubles’, the devolution process in Northern
Ireland has been characteristically problematic, with the various parties
unable to agree a workable framework for devolved government until very
recently. A landmark agreement signed in 2007 appeared fi nally, however, to
bury the hatchet between the main Republican and Unionist parties, with the
ruling Democratic Unionists accepting that the IRA had decommissioned its
weapons, as it had long claimed and the Northern Ireland Assembly having
power restored.
The saga that led to the granting of meaningful devolution to Northern
Ireland lasted decades.

In England :
The increasing autonomy given to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland has
led to growing demands from some quarters for the major English regions
outside London to be given similar powers to determine their own affairs.
Oddly enough, tentative moves towards an embryonic English regional
devolution actually emerged under the Tories, when John Major set up a
series of regional offices manned by civil servants seconded from the main
spending departments at Whitehall. As befi tted these nine ‘Government Offi
ces of the Regions’, however, their role was largely administrative and
there were no moves to extend the remit of this ‘devolved’ power to embrace
any form of elected government.
When Labour returned to power in 1997, however, steps were taken to
introduce the idea of some form of elected regional authorities by then Deputy
Prime Minister John Prescott’s so-called ‘super-ministry’: the (in the
end) short-lived Department for the Environment, Local Government and
the Regions. The path towards regional devolution took the course outlined
in Table 1.12, while that of the eight appointed ‘regional assemblies’ introduced
to pave the way for elections
In the event, in November 2004, the North East Regional Assembly was
the only one actually to hold its local referendum on the designated date—a
postal-only ballot that proved hugely controversial, in the wake of allegations
of corruption in similar-style votes for Birmingham City Council in the
months preceding it. The region voted decisively against the introduction of
an elected assembly—by a margin of 78 to 22 per cent—throwing regional
devolution into turmoil. Local people appeared not to want yet another tier
of government, and to be unclear about the tangible benefi ts and powers
that would have derived from such a body. Although chastened at the time,
Mr Prescott vowed to resurrect the regional plan at a later date and it was
recently mooted again by Hazel Blears, when Gordon Brown made her Secretary
of State for Communities in his fi rst Cabinet.