When the Scottish parliament was established in 1999, it was intended to represent the best of modern governance. The Labour architects of devolution, Donald Dewar foremost among them, argued that giving Scotland its own legislature would bring decision-making closer to the people, address chronic policy failures, and strengthen the Union by removing the grievances that fuelled nationalism. Lord George Robertson even suggested the new settlement would ‘kill nationalism stone dead’. That was a prospect too tempting for Tony Blair, who sought to maintain Scotland’s status as a Labour electoral fortress.
Attention on 7 May this year will largely focus on England’s local council elections. Yet the vote taking place in Scotland on the same day surely deserves at least as much scrutiny: all 129 Members of the Scottish parliament, determining who governs devolved areas such as health, education and transport for the next five years, will be chosen. A lack of real scrutiny has become pervasive everywhere in Scottish politics.
Instead of defusing Scottish nationalism, devolution institutionalised it
The truth is that Scottish devolution has not only failed as a political gambit but also in its basic mission to produce a just and competent government. It has actively weakened Scotland and the United Kingdom alike. Scotland today lags behind England and comparable European nations across nearly every devolved area, despite enjoying higher levels of public spending per head than almost any other country in Europe. The ‘political science’ view from Westminster did not predict that devolution would boost separatism, create a culture of unaccountability and birth two decades of gimmick politics that has left the country’s services broken. It’s easy to blame the Scottish National Party (SNP), but the model itself – artificial without safeguards and with broken incentives – was doomed to fail.
As is often the case in government and politics, nobody was paying attention to the perverse incentive structures devolution in Scotland would create. Unlike the Länder in Germany, the autonomous communities in Spain, or the United States, the Scottish parliament was given extensive spending powers but little responsibility for raising revenue. Scotland’s budget comes primarily through the block grant allocated by Westminster under the Barnett formula – an internal Treasury allocation method that was devised in the 1970s, which ensures that Scotland receives higher per-capita spending than England.
The political consequences of this arrangement were predictable. When a government can spend without the obligation to raise its own funds, it is incentivised to pursue short-term, visible and opportunistic giveaways rather than long-term economic reform. Free prescriptions, free tuition for Scottish students, baby boxes for newborns, and ambitious net zero pledges became the hallmarks of Holyrood governance. Since revenue from London was fixed, funding for these extras could only come from reducing frontline spending.
When Labour designed devolution in the 1990s, they chose to retain the Barnett formula rather than give Scotland real revenue-raising powers. There were political and practical reasons for this: granting Holyrood tax authority was seen as edging too close to independence; Scottish voters were reassured by the guarantee of higher per capita spending than England; and the Treasury preferred the simplicity of a mechanism already in place.
The price of this dependency has been economic stagnation. In 1999, Scotland’s GDP per capita was not far behind Ireland’s. Today, Ireland’s has soared to more than double Scotland’s, fuelled by aggressive investment policies and integration with global markets. Denmark and Finland have built globally competitive, high-value economies centred on technology, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing. By contrast, Scotland contains some of Europe’s poorest and least developed urban and rural regions.
Nowhere is the neglect clearer than in healthcare. Scotland’s NHS is funded more generously per capita than the English system, yet outcomes are deteriorating rapidly. Politicians have become skilful in passing the blame onto Westminster while spending big on giveaways like ‘free’ prescriptions and ‘free’ personal care for the elderly.
Analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine revealed that more than 800 Scots died unnecessarily in 2024 as a result of long waits in accident and emergency departments. Patients endured waits of twelve hours or more, with many left on trolleys in corridors before admission. These deaths were the direct result of chronic mismanagement.
In the early years of devolution, Scotland prided itself on its distinctive education system. Again, the visible political salesmanship of free university tuition came at the cost of resources from elsewhere in the education budget. Innovations like academies and free schools that boosted attainment in England and Wales were never allowed to take off north of the border; following the English was bad PR. While England reversed years of educational decline and became one of the best-performing western country in maths, science and reading, literacy and numeracy scores among Scottish pupils fell in successive rounds of international testing.
Government contracts reveal similar weaknesses. The emblematic case is the two ferries ordered for island communities in 2015, still undelivered years later and millions of pounds over budget. Holyrood was designed to be a parliament, but it never developed the scrutiny mechanisms of a mature legislature. Membership of committees in the Scottish parliament is determined by the parties, which have crushed the independence of backbenchers. Without robust committees or a culture of adversarial scrutiny, legislation is passed without challenge and ministers face little accountability. This lack of accountability means politicians fail upwards, with no reward for quiet and diligent improvement.
It is not hard to see why nearly a third of Holyrood’s parliamentarians are not seeking re-election. The few capable politicians attracted into the world of Holyrood are often unimpressed by their colleagues and constrained by powerful party whips who ensure votes follow party lines. Without reform, Holyrood continues to attract second-tier talent, where advancement depends less on competence than on loyalty to the SNP’s independence project.
Comparing Scotland to Norway nowadays comes across as a bad joke
This is perhaps the most corrosive legacy of devolution. The Scottish parliament was sold as a way of serving the country and securing the Union, yet in practice it entrenched nationalist grievance and cursed us with poor governance. The SNP discovered that Holyrood offered not only control of devolved policy but a permanent stage from which to advance the cause of independence. Every election became a referendum by proxy. Every debate, whether on healthcare or education, was reframed in terms of Scotland’s constitutional destiny.
Instead of defusing Scottish nationalism, devolution institutionalised it. The United Kingdom now lives under the constant shadow of secessionist politics.
The tragedy of Scotland’s devolutionary settlement is not only what it has produced but what it has foreclosed. Since the Scottish Enlightenment, the country has cultivated generations of democratic and self-governing customs which could have undergirded unshakeable institutions. With its energy resources, world-class universities, and strategic location, Scotland had the potential to become one of northern Europe’s high-performing regions. It could even have been an energy life raft for the UK during these moments of trouble in the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, it chose dependency.
Comparing Scotland to Norway nowadays comes across as a bad joke. It shows us what might have been. The reality is that Westminster subsidised Edinburgh; and Edinburgh subsidised a politics of short-term giveaways and constitutional theatre. It should hardly be surprising that we’ve created a politics of rent-seeking and unaccountability.
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