Devolution in the UK

Devolution can be defined as the statutory transfer of powers from the centre to sub- national units. It should not be confused with the system of federalism since the devolved powers may be temporary and the new institutions are constitutionally subordinate to the central government, thus the state remains united. In the United Kingdom, devolved government concerns Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Devolved powers were allocated following New Labour’s electoral promises and simple majority referenda in Wales and Scotland in September 1997, as well as two referenda in Northern Ireland and Ireland in 1998. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly were established. A whole website is devoted to this key issue in British politics and institutions. (www.devolution.ac.uk)

I- Scotland

The term of Parliament – which was only given to Scotland - is deeply rooted in Scottish culture and history since the first sessions of the Scottish Parliament were probably held in the XIIIth century. It was dissolved in 1707 by the Acts of Union when the Parliament of Great Britain was created. A Scottish Home Rule had been demanded nearly ever since that day. The call for devolved powers in Scotland was voiced by the Scottish Nationalists who structured their movement around the Scottish National Party founded in 1934. After diverse attempts at implementing devolution, any hope for devolved powers was shattered for 18 years by the Conservatives, namely Thatcher and Major, strongly opposed to any kind of independence. However, Scottish nationalism found support from the Labour Party. In 1997, Tony Blair kept his electoral promises by holding a referendum in Scotland, which gathered a majority of “yes” vote. The Scottish Parliament was thus re-opened thanks to the Scotland Act 1998. The Scottish Parliament has been situated at Holyrood since late 2004. It is made up of 129 elected Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The Scotland Act 1998 created the Scottish Parliament as well as the Scottish Executive, known today as the Scottish Government, led by the First Minister and surrounded by his/her ministers. The Scottish First Minister is Alex Salmond (MSP). You can find a description of all the ministers on http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/14944/Scottish-Cabinet.

Usefule websites: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/

II- Wales

In 1979, a referendum on devolution was held in Wales and was surprisingly rejected by a vast majority. However, in 1997, another referendum on that issue gave way to a majority of yes and accordingly the National Assembly for Wales was implemented thanks to The Government of Wales Act 1998. The Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales were established as separate institutions under the Government of Wales Act 2006.

1 The Welsh Government consists of the First Minister, usually the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly for Wales. The current First Minister is Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM (formally appointed by the Queen on 12 May 2011), who appointed ten ministers and deputy ministers.

III- Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland Assembly was implemented in a highly difficult political context following 25 years of a ‘civil war’ between the Catholic and Protestant communities. It was established by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 in an effort to encourage the two communities to work together and share power. The Assembly is a unicameral body made of 108 democratically elected members, known as Members of the Legislative Assembly. They all sit at Stormont in Belfast. Even though the Assembly managed to work, it was suspended for nearly five years (14 October 2002 - 7 May 2007). As a consequence, the devolved powers were transferred to the Norther Ireland Office. The fierce and old opposition between the Catholic nationalists (represented by Sinn Fein and its leader Gerry Adams) and the Protestant nationalists (DUP led by Ian Paisley, now by Peter Robinson) nearly undermined one of Tony Blair’s main political achievements. At the heart of the controversy were the activities of the IRA and the DUP demanded its decommissioning. The IRA put an end to its armed campaign in 2005.

Full power was restored to the devolved institutions on 8 May 2007. The third assembly was dissolved on 24 March 2011 in preparation for the elections to be held on Thursday 5 May 2011. The fourth assembly convened on 12 May 2011. A website is devoted to this assembly: niassembly.gov.uk

IV- The main devolved powers:

MAJOR DEVOLVED POWERS SCOTLAND WALES N. IRELAND Agriculture, forestry & Agriculture, forestry & Agriculture fishing fishing Education Education Education Environment Environment Environment Health & social Health Health welfare Enterprise, trade & Housing Housing investment Justice, policing & Local government Social services courts* Local government Fire & rescue services Justice & policing Fire service Highways & transport Economic Economic development development Some transport Source: BBC. Election 2010 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/first_time_voter/8589835.stm)

2 V-Exercises:

1- Listening comprehension: Listen to the short video on the BBC website and answer the following questions: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/first_time_voter/8589835.stm

1- What issues are handled at Holyrood? 2- What issues are discussed in the Welsh Assembly? 3- Why were Welsh concerned by the 2010 election? 4- Has devolution had any positive impact in Northern Ireland?

2- Listening comprehension: The future of Scottish independence:

Two interesting videos show the opposed interests of the British Prime Minister and the Scottish First Minister:

Video 1: David Cameron’s speech on Scottish Independence (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2012/feb/16/david-cameron-scottish-devolution- video)

Video 2 : Government expenditure and revenue March 7, 2012. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UVvGRhsxp4)

1- Summarise the main arguments exposed by David Cameron in favour of the unity of the UK 2- Explain why the Scottish First Minister is so convinced that the independence of Scotland is economically possible. 3- Debate about the future independence of Scotland: Do you think this idependence is possible? Why would Scots want to severe ties with the UK? What would be the position of Scotland within Europe? What could be the consequences for the UK?

3- Written comprehension:

Read the following article and answer the questions:

British identity: the state of the union

In this jubilee year, the Queen will commemorate 60 years reigning over a changing Britain. Now, with talk of Scottish independence in the air and preparations for the Olympics under way, 100 UK residents tell us what being British means to them

Stephen Moss, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 February 2012

3 The poet Edwin Muir, who pootled round Scotland in an unreliable car in the mid-1930s to research his book Scottish Journey, was admirably realistic about the limitations of what he could achieve. "Scotland," he concluded, "could only be known by someone who had the power to live simultaneously in the bodies of all the men, women and children in it." He modestly described what he was doing as "gathering shells whose meaning was often obscure or illegible to me".

I have also been on a shell-gathering expedition, and not just in Scotland but across the whole of the UK. I am, in fact, a little shell-shocked as I write this, having just travelled from Devon to Stratford-upon-Avon via Caernarfon, Belfast and Coventry in less than a week. I am tired of trains, ferries and cheap hotels, and irritated that I have no grand, overarching theory of Britishness to offer as a result. Instead, I have returned with 100 visions of identity, drawn (sometimes reluctantly) from people I encountered – shop assistants, window cleaners, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, students, pensioners, unemployed people. All British life is here – or a decent chunk of it anyway.

This journey, I had to remind myself as its lunacy dawned on me, was my idea. I saw 2012, with the jubilee and the London Olympics, as a watershed year, a last hurrah for a monarch who symbolises the old, deferential, class-bound world. Soon she will give way to the new order, represented by power couple William and Kate. There may be a brief interregnum when Charles, embodying the confused collision of two eras, reigns, but that is appropriate too. New worlds are not born easily.[…]

The initial reason for undertaking the journey was the jubilee, but that was quickly overtaken by the Scottish question. The storm produced by David Cameron's attempt to bounce Alex Salmond into an early referendum broke when I was in Edinburgh, and gave an urgency to the inquiries I was making. The issue was on the front of every paper; people were discussing it in pubs; it mattered. If Scotland went, the game would be up for the UK. The disintegration predicted by Tom Nairn in his book The Break-Up of Britain almost 40 years ago – he called Britain "a basically indefensible and unadaptable relic, not a modern state form" – would have come to pass. Three hundred years of history would have to be unwound. Warring partners usually argue over the CD collection; this separation would see disputes over nuclear weapons and oil revenues.[…]

The Scots are Scottish, the Welsh are Welsh, the Northern Irish Catholics mostly look south. Only the Northern Irish Protestants wear their Britishness on their sleeves, and on some public buildings too – a vast union flag flies above Belfast town hall, a shock after union flag- less Wales. So gradually I began to wonder about the thesis I was so sure of as I began – that Britishness should be protected at all costs. If it was already largely moribund, what was there to protect? As one man in Stratford-upon-Avon said, what would really change if the constituent parts went their own way? Hadrian's wall wouldn't be rebuilt. All the old links, of culture and family and business, would remain. Only the political settlement would change. And what, in the end, is politics when set against life?

Much of this was anticipated by historians and cultural commentators in the 1980s and 90s. Raphael Samuel, in Island Stories, argued that the redundancy of the post-imperial state made the idea of Britain problematic, and explored how British history was being replaced by Four Nations history, pointing out that 1066 was a great date for the English but barely registered for the Scots, Irish or Welsh.

4 In reality, as the discussions I had on my journey show, to break Britain down into four constituent parts is hopelessly simplistic. There are several Englands: urban and rural, northern and southern, the east, the west and the usually ignored Midlands. In Hastings, I found a society of misfits who had gone as far away from mainstream English society as they could without falling into the sea. There are at least three Scotlands: lowlands, highlands and islands. Salmond should beware secessionism. Might not Shetland want to go its own way, linking up with Norway in a Scandinavian "arc of prosperity"? In Caernarfon, it was clear that north and south Wales – rural v urban, Welsh-speaking v English-speaking, post-agricultural v post-industrial – loathe each other.

There aren't four Britains. There are 40. In Coventry alone there must be a dozen ethnic groups living in largely segregated communities. I had to change trains at Smethwick, near Birmingham, on the way to Coventry and had 40 minutes to kill, so went looking for a pub. There were none, because this was an almost entirely Sikh community. Or rather, there was one tatty building called the Old Comrades Club, which was shut. It was flying a ragged union flag on a pole in the car park. The flag was at half mast.[…]

It is not the British state that people care passionately about, but the British state of mind, the values that Britishness is thought to encapsulate. When I asked people what mattered to them, few mentioned the monarchy, the army, the BBC, parliament or any of the organs of state; they eulogised our values – democracy, freedom, equality before the law, openness, tolerance, fairness, justice.

These were referred to repeatedly as the essence of Britishness, or perhaps of the New Britain, because some of those qualities were certainly not in evidence in the class-bound realm which Queen Elizabeth II took possession of in 1952. Tolerance, openness and diversity have all emerged in the past quarter-century, and now define our society. The young – those under 35, let's say – have embraced the virtues of a tolerant, easy-going, multicultural society; many of those over 65, especially in the big cities, feel dispossessed, their old cultural certainties shattered; those in between – me and Paxman aside, perhaps – are just about swimming with the tide, or at least keeping our thoughts to ourselves. What matters for the post-1970 generation is not the protection of institutions but of values. They would accept a new political settlement – "If the Scots want to break away, that's up to them" is the prevailing view in England – but they would fight to keep their freedoms and the anything-goes view of society we have come to take for granted in the past couple of decades.[…]

1- Would you be able to spot on a map the towns quoted in paragraph 2? 2- What do you know about most of the places decribed in the text? 3- Explain the contrast between the Jubilee celebrations and the annoucement of Scotland’s future independence. 4- Why is there 40 Britains? What could be the different faces of this nation? 5- Why do you think Britishness is more accpeted than Englishness?

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