Diary of a new MSP

Just over a month ago the good people of Lothian elected me as their Green MSP, trusting me to take over from the inimitable Robin Harper, and continuing the region’s 100% record as the only part of Scotland represented consistently by Greens since Holyrood was established in 1999.

In some ways the transition to becoming an MSP has been easier for me than others. I’ve been in and out of parliament since the start. I managed Robin’s office, and I know my way around both the building and the procedures. I’ve also got four years’ experience as an Edinburgh councillor. 

It was still an odd feeling to stand up and address the parliament’s chamber for the first time, though. It’s an extraordinary privilege to be here, and although Patrick Harvie and I won’t hold the balance of power in the same way he and Robin did, there are substantial responsibilities and opportunities - just as there are for all the opposition parties - even though the SNP have the parliament’s first single-party majority.

We have a responsibility to work constructively with them where we agree, or come close to agreement. The other opposition parties have to take some responsibility for petty partisanship in the last session over issues like minimum pricing for alcohol or abolishing counter-productive short sentences. The SNP’s widely ignored decision to block restrictions on caffeinated alcohol falls into the same category.

Like the SNP, we look at the way Westminster operates, and the decisions UK ministers make, and we believe those decisions would be better and more democratically made in Scotland. The referendum, whenever it comes, must offer Scots a clear and participative constitutional framework for an independent nation. Their current plans remain vague and top-down, with as yet no constitutional convention to involve the public in framing the post-independence structures of Scotland. We believe asking for support for a constitutional model built on early public involvement would not only be clearer and more democratic but also more likely to succeed.

But we will argue against a replacement of one closed model with a more local version of the same thing. On this issue we are still the only party at Holyrood ready to offer positive and constructive criticism, so this is one area where we will see whether the SNP intend to honour their promise to operate more inclusively.

There will be areas where we will continue to operate as the only outright opposition to the SNP. During the election they tried to cultivate a left of centre profile, but their manifesto - especially on the economy and on public services - is clearly centre-right. The Sun endorsed Alex Salmond during the campaign because the SNP were “tackling the economic crisis head-on by cutting public spending faster than anywhere else in the UK”. Their exceptionally professional campaign, especially compared to the other larger parties, ensured this unpleasant truth remained out of sight during the election, but the reality across Scotland is that these cuts bite will be unavoidable.

During the campaign I argued on hustings after hustings that there were only two honest choices. First, we could pass on the cuts and keep Council Tax unchanged - which only the Tories admitted was their position. Second, we could raise taxes from big business and the better-off to support a decent public sector - which only the Greens were ready to propose.

The SNP’s alternative, which Patrick always calls the myth of Scandinavian public services based on US levels of taxation, simply doesn’t add up. This will be the first main area where we will hold them to account. We will continue to set out alternatives to the Tory cuts agenda, and we will be a voice in Holyrood for people worried about the services they rely on or about the future of their jobs. We will track inequality, and we will make the case for the economic benefits of sensible investment for the long term.

The second main area for holding SNP Ministers to account will, unsurprisingly, be the environment. In a number of areas, they appear to think that simply legislating is enough to solve the problem, or to say you’ve solved the problem at least. On climate change, for example, parliament agreed some inadequate annual targets, a relatively testing 2020 target, but none of the substantial policy changes required to get there, whether on transport, energy efficiency, planning or the rest.

Again, without a change in policy the numbers won’t add up. Scotland will again miss the opportunities that can come from a quicker transition to a low-carbon economy. We lost what would have been a leading position in wind turbine manufacture, and we risk doing so again in wave and tidal. During the last session Scotland could have been the first country in the world to bring in a free universal insulation scheme, something which would have cut household bills sharply and boosted jobs as well as reducing emissions.

There’s plenty of settling-in still to be done, and it’s a longer session than before, but these issues cannot wait.

Alison Johnstone MSP

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