Holyrood v Westminster

Earlier this month I wrote the first in what will probably be a series of posts - about the pros and cons of the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments.

I suspect that by thinking things over and writing down my thoughts - I'll come to the right choice for me about how to vote in next year's referendum on Scottish independence. 

So here's another issue which I feel very strongly about - whether the position of a member of parliament should be regarded as a full-time job.

FULL-TIME MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT  

For me the position is very simple - I can't see any other way than for our elected Members of Parliament to be regarded as doing anything other than a full-time job - and that goes for both Holyrood and Westminster.

I spent several years on SLARC - which advised the Scottish Government on the pay and expenses of local councillors - and I wish I had a pound for every time an elected member tried to persuade me that every local councillor in Scotland was doing a full-time job.

Not surprisingly that was the view of the Scottish councils umbrella body - COSLA - which argued vehemently that every councillor in Scotland, even a basic or backbench councillor, was worth a big increase in their salaries to £25,000 a year (senior councillors get paid more than that of course)

So it follows that if MPs and MSPs are receiving full-time salaries, then they should not be entitled - as a matter of course - to take on extra outside work as they see fit, which is what some of them do at the moment - without a special dispensation or the need for permission of any kind.

So people like Gordon Brown (the former Labour leader) and Nadine Dorries (star of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of here) - can basically take on whatever extra parliamentary work they like and don't have to answer to anyone for such behaviour - even if that means being out of the country for long periods.

Now I don't think that's fair or reasonable behaviour - and these are our lawmakers we're talking about - but where else in jobs that are paid for by public money would you find people just making up the rules to suit themselves as they went along?

Gordon Brown and Nadine Dorries are not the only offenders of course - there are lots of other MPs of all parties who are up to the same thing - some of them up to their necks in outside directorships. 

Strangely enough this problem seems only to bedevil the Westminster Parliament these days - the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood had a bit of a bust up in the early days when a certain Labour MSP continued to act as a high-profile barrister or advocate - at the same time as doing his day job as an MSP.

But that stopped and I can't think of single issue or example now - of Moonlighting MSPs.

To my mind the answer is to prevent MPs from taking on additional, outside remunerated work - if they want to to unpaid voluntary work on top of their day job, that's fine - but it seems to me that there is a clear conflict of interest when siignificant amounts of money and/or time off from work are involved.

What do you think elected councillors would say if one of their senior officers announced s/he was off to Australia for a month - to take part in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here?'   

So, yet again the Scottish Parliament has got it right - while the Westminster Parliament is way behind the times - by allowing lots of MPs to play fast and loose with public money.  

Holyrood v Westminster (9 June 2013)

For some time I've been thinking about writing a series of posts about why I prefer the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood - over the Westminster Parliament in London.

Not because I have come out in favour of independence mind you - but I think it will help me decide how to vote in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.

My personal view is that there should be two questions on the 2014 ballot paper.

One of which asks whether I support much more extensive powers for the Scottish Parliament - Devo Max, or as it's commonly known.

Yet the powers that be have decided on one question - which I think is hugely insulting - since like most Scots I am perfectly capable of holding two thoughts in my head at the same time.

I wouldn't be confused at the prospect of having two questions on the same ballot paper - even for a nano-second.

But as that's not going to happen now, let's get back to the world as it is and not how I would like it to be and consider one of the big issues for me.

So here - for me - is one of the big differences between the Holyrood and Westminster Parliaments.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND OPENNESS

Sleaze is almost non-existent in the Scottish Parliament - unlike its counterpart in Westminster where the MPs' expenses scandal and greedy behaviour in the bloated House of Lords has severely damaged the reputation of politics generally.

In the early years of the Scottish Parliament, there were some problems over expenses and the use of public money - but they were quickly resolved because MSPs, broadly speaking, are much more accountable for what they do and how they behave - any bad behaviour is swiftly exposed perhaps because Scotland is a goldfish bowl compared to London.

But whatever the reasons Scotland has not been bedevilled by allegations of financial corruption and other forms of sleaze amongst its MSPs - of all parties - which is no doubt helped by the fact that Holyrood is a single chamber parliament unlike Westminster which has 831 'noble' lords even more than the 650 MPs in the House of Commons.

So, while I often disagree with what goes on at Holyrood I think that the Scottish Parliament is a much more open and accountable place as far as the wider public are concerned. I couldn't envisage any Scottish Government behaving the way the last Labour Government in Westminster behaved - over the MPs' expenses scandal, for example.

All of which means that if I my vote depended on that issue alone - on a test of openness and accountability - my voye would definitely go to the Scottish Parliament.