Pact talks enter 'endgame'

Jack McConnell is due to be elected first minister

Talks aimed at resuming a coalition government in Scotland have reached their "endgame", according to negotiators.

Leading figures from Labour and the Liberal Democrats said they were now in a period of hard negotiations aimed at striking a deal.

The parties have been trying to reach agreement on key policy issues and the make-up of the new Scottish Executive in a deal that would pave the way for Jack McConnell to be elected as first minister at the end of this week or early next week.

Labour has been focusing on issues including youth crime and its plan to crack down on the parents of persistent offenders, a proposal which the Lib Dems do not like.

We will have some very robust discussions

Cathy Jamieson
Labour deputy leader

On the Lib Dem side, there has been an insistence on council voting reform, introducing proportional representation (PR) in place of the first-past-the-post system.

Labour's executive committee opposed that at the weekend but there was still scope for negotiation on the issue.

Tavish Scott, the convener of the Scottish Lib Dems, said the talks had reached their "endgame".

Labour's deputy leader, Cathy Jamieson, said on Monday lunchtime that there would be "some tough negotiations" over the coming 24 hours.

The comments came after a morning of detailed discussions.

Moving forward

Negotiators from both parties said most of the non-contentious areas had been completed.

This left a phase of hard negotiating on areas which had not yet been resolved.

Mr Scott said: "Both negotiating teams recognise the urgency of moving this forward.

"In practical terms, you can only keep it going so long.

I think the possibility is that the policy issues could be tied up by Tuesday

Brian Taylor
BBC Scotland Political Editor

"We want in a very determined way to move through these difficult areas this evening."

Ms Jamieson said: "We will have some very robust discussions.

"People expect us to come to an agreement as quickly as we can in order to get the legislative programme under way."

BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor said that a deal would be signed.

He predicted that there could be a trade-off between Labour and the Lib Dems over PR and youth crime.

"I think they will finalise the policy questions on Tuesday by that trade-of," he said.

The agreement would then have to be approved by Labour's 50 MSPs and by a wider party group for the Lib Dems.

If that happened, Jack McConnell could be endorsed as first minister as early as Thursday.