No gloating over PR prize

By John Knox
BBC Scotland political correspondent

The Liberal Democrats may have been gloating over their achievements at their conference in Dundee but at Holyrood this week they were told to keep their triumphalism hidden under their yellow cloaks.

Labour let them have their prize, proportional representation for local government elections.

The introduction of PR was backed by MSPs

The bill was approved in principle on Wednesday - but there were no cheers. The 17 Liberal Democrat MSPs have had to sacrifice so much.

Against their better judgement, they have backed Labour on tough anti-social behaviour laws, the closure of the Airborne young offenders project and GM maize.

The Labour leader and First Minister Jack McConnell has "kept them in the box" as Tony Blair put it. He has brooked little dissent.

And during Wednesday's debate there were signs of those internal tensions.

Labour's John Home Robertson said: "There's a lot of us here who are going to take a lot of persuading to support PR."

Another Labour backbencher, Karen Gillon, said: "If PR is such a popular measure, why have I not had a single letter of support on this issue?"

Majority rule

Liberal Democrat Iain Smith retorted: "Well I've not had a single letter of support for the anti-social behaviour measures."

The trading of one policy against another is alien to the British tradition of straight majority rule. The Liberal Democrats, I fancy, are about to find out if it is successful.

But whatever the politics of it, the Local Governance Bill was passed by 95 votes to 19.

Two Labour backbenchers joined the Tories to vote against, while six abstained. It means that from May 2007, Scotland's councils will be elected by proportional representation.

Child protection work is now dominated by large numbers of inexperienced social workers Alexis Jay Association of Directors of Social Work

The system will be the Liberal Democrats' favourite, the single transferable vote. Three or four wards will be grouped together and the voters will be asked to rank the candidates in order of preference.

Political experts say it will not mean much change of overall control of most councils but it will mean that Labour fiefdoms will have larger opposition groups to keep them in check.

But back to real issues. A great white shark was seen in Scotland's fishing waters this week. It took the form of a report from the prime minister's strategy unit and it caused panic at question time on Thursday.

The main recommendations were that the Scottish white fish fleet should be cut by 13% to make it profitable in the long term and a third of the remaining fleet should be tied up for four years.

In return, fishermen would be given a place on regional management committees set up to protect fish stocks, instead of the annual negotiations in Brussels.

Regional management

Scottish National Party leader John Swinney said: "The first minister should stand by Scotland's fishing communities, reject this report and give parliament a guarantee there will be no further cuts in the Scottish fishing fleet."

The Conservatives were equally outraged. Leader David McLetchie said the proposed regional management committees "cannot disguise the fact that the European Union can still determine who can fish, where we fish, when we fish, what we fish and how we fish".

Mr McConnell's reply to that was: "There are no fences in the North Sea.

The Liberal Democrats held their conference in Dundee

"You can't invent fish where there aren't any. You can't create them by genetic modification.

"You have to make sure the fleet is profitable on the basis of the numbers of fish and the numbers of boats and the markets available."

Interestingly he did not go along with the white shark's recommendation that another round of decommissioning should take place, costing up to £50m.

The fleet, he said, may have to be cut but he did not say how. He hopes a way will be found through discussion with the fishing organisations.

Talk of genetic modification brought us to GM crops and groundhog day.

The Greens staged a re-run of last week's debate on whether GM maize should be added to the UK approved seed list.

Scientific evidence

They claimed they had independent legal opinion that the Scottish Executive had grounds for opposing GM maize.

But ministers stuck to their brief that blocking the growing of GM maize would be illegal under European law unless there was scientific evidence of harm to the environment.

The vote last week, you may remember, was 60 to 59 in favour of the Executive and GM maize. The vote this time was 61 to 57.

And both times the only abstainer was the tweedy Liberal Democrat John Farquhar Munro.

There were clashes at Holyrood over the fishing report

Before we leave European matters, it is worth noting a speech by the first minister in Strasbourg this week.

Mr McConnell told the EU council of regional legislative assemblies: "We should give serious thought to using something like the regional advisory council model in other areas apart from fishing."

He cited the fight against terrorism and crime, and European structural funds.

His words were echoed by Graham Meadows from the regional policy department in the European Commission, who appeared at the European committee at Holyrood on Tuesday.

He warned that devolved regions like Scotland might lose out if regional aid was "repatriated" to the central governments in each member state.

Another useful committee warning came at the education committee.

Social workers

It heard from the Alexis Jay, of the Association of Directors of Social Work, that the Scottish Executive's Children's Charter - launched on Monday - might not work because of a shortage of senior social workers in child protection services.

She said: "Vacancies are running at 25%. Many people are being lured away to new initiatives such as community schools and youth justice where there isn't the same high media profile.

"It means that child protection work is now dominated by large numbers of inexperienced social workers."

The children's minister, Liberal Democrat Euan Robson, pointed out that there was a record number of social workers and said extra money was being provided for training in the field of child protection.

But he admitted: "These things take time."

Strange advertisement

The members' debates this week were on Borders schools, led by the SNP's Christine Grahame, and on aid to the third world, led by Labour's Des McNulty.

Finally, a strange little advertisement appeared in Holyrood magazine this week.

It came from the Grand Secretary of the Freemasons, Martin McGibbon. He pointed out that Sir Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Telford and James Watt - not to mention Sir Harry Lauder - were all masons.

The advert said that "the Grand Lodge is still proud to have as members individuals of every creed, colour, faith and nationality".

It added that Freemasonry had helped disseminate Scottish art, culture and ideals throughout the world.

If the ad was part of a membership drive, I wonder if they accept women these days - and what about Liberal Democrats?