Ae fond kiss and then we sever

By John Knox
Political reporter, BBC Scotland

MSPs have been struggling with the demon drink again.

MSPs found that even strong drink couldn't help them find a consensus

The Scottish Parliament does not have a happy history when it comes to licensing laws and the next round, so to speak, looks like being equally exciting.

On Thursday the SNP government went down to a decisive defeat, 72 votes to 47, over its plan to increase the minimum age for buying alcohol from a shop or supermarket from 18 to 21.

It was a dramatic day.

It began with a student demonstration which turned into a photo opportunity for all the opposition party leaders.

They were keen to appear on the barricades defending Scotland's young people against this new law, variously described as "ludicrous, discriminatory, un-evidenced, unworkable and ineffective ."

The Conservative's Murdo Fraser led the charge inside parliament.

"What a pity," he told a special debate, "that the shared ambition to tackle Scotland's problem with alcohol should be overshadowed by this one ludicrous proposal."

At question time, Labour's Iain Gray challenged Alex Salmond directly to abandon the age limit proposal: "Why don't you drop an idea that no-one can agree on, so that we can explore actions we can all get behind?"

But the first minister wasn't for turning: "There is substantial support across the community for firm action against alcohol abuse," he told Mr Gray and he challenged Labour to come up with alternatives.

Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill said even Boris Johnston in London was copying the SNP's idea of raising the purchase age to 21.

Kenny MacAskill claims Boris is stealing SNP ideas

He pointed out that experiments in three towns in Scotland - Armadale, Stenhousemuir and Coupar - had resulted in sharp falls in alcohol-related crime.

But the opposition parties questioned the figures and said the falls had been due to other measures being taken at the same time.

As the dust settled after the vote, the word spreading around Holyrood was that ministers would adjust the licensing bill to give local authorities the power to increase the purchase age for alcohol in particular trouble spots.

And at last that favoured word "consensus" was being whispered again in the Garden Lobby.

But the licensing bill contains other contentious issues, such as a minimum price for alcohol, separate checkouts in the supermarkets, and a "responsibility charge" on premises where there's drink-related trouble.

If it's anything like the last licensing bill, we can expect another bout of parliamentary chaos. Regular readers will remember Frank McAveety running around with hand-written last minute amendments to try to outbid the SNP on supermarket closing times?

Clearer guidelines

We were in calmer but murkier waters on Wednesday afternoon when the health secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced a review of "co-funding" in the NHS

This arose out of the case of a 53-year-old man from Buckie, Mike Gray, who was forced to pay for the cancer drug cetuximab because his local health board refused to fund it.

Mr Gray's widow Tina watched from the gallery as Ms Sturgeon promised clearer guidelines on when the NHS can pay for particular drugs and when it can not.

On Tuesday the justice committee sparked a row which lasted all week about prison overcrowding.

The chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, Mike Ewart, told MSPs his prisons have never been so overcrowded, on many nights having more than the safe operating limit of 8,126 inmates.

"There is no spare capacity," he said. " There are no contingency plans," he added, which directly contradicted the first minister, as Annabel Goldie noted at question time.

He was asked, what if there's a fire?

It appears a fire in a jail will prompt a release of prisoners

"We would have to apply to the justice secretary and to parliament for an emergency release of prisoners," was his reply.

It led to earnest exchanges over when the three new prisons prisons being planned would be in operation, whether there could be temporary prisons created in old army camps or hospitals, and when the much talked of alternatives to prison for minor offenders will be ready for use by the courts.

The education secretary Fiona Hyslop chose a school in Dunfermline to announce free school meals for all children in the first three years of primary school.

Pilot schemes in five different areas of Scotland have resulted in a 75% take-up. The cost has been put at £30m a year but Labour say it's more likely to be £50m and local councils are not being given any extra funds to pay for it.

The government says it's another pioneering Scottish policy, leading the way in the UK, ensuring that children learn good eating habits, and social habits, at an early age.

Incidentially, the SNP also won parliament's backing for it's argument with Westminster over council tax benefit.

Last laugh

By 65 votes to 38 MSPs passed an amendment calling for the £400m of council tax benefit to continue to be paid to Scotland even if the council tax is scrapped and replaced with a local income tax.

And finally to crofting, those lovely pieces of land in the highlands surrounded by a sea of legislation.

The crofting minister Mike Russell announced that he was rejecting the two principal recommendations of the Shucksmith Inquiry....that the Crofting Commission should be abolished and that crofters should be required to actually live on their crofts.

But Professor Mark Shucksmith may have the last laugh because most of his ideas are in fact to be adopted in a slightly different form.

The Commission is being split into six local areas, with elected crofting representatives on each board and the commission's grant-giving functions are to be transferred to Highlands and Islands Enterprise. There is to be some sort of occupancy condition attached to each tenancy.

And, most controversial of all, the bull hire scheme is to be abolished. The state-owned stud farm near Inverness is to sell off its bulls to deserving crofting communities.

"They could have one for Christmas," said Mr Russell.

Except everyone knows that a bull is not just for Christmas, even if a little drink has been taken.