London urged to follow report recommendations and transfer responsibility to Holyrood
Waiting for Westminster . . . Scots in limbo over elections
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Time is running out for Westminster to hand over control of the Scottish Parliament elections to Edinburgh, an SNP minister said yesterday.
Parliamentary Business Minister Bruce Crawford made the claim in evidence to MSPs on a Holyrood committee.
The Scottish Government has already called for legislative and administrative responsibility for the Holyrood elections to be transferred from Westminster to Scotland after the chaos of last year’s vote.
First Minister Alex Salmond has also discussed the issue with Scotland Secretary Des Browne.
But Mr Crawford said: “Unfortunately, to date, the response from the Scotland Office has been to say that they don’t believe it would be appropriate. We expect them to say something before the summer. If they don’t say something by September it will be too late, I think, for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to deal with the Scottish Parliament election in 2011.”
A report into last year’s election shambles, by expert Ron Gould, said the division of responsibility between Westminster and Edinburgh led to fragmented decision-making and legislation. It recommended talks should begin about assigning responsibility to the Scottish Government as “the logical choice”.
Mr Crawford told MSPs on the local government and communities committee: “Time is already running short to do the things we need to do to make sure we are in a place to be able to deal properly with the elections in 2011. Therefore, I urge the UK Government to follow the Gould recommendations to give responsibility for our own elections to this parliament.”
The minister told MSPs the Scottish Government was taking action to address some of the issues identified in the Gould report.
“The one unfortunate thing we’re not able to do at this stage is to tackle one of the major issues which is identified by Ron Gould, in regard to the fragmented and antiquated system of legislation and management that failed last year,” he added. He stressed the SNP strongly supported the recommendations in the Gould report.
