Ash Regan: ‘Breaking up Highland Council – I think that's a very good idea’
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Two of the candidates in the SNP leadership race to become the next First Minister of Scotland agree that Highland Council is too large and should be broken up into smaller bodies that are more representative.
Answering a question on whether Scotland needs more representative democracy at the local level in the way that Scandinavia has, Ash Regan backed calls for more powers to be devolved to local government.
She said empowering local authorities and creating powerful local public bodies would actually help pave the way for an independent Scotland but much more work needed to be done to get the country ready if it separates from the UK.
Need to build confidence in independence
Ms Regan said: “I agree with Kate, I think we should be looking at breaking up Highland Council – I think that's a very good idea. It's clearly enormously large and it means that people don't feel connection in the way that the decisions are made.
“But in terms of independence, what we need to do is we need to build confidence with the public that we are getting ready for independence. And the way that we do that is we'll go back to this idea of the national commission. So that national commission is going to put everything into place that we need to get ready for independence.”
- Kate Forbes: 'Let’s start by breaking up Highland Council – you heard it here first'
- Humza Yousaf: CalMac should be 'decentralised and based in the heart of our community'
It is a major break with the past and certainly with the Sturgeon years, as Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf all sought to offload and decentralise some powers back to councils with appropriate funding.
End of top down command and control?
Under Nicola Sturgeon the SNP was heavily criticised for hoarding power in Edinburgh, including trying to move Highlands and Islands Enterprise to HQ to the Central Belt.
The approach was widely seen as having failed, leaving many around the country, including in the Highlands, feeling their views or concerns were not being heard or even dismissed.
One SNP member even stated in his question that it would be better if “the Edinburgh government would not be remote and not a great advantage over the one in Westminster.”
He said: “My question concerns maximising support for independence throughout Scotland particularly in the northern isles and borders where the Edinburgh government would not be remote and not a great advantage over the one in Westminster.
“My question is what would the candidates think about having a modern Scandinavian type of government, which is much more decentralised than what we have, much more regional power, and much power in the hands of people who feel close to it?”
'We need to have policies that will appeal'
Ash Regan said: “I actually live in the Borders, I represent Edinburgh, but I live in the Borders, I've lived there for nearly 20 years so I very much understand that feeling of that people don't quite understand outside the central belt, what it's like to live in a rural area so I'm totally hearing you on that.
“And I won’t rehearse what my colleagues have said here but I also completely agree that we need to do more on decentralisation and we need to improve local decision making.
“The thing with local decision making is we have to back it up with the funds. You can't make many decisions about anything if you haven't got any money to back it up to do things differently.
“So we need to find ways of generating funding – it could go straight in at a very local level so people can spend the money on the things that are important. Councils have been doing things like they're doing this in Edinburgh and I've got Portobello Beach in my constituency and they closed all the toilets.
“So you can imagine that that was causing problems and I know that they've been doing that up here as well in some areas. So we've got to find a way to fund that properly so that we can make sure that we've got the services that we all need.
“And we need to have policies that will appeal. So we need to have policies that will appeal to the islands. I think getting to grips with the ferry situation would be a very good start to that one and it must include our roads and in the Borders and I'd like to see us extend the Borders railway line. It's been very successful but it needs to go further. It can go down and connect up with the rail line further south.
“I agree with Kate, I think we should be looking at breaking up Highland Council – I think that's a very good idea. It's clearly enormously large and it means that people don't feel connection in the way that the decisions are made.
“But in terms of independence, what we need to do is we need to build confidence with the public that we are getting ready for independence. And the way that we do that is we'll go back to this idea of the national commission. So that national commission is going to put everything into place that we need to get ready for independence.
“So, that's things like job descriptions, recruitment strategies for the head of the central bank planning, preparing for an independent currency of Scotland and doing all of this. And while they're doing that, we will be reporting back to the Scottish public. So they can see that not just we're talking about it but they can see that we're actually getting ready for independence.
“And that will, I believe, neutralise a lot of the arguments that we had on things in 2014 because there won't be a discussion about those types of things because they can see because we'll already be ready for it. That infrastructure for independence will be there and that'll be ready to go.
“And then through the national convention, that's the wider movement, will bring everyone together. We can all work together because we're not going to get anywhere is we are all working against each other and fighting, we've got to all work together across the movement.
“And we will co-design that effective campaign with the movement so that kind of moves that independence campaigning out into civil society because it's conversations with people with other people, their families, and their friends that is going to move people along that dial to getting us to independence.
“And then when we're ready for that, then we have the empowerment mechanism, which I've set out to you, which means that each and every election, we will use the gold standard of the ballot box and when Scotland is ready for independence, and the people have a confidence for it, which they will, because they'll see us getting ready for independence.
“So if you pick me to be your leader, we have a plan to get it to independence, and we will also be getting the country independence ready.”
