Report to the People
Common Sense is no Climb Down
It’s a hard life being a Government Minister. Chauffeur driven limousines, Civil Servants waiting on you hand and foot, endless champagne receptions and five course dinners with the rich and famous…. (Not that I’m bitter or anything.)
On the other hand, this life of luxury does have its downside. If Ministers make a bad call, it’s their head on the block. They’re the ones who take the flak when they take tough decisions. Indeed, Ministers are sometimes damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Take last week’s debate on the Criminal Justice Bill as an example.
This major piece of legislation is designed to, amongst other things, increase public protection, crack down on drug crime and stop unsuitable adults working with children. But, because it included a proposal to ban any physical chastisement of children under three, it became better known as "The Smacking Bill."
This, not surprisingly, led to much public concern. Good parents were worried that they were about to be branded criminals. They feared their right to discipline their children sensibly was to be taken away.
Together with many of my Parliamentary colleagues, I shared this anxiety and we wasted no time in making our views known to the Justice Minister, Jim Wallace. Indeed, when the Bill was published this spring, I made it clear in this column that I would never vote for any law which prosecuted a parent for a quick smack on the back of a hand which was reaching for a three bar fire.
Against this backdrop, then, the Justice II Committee recommended the dropping of the smacking ban on under-threes. A call to which the Justice Minister, to his credit, responded.
This was, however, painted as "caving in" by the usual suspects. Exactly the same usual suspects, of course, who would have waxed lyrical about "arrogance" and "undemocratic behaviour" had the Minister refused to heed the Committee’s advice.
But this attitude misses the point. The way the Scottish Parliament makes law means that a Bill is scrutinised in great detail and is commented on by a wide range of people before the proposals get anywhere near the statute book.
So it betrays a lack of understanding to claim, when this rigorous process spots flaws in a Bill, that taking action to correct them is somehow a failure or a crisis. It’s what the system’s there for.
In the Scottish Parliament we have a modern and responsive legislature. And Jim Wallace should be praised, not pilloried, for recognising this.
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