STEPHEN DAISLEY: Holyrood has had its chance... if we must have devolution, put the power in the hands of local authorities

By STEPHEN DAISLEY, SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL SKETCH WRITER Published: 18:19, 26 July 2026 | Updated: 18:20, 26 July 2026 It should not surprise us that a Prime Minister who owes his office to devolution wants more of it. Though experience has shown devolution to be nothing more than a YTS for the politically unskilled yet endlessly ambitious, the lanyard class is understandably committed to anything that will create more gold-plated public sector jobs for themselves and their ilk. Without devolution, Andy Burnham would be a nondescript Cabinet minister at best, and in the coming years I suspect many of us will wish he had risen no further. But while devolution is a deeply flawed system, it is the system we’re stuck with until we get a Prime Minister with the courage to admit that the status quo isn’t working and the gumption to reassert Westminster’s place as Britain’s single, unifying Parliament. Just because the system is rotten, that’s no excuse to do nothing. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation, and in Scotland there is an opportunity to do so with local government finances. Put plainly, our councils are skint. They have been starved of cash by SNP ministers who hoard the Treasury block grant at Holyrood. They have been starved of the powers to make meaningful changes by a devolution system designed to bulk up the Scottish parliament’s legislative brawn at the expense of all other branches of government. This forces town hall bosses to put out the begging bowl every year. This comes with a price. When local authorities accept money from ministers in Edinburgh, there are conditions attached.  The most notorious example of this is the council tax freeze, a policy achieved by leveraging municipalities’ financial dependency to secure their compliance with a national moratorium on rates rises. Andy Burnham met with John Swinney last week This only contributed to financial instability and made it necessary to swing the axe elsewhere. The SNP got the headlines it wanted, the councils got the dirty job of finding efficiencies, and the public got to see services cut across their local communities. This situation is as untenable as it is intolerable. Douglas Alexander, who has been kept on as Scottish Secretary under Burnham, has a good line that he’s been using quite a bit lately: ‘There is a nation beyond Holyrood and it’s called Scotland.’ He’s right. Devolution has made the Scottish parliament the be all and end all of political decision-making north of the Tweed, but there is no reason why it has to be this way. Alexander wants to see Scotland’s cities ‘feel they have the power and the resources to be able to drive prosperity in their local economies’. A fine sentiment, but one that will require hard choices to put into practice. The conveyor belt that carries powers and resources from Westminster to Holyrood will have to be modified.  There are areas where this process could and should bypass the Scottish Government so that cash and decision-making on local policy matters go directly to councils rather than to the SNP superstate in St Andrew’s House. Andy Burnham says he wants to empower towns and regions, that local communities know better than far-off bureaucrats in Westminster. Reports suggest he is planning to give metro mayors a share of income tax to spend on local priorities. I would like to see more research on how this might affect other Treasury support, especially to places with high levels of deprivation, but no one can deny the thinking is bold. Well, here is a test of just how bold. If Burnham believes in greater fiscal autonomy for English towns and regions, presumably he believes in it for Scottish ones, too. Aye, there’s the rub. The Scottish Government jealously guards its pre-eminence and its treasure. It will not allow a meaningful recalibration of powers and budgets. Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander has said there is more to Scotland than Holyrood If the Burnham revolution is to reach Scotland, the UK Government will have to put an end to the devolved SNP government’s aloof, lordly manner when it comes to local government.  Since John Swinney isn’t going to surrender meaningful powers voluntarily, Westminster will have to wrest them from him and with them some of the block grant that gives SNP ministers undue influence over local administrations. Your council is responsible in the main for delivering education, housing, roads and environmental health, so why shouldn’t the relevant powers reside with them rather than the Scottish parliament?  Educators and policy-makers across Scotland’s 32 councils are more than capable of designing curricula that suit their pupils’ needs, and provided they abide by certain standards, why shouldn’t they be free to get on with it? And why should they be tethered to the whims of the Scottish Government just because its ministers hold the purse strings? Give local authorities the choice to opt out of Holyrood policies and funding, allowing them to receive education budgets negotiated with Whitehall, with the Treasury deducting the relevant sums from the Scottish Government block grant. We could spend yet more years waffling on about respect agendas and better working practices between Holyrood and local government, or we could accept that after years of this approach going nowhere a new tack is called for. Even more radically, Westminster could allow councils to merge into larger regional bodies, with access to much more council tax revenue to fund their own policy priorities. A South Scotland regional council, for example, uniting the Borders with Dumfries and Galloway, could plough its own furrow – and fund the plough – without too much meddling from lanyarded busybodies in Edinburgh. Let South Scotland set its own curriculum, make its own final planning decisions, determine its own policy on gas boilers or concessionary travel or non-domestic rates. Democracy, just like devolution, shouldn’t end at the doors of Holyrood. More powers could be transferred from Holyrood to local councils Councils would receive greater scope to raise revenue in addition to direct funding from Whitehall. They would get the opportunity to choose. Those that choose wisely by making their authority lower-taxing, more competitive, less regulated, and with higher standards in schools would flourish and will be rewarded by families moving to their locality in search of a better life. Should such reforms prove successful, they could be followed by additional changes to enhance local autonomy and transfer further powers from Holyrood to Scotland’s communities. The possibilities for local devolution are only as limited as the ambitions of councils for their patches and their people. Instead of being wedded to Holyrood, an entity which is institutionally hostile to Westminster, the UK Government should forge direct ties with Scottish local governments. Make good use of the two advantages Downing Street has: the statute book and the pocket book. Give councils the option of greater autonomy, to gain powers currently in the clutches of SNP ministers but also the responsibility of funding the choices they make. Holyrood has had its chance; now let local authorities have theirs. If we must continue on the devolution journey, it’s time we took a different route.