As the SNP rides high in the polls

Scottish Political Writer Frances Horsburgh casts a critical eye over the party's policies

THE Scottish National Party's apparently growing popularity with the Scottish public when it comes to their voting intentions for the Holyrood Parliament is inevitably focusing more interest than perhaps was the case in recent Westminster elections, on the party's policies for government. Do they have real substance or are they just window dressing for the one goal of independence?

As the party explained at a press conference yesterday, the SNP will employ a twin-track approach when it comes to deciding detailed policies for the Scottish Parliamentary elections. There will be positive policies for running Scotland within the limits and powers of the devolved Parliament, but the party will also remind voters that, with independence, all of the country's resources would be applied to Scotland's needs and there is a way to move forward to that position.

Homing in on a particular issue, we know, for example, that the Nationalists would attempt to abolish the Government's ban on butchers selling beef on the bone if they controlled the Edinburgh parliament.

They would also argue for, and try to implement, what is known as ''the third country'' option so far as the two Libyans suspected of the Lockerbie bombing are concerned. The Nationalists have no objection to the men being tried in a neutral country under Scots law - a view supported by many of the relatives of those who lost their lives when the Pan Am flight 103 was blown up in December 1988.

It is SNP policy to abolish tuition fees for fourth year students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland coming to study in Scotland and, if in power, the party would examine the economic viability of abolishing all tuition fees, which it strongly opposes.

The party will fight on a policy of radical land reform, including the abolition of feudal tenure and the setting up of elected local land councils to advise on issues of land management.

Recently, party leader Alex Salmond also proposed the setting up of an Export From Scotland Agency which would have representation in key market locations around the world.

An independent Scottish Health Commission would be created with representatives of all the Scottish parties, health professionals, and representatives of local health care delivery agencies. The Scottish Parliament would decide the overall spending totals on health, and the commission would oversee the strategic delivery of services.

So far so good, and all these policies will no doubt be costed carefully by the SNP's opponents, but what of the bigger picture? The major question mark which has always hung over the aspirations of the Nationalists is whether Scotland could support itself in the style to which it has become accustomed as an independent nation.

Last year, the SNP came up with its most credible answer yet when it produced Government figures which, it argued, showed that Scotland had provided a surplus to the Treasury of the order of #27bn between 1979 and 1995.

Its opponents counter with other Government figures which show that public spending per head is around 25% higher in Scotland than south of the Border, and ask how can the gap be filled on independence, without much higher taxation or reduced public services.

The problem for the Unionist parties will be how to deploy major broad-brush arguments about the economic consequences of independence when what is actually being voted for is membership of a devolved Scottish Parliament with a block grant of #14bn from Westminster and strictly limited financial powers of its own.

Apparently the SNP has not decided if it will advocate using the Parliament's power to raise (or lower) income tax by 3p in the pound.

It is on the issues outside the remit of the Scottish Parliament where the Nats tend to be more vulnerable to attack. They are keen to join the Single Currency, but how is it going to give Scotland greater independence to have macroeconomic policy increasingly decided in Brussels rather than London?

''Remote control of the Scottish economy from London has been and is profoundly damaging,'' said Alex Salmond recently, but how are decisions, taken even further away at the European Central Bank, going to be any more tailored to Scotland's special needs?

The SNP's opponents believe that the party's policy promise to hold a referendum on independence in the first four years of an SNP-led administration at Holyrood could prove an Achilles heel and will call for the devolved Parliament to be allowed to settle down.

There will be talk of the years of uncertainty which have dogged Quebec in Canada as it has teetered on the constitutional brink, and claims that uncertainty about Scotland's future status will chase away inward investment. The SNP will reply that the people should be allowed to choose.

Like all the other parties, the Scottish Nationalists have yet to decide on the raft of policies which will be included in their manifesto for the election a year from now.

They are holding a special conference next month which will deal with candidate selection procedures and the annual conference in September will begin developing detailed policies for the Scottish Parliament.